#Give me BOOK TITLES
9 messages in this thread
Martin –
I would like to see a little blurb about each book indicating why it is
recommended or what is useful about having it. I know I'm asking for more
work. But rather than going out and dropping several hundred dollars to get
them all. I would like to know which might be better to get earlier than
other. I might eventually wind up buying them all anyway, but I would like to
choose knowedgeably about where to start.
regards,
wayne
Wayne,
>> I would like to see a little blurb about each book indicating why it is
recommended or what is useful about having it. <<
that's a good idea. I did include a couple of comments but I could cut and
paste some more from this thread. All righty!
Martin
You can probably get an even better impression of the books by visiting a
university library or large city library.
— James — Choreo Motion —
>You can probably get an even better impression of the books by visiting a
university library or large city >library.
PMJI, but as my wife works in InterLibrary Loan I know you can also get, free
of charge, nearly any book from any library in the U.S., assuming you're
willing to wait. Just go to your local library with the ISBN of the book
you're interested in. They'll search all the city, country, University and
state libraries in the U.S. for your request and (assuming some library
somewhere has a copy) they'll route it to the library for your checkout.
They'll even do searches for you (I had my wife do a 3DS search and she came up
with some very interesting things I had never heard of).
Depending upon the book and how good the InterLibrary Loan people are in the
servicing and requesting libraries, you can either have it within a week or
several months. But it beats paying for a book you've never seen.
This is a great service that not too many people are aware of still (even
though it's been in existance for about five years).
Mike:
That was a handy tip on library usage, thanks for posting that one.
– Bob Ritger
>> PMJI, but as my wife works in InterLibrary Loan I know you
>> can also get, free of charge, nearly any book from any
>> library in the U.S., assuming you're willing to wait.
While it is not very large, our County library charges a fee for the
InterLibrary Loan. The county support for the library system has been in
trouble and the priorities elsewhere. For example, the "drug war" seems to be
quite well supported here. Sometimes I wonder about Portland, OroGone
<silly-g>.
> While it is not very large, our County library charges a fee for the
InterLibrary Loan
My wife now tells me that more and more libraries are charging — it's about
50/50 right now, but it used to be free nationwide. I guess because people are
discovering this service the postage costs are getting to where they need to
recover (and libraries are always the most underbudgeted of any public entity).
My wife works in a library that doesn't charge, and when she tries to locate a
book she first looks at libraries who do not charge either.
So, sorry to mislead anyone. However, the service is still worth it,
particularly as books are getting more and more expensive to buy without
looking at them first. I should also point out that InterLibrary Loan will do
more than just books — they will photocopy articles from nearly any
publication (so if someone here knows of an article in a 3D mag they don't have
access to, they can get it that way). Usually this *does* cost something, but
the cost is nearly always reasonable (like .15 per page).
>> I should also point out that InterLibrary Loan will do more
>> than just books — they will photocopy articles from nearly
>> any publication …
Our County Library system has attempted to supplement revenue by making the
copy machines into profit centers. They charge much more than commercial copy
places but not totally unreasonable rates. I can live with that but object to
the way it is done. If they are going to act commercial, then they should be
reasonable about it, I think. I must either feed the machine coins or buy a
rather large, I think, pre-paid charge card. No refund for any unused portion
of the charge card.
Worse yet, they are not very oriented toward the technical world.
> Worse yet, they are not very oriented toward the technical world.
I think libraries are going to swim or die — there's no question that
information delivery is evolving and changing at a rate much faster than nearly
anything else, and libraries have traditionally been in that role. From what
I've seen, most library people are conservative by nature, and the world is
going to pass them by.
FWIW, the our State Library has been renamed to be the Department of
Information Services. They're trying to keep up, but it ain't easy.