Swamablog Update

I haven’t posted anything in awhile and this is to let you all know what I’ve been doing.

Dollhouse Enclosure Project

When I last wrote I had been working to enclose one of my dollhouses.  I do have the necessary epoxy type glue that should work to adhere the Velcro strips to the plastic sheets.  Presently, I’m waiting for it to get warmer here so that I can have the windows open while using the toxic-smelling glue.

Rhoda Caroline Richardson Womble Research

I’m still waiting for the copies of the membership records of the Womble family from the Elm Street Methodist Church that I ordered from the Archivist at the Tennessee Conferences Archives, History Depository.  I called them a couple of weeks back to find out what had happened with the copies that were going to be mailed to me.  The woman I spoke with said that the minister told her he probably mailed them to the wrong address.  I gave her my address again and was told that they would be sent to me within a couple of days.  I’m considering that if I don’t receive them in a few days that I’ll send them a SASE asking for the information again, which is probably what I should have done initially, but I wasn’t sure how much 10 pages of information would cost to mail. 

Embroidery/Knitting Projects

What I’ve been doing while waiting for these much anticipated copies is working on Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum’s “Once Upon A Time” that I’m making for one of my sisters.  I had barely started it when I first purchased it back in 1995 and only started dedicating a serious chunk of my time to work on the piece in January 2012.  I’ve been trying to spend most of my weekends stitching and this past week even decided to work on it a bit during the week.

At the same time that I’m cross-stitching this, I’m also knitting a cable knit sweater of which is about a little over halfway done.   One of the knitting blogs I read suggested working on more knitting projects at one time—basically to stop being a knitting monogamist. I considered this and then while spending so much time cross-stitching during this long holiday weekend on the piece for my sister, the idea came to me to take up embroidering more projects at one time. Basically, to stop being an embroidery monogamist!  

I won’t try this though until after my current embroidery project is completely finished!

Reading

I recently finished reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, a book that I’ve always wanted to read.  Another book that I’ve finished reading is While My Pretty One Knits from the Black Sheep Knitting Mysteries series. This seemed to be a better read than the knitting mysteries written by Maggie Sefton, which after reading 2 ½ of them-the third I just couldn’t finish.  I do really like the characters in Maggie’s books, but by the third mystery the story seemed to be too much of a rehash of the first two books in the series.  It was a bit disappointing to me not to finish the third, A Deadly Yarn because the budding romance between the main character and one of the guys on the local softball team interested me, the people in knitting group were great too.  I can see I’m digressing here and will have to post something just about knitting mysteries or craft mysteries in general at a later date.

Ebooks and the future of libraries

I think the Pew Research Center research findings from their library ebook survey are skewed.  See the article at http://news.yahoo.com/study-released-library-e-book-borrowing-040745060--finance.html. I have ereader software on my iPod and have really gotten into checking out ebooks from my local library.  Yes, the selection could be better, but I’ve found many books I’m interested in reading available as ebooks.  My local library in Arlington, VA has done a pretty decent job publicizing their ebooks.

What people need to keep in mind with checking out ebooks is that sure a book might not be available immediately, but there is the option to put a book on hold just as though you were at your local library and the book you wanted was already checked out.  The great thing with putting an ebook on hold is that you don’t have to trek down to the library to check out the book.  You just log onto your ebook account on your ereader device and check out the book.

Ereaders many times are much smaller than physical books, which makes reading ebooks on them more convenient and more portable than reading an actual book.  Sure there are publishers out there that don’t want to make their publications available in electronic format to libraries, but I believe the tide will shift when there are a limited number of people buying their books. 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll notice that the bricks and mortar chain bookstore is a dying breed.  Where will authors go to promote their latest release?   What about new authors?  How will their books be promoted?  The local library is the answer.  Publishers will be forced by market demands to sell electronic versions of their books to libraries to avoid going out of business.

I see many people around me reading ebooks, so it’s unbelievable to me that those people make up the 12% who read ebooks, that they’re part of the 20% reading ebooks, or that they’re the 40% who are aware that their local library offers ebooks.

Sure there is the fact that libraries’ ebook selections aren’t that varied, and this will depend on the community where the library is located.  There’s also the instant gratification factor in being able to check out an ebook instantly or having to first put it on hold verses purchasing an ebook from an online company such as Amazon.com.  My feeling on instant gratification is that it’s a futile and pointless objective to strive for.

Eventually printed books will fade from existence as publishing companies go under and authors either publish their works themselves electronically or their literary agents take over the electronic publishing for their clients.