My cousin Dean is an amazing writer. After all, he’s a former reporter and editor. Today I got this amazing e-mail about libraries. He doesn’t mention the Save Our Libraries campaign. But we all know what it’s all about.

Enjoy.

Libraries are cool. That’s right, cool. I chose the word carefully.

They’re so cool that I’ve been a card-carrying member nearly my whole life. Chances are, you have been, too.

Growing up, I can remember riding my bike to the Upper Arlington library on Tremont Road. In school, I spent my free periods doing homework at the Academy library. At Northwestern, I studied for tests at the Deering Library, and on those occasional lazy afternoons, I found a comfortable cushion in the nearby Norris reading room, grabbed a magazine and let my intermittent snores mix in with the soft music piped in overhead.

When I was starting my journalism career and had to watch every dime (as opposed to now, when I just watch every dime), I spent many an off hour at the Palo Alto library, and then at the Presidio library in San Francisco, and then at the Pleasant Hill library, where I would splurge every once in a while and cough up 50 cents for a used paperback.

I still love the library. While in Sarasota, I routinely stop by the Selby or Fruitville branches to read my e-mail. Here in Cincinnati, I stop by between appointments; the librarians in Mariemont, Madeira and Blue Ash recognize me the moment I walk in the door.

Libraries just feel good. They have a cool aura. All those stacks of books and magazines are very cool. Lots of people come for the myriad activities, as well. I always joke that during the daytime, there are only three kinds of people there: Old men reading newspapers (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I count myself in this category), moms, and their pre-schoolers enjoying story time.

And despite the occasional crying kid (Shhhh!), it’s a pretty calm environment. That’s cool, too!

Libraries come in all shapes and sizes. The library I liked in college is a historic, ornate structure that could easily be converted to a beautiful church; it is complete with spirals and stained-glass windows. Curiously enough, it adjoins the much larger, newer library, which looks like it just landed from outer space.

Most of the branch libraries I frequent these days are modern, with vaulted ceilings and lots of open spaces. And when I sold real estate, I always thought it was neat to see the libraries people created in their homes. Some were formal, most were makeshift; it didn’t really matter. While holding open houses (ugh…), I’d peruse the rows of book titles to get a better sense of what my sellers were like.

Today, I count as a good friend someone who for years was a librarian at Lakota schools north of Cincinnati. She’s a very cool lady.

Our library system in Hamilton County this year has a cool reading club called Creature Feature for students on break from school. In each branch, kids can sign up and earn prizes after they reach designated reading levels. (My brother and I used to join a similar Summer Vacation Reading Club while growing up outside Columbus. I still remember our names scrawled on Browser Bear on the library wall.)

It’s a great way to encourage a lifelong love of reading — and learning. Kids who read a lot even receive colorful signs they can place on their front lawns so the world can see that “A Library Superstar Lives Here.”

When I first saw one of the signs on Euclid Avenue in Madeira a few weeks ago, I admittedly cringed for a second. The sign, obviously patterned after placards placed for years in front of homes of high school athletes, seemed like a well-intentioned idea, but I feared some may deem them as “kick me” signs for perceived word nerds.

That concern was obliterated a couple days later, when I saw a proud teenager walk out of the library on Miami Avenue, sign in hand. She looked quite happy, and I’m certain that the sign is now a distinguished lawn ornament.

Since then, I’m checking out more and more of the signs popping up in neighborhoods all over town.

And that’s cool. Very cool!

Dean

And here’s the mapped results!

Okay my twitter followers. Henceforth, some of my tweets will have the acronym OGFY, which stands for “Oh Good For You”.

What’s the significance? Those words were sarcastically uttered by Christian Bale in his famous Terminator outrage. Here’s a clip:

And here’s a clip of the full outburst (NSFW):

Just consider it my snarky contribution to twitter.

I’m pretty excited to goto the 10th Annual City Hop today. It’ll be my first. The City Hop is put on by the Columbus Landmark Foundation so that Columbus residents can discover why other Columbus residents are loving living downtown! It is a self-guided walking tour featuring furnished downtown properties, providing an intimate first-hand look into Columbus’ urban lifestyle.

Our first stop will definitely be The Condominiums at North Bank Park. I watched this building grow up from a hole in the ground. It’s a fantastic looking building and is located in the Arena District.

I’ll report later what I think, but go see for yourself. City Hop is today only from 10 to 6. More information can be found at the first link of this post.

Or should have I called it High School Cliques? I don’t know, but I love watching the drama play out on Twitter. It’s all good in my opinion.

Ignite Columbus 3 is fast approaching. Come join un June 19 at The Ohio State University Mendenhall Labatory from 6-8 to hear some legendary speakers.

As you know, I organize, with the help of many people, some tech events around Columbus, like Startup Weekend, Ignite, and WordCamp. Along with my many co-organizers, these events cannot be done without the help of some awesome sponsors and venues. I’ve found that there’s a lot of people that want to sponsor and support tech events in Columbus. But you have to find them.

And other than Startup Weekend, the big institutional investors seem reluctant to sponsor small niche tech events like the ones I put on. As a thank you to my sponsors, I’d like to give back by helping tech events in Columbus find sponsors. Little sponsors. You and I. The ones with “personal brands”.

I want to put together a syndicate of people that give a little to pool their money for sponsorship. The event will have a link to a landing page with all of the individual sponsors and we’ll also set up individual pages so you can get some Google juice.

The first event I want to do this for is eRubyCon.com. Why eRubyCon? Because it’s being put on by EdgeCase, which have sponsored Startup Weekend and Ignite. Thanks objo!

The bronze level of sponsorship is $750. I’d like to get 30 or 31 people to commit $25 a piece to sponsor this great tech event. Comment below if you want to help me out. If I can get enough to commit, then I’ll collect money and we’ll get it done.

Cheers.

Yesterday, I attended my first Tastecasting event at The Suisse Shop. It was AMAZING! We tasted some pretty awesome tortes, of which the carrot cake and the amaretto crown. Here’s some pictures.

About TasteCasting (by the way, I came up with the name, but not the concept)

TasteCasting is a growing team of socially networked, and social media savvy people that establishments invite to attend a complimentary tasting. In exchange the TasteCasting team broadcasts to their collective network of friends, followers, and linked connections using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, WordPress, Flickr, and more. The cameras, Flip video, camcorders, smartphones and more tell a complete story about the establishments menu, the taste, smell, the recipes, ingredients, the specials, the history and the overall experience.

It’s this Saturday, May 2. I’m entered. And I’m a fool, since I’ve done virtually nothing. Looks like a lot of walking for me.

Columbus is finally joining the hip cities that have coworking spaces. We’re not only getting one coworking space. We’re getting three.

But the subject of this post is sandbox, which is scheduled to open very soon at 853 Pearl Alley in the Short North. Oh, and by the way, sandbox is WordCamp Columbus’ first Platinum Sponsor. w00t!

So what is coworking and why is it a big deal.

Independent professionals and remote employees, while enjoying relative freedom of working without a boss hovering over them, can feel isolated with only their pet dog for company. Coworking solves the isolation. Coworking facilities, such as sandbox, facilitates the social gathering of like minded people who are still working independently, but share values and are interested in the opportunities that can happen from working with other talented people in the same space.

According to a 2007 (that is 2-0-0-7!) Business Week article: 

Over the past few years, co-working facilities-both grassroots, co-op-like versions and for-profit models-have started popping up across the country and the world, from Seattle to Copenhagen. A co-working wiki hosts pages for dozens of other cities with co-working initiatives in progress. And while the concept of shared office space is nothing new to entrepreneurs, an increasing number of them are signing on and finding that the community-building and networking benefits outweigh even the virtues of a shared fax machine.

***

“When we talk to small-business people about their personal businesses, the biggest complaint we hear is about loneliness and the lack of social networks,” [Steve] King says (see BusinessWeek.com 3/22/00, “Battling Isolation When Working at Home“). Although “virtual offices” can fulfill the physical needs of many free agents by providing a mailing address, phone services, and meeting rooms as needed, co-working facilities help fill the social needs people have as well-either informally, by simply bringing together a group of people with similar interests, or formally, through networking events, holiday parties, and even softball leagues.

Not to be a downer on the economy, but I can see professionals chucking the corporate lifestyle for one of freedom and hopefully greener pastures for them in the long run. But these folks will still need the energy and vibe that an office can provide. And thus steps in sandbox. Sandbox’s large, bright open spaces located at 853 Pearl Alley in the Short North have been carefully designed to inspire creativity and camaraderie. Dedicated workspaces, conference facilities, full kitchen even laundry facilities are just the few of the features at Sandbox Short North.

Check sandbox out. And thank them for sponsoring WordCamp Columbus.