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Club Library Recommendations

G

Guy Scronce

Joined
Jun 13, 2017
Messages
49
Likes
37
Location
Hickory, NC
I recently took over the duties of librarian for my local club, and I am looking for recommendations for books and videos to add to our library. The library has been somewhat neglected for the past several years so new materials would be especially helpful.
We have had a number of new turners join recently, so any materials geared toward beginners would also be appreciated.
Thanks
Guy
 
Fadi Zeidan said:
Lyle Jaimeson’s and David Ellsworth’s are excellent videos.
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Great suggestions. We have some from both including a club demo that Lyle Jaimeson did a few years ago that I need to watch. Our club is over 25 years old and the collection of demos is impressive, unfortunately that also means that many of our titles, including David Ellsworth's are in VHS format.
 
I know this is an English company but they always seem to have a good selection of books(I have nothing to do with them) have a look HERE
And one which is well thought of by many turners here in the UK is THIS one well laid out and some easy to follow exercises.
Our club library also includes books on Pyrography as there are many that use this on woodturning.
I think that a talk to your members to see what they also would like to see in the library which you do not already have is something worth looking at nothing worse than buying a load of books and some will never get borrowed or looked at.
 
Don' forget Richard Raffan.

If it is still available John Jordan had a two cd set on the characteristics of wood which was excellent.

For the skew Allen Lacer is tough to beat.

Hob
 
Our club library has suffered the same fate, but I suspect for a reason. The real reason people come to a club meeting is direct learning from a mentor or demonstrator. Then add the number of people that prefer to watch an hour of video versus a few snippets of video on youtube for free. Club libraries may completely fade away with a little more time.
 
Last month the Nor-Cal Woodturners board discussed whether or not to do away with our extensive library. In spite of having current DVDs, usage has dropped off dramatically. Many months have had no activity at all.
 
I don’t even have a DVD player anymore. I usually get digital copies if available. Wood magazine sells digital version of some of the DVDs. We’re moving into streaming in the very near future.

There are companies that copy VHS to DVD, this might be a cheaper option. Wood magazine sells digital copy of some DVDs, but that probably won’t work for a club.
 
Richard and Dewight, I would recommend taking a second look at a library and considering putting a little work into it. Our library wasn't available for a couple of years until I recently took over the duties. I think it is a great resource; which is one of the reasons I volunteered for the job. When I first started turning and joined the club, I really enjoyed being able to check out David Ellsworth's book.

Before every meeting I put out a display of a couple books and dvds relevant to the demo, and I am in the process of putting together a few lists of recommended titles. One for new turners, small projects and pens, bowls, hollow forms ect. Simple recommendations like these have really increased the usage of our library. I think it also reminds people that it is there.

We have been averaging two to three new members each meeting for the past few months, and they have been most enthusiastic about the library. You Tube is a great resource, but it also has may people giving bad advice. It is also hard for a newbie to sort through all of the information and junk on the internet to find what they need to know. People come to the club to learn about turning, and I think the club library can be a great source of information.
 
Someone needs to chisel wood turning knowledge onto granite stones or fire it onto clay tablets
or it to will be a lost technology in history someday. :-)
 
If I was the guy that had to lug those Rubbermaid tubs in from his car, I'd definitely vote to do away with it. He carries the whole inventory in and maybe has 3 guys look at them. If there was a real improvement, it would be to do a spread sheet of the available subjects, then have the members order in advance using our Facebook page. I agree there is a place for full length DVD, the perfect cure for insomnia! Can't remember how long it's been since I stayed awake for a whole instructional DVD. LOL
 
Last edited:
Richard Coers said:
If I was the guy that had to lug those Rubbermaid tubs in from his car, I'd definitely vote to do away with it. LOL
Click to expand...

We are lucky that our library is stored in our meeting room. I don't think I would be as enthusiastic about carrying around our inventory of almost 500 titles. I agree that many full length videos can be really boring, but that is why I came here for suggestions. There are a few gems, and I would like to be able to recommend those that are most helpful. I will admit that I usually watch videos at 1.5 speed.

I don't know if your club is old enough, but our club has a great inventory of past demos. I enjoy these more than the produced videos because they tend to be more informal and the mistakes don't get edited out. It is also pretty entertaining to watch the club members I know today from 15 years ago. I think a couple of our long time members have become sassier in the past 15 years. :)
 
We had 2 totes of books , 1 of VHS and 1 of DVD until 2 or 3 years ago. Yes the librarian carried that whole thing to each meeting and at that time we had a split with north and south club meetings. Well the librarian quite and now we meet in the same place each month so the library stays there. We got ride of VHS (not they are copyrighted>>>can not copy) and then also shed off the books not checked pout in a year. All this was great for the club raffle. I personally have never checked out a video or book.
 
We have quite a large library and like Gerald's club, we gave away the VHS tapes to whoever wanted them. Ihave a closet at home full of all sorts of VHS tapes that will never be played. There's not enough time to waste watching all that ancient history.

We have a couple large cabinets in wheels where we store all of the books and DVDS. We're fortunate to be able to just wheel the cabinets to a storage room. Same goes for our lathe and a/v equipment.
 
Apple Ridge has a collection of DVDs... however, they've been sitting in a cabinet at our old location (a volunteer fire house) because they haven't been moved yet to our new location. We're going to move them, but just haven't gotten around to it yet... Honestly, no one has complained or seemed to have missed them, but we'll get them to the new location and start reminding people that they're there.
 
Most of the major demonstrators have DVDs and most of them are pretty good. Also, different folks find different ones useful, so having a variety makes sense.

In order to keep our clubs going, we all have to draw in new turners, so there will always be some members who are teaching themselves turning by watching videos. It's probably better to do so with a decently produced video series from someone who is used to teaching, than by randomly taking a chance on Youtube. (Please don't shoot the messenger--participants in this forum have uploaded some very good videos--I'm not suggesting that all online material is undesirable, but there are some questionable practices taught online and the commercial videos would be less likely to contain them, IMHO. Referring newbies to the AAW screened videos is another sensible approach.)

I would recommend Glenn Lucas' recent series, if you don't have it.

We put our 2 wooden chests of a library on cheap furniture dollies and they move just fine. Until I have to lift them onto a workbench. Then I find out how much weight I can still clean and jerk.

Dean Center
 
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