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SiDiC

From Lincoln, Nebraska USA
Age 60
Joined Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Recent Book Activity
Statistics
4 weeks all time
books registered 0 4,578
released in the wild 0 4,475
controlled releases 0 1
releases caught 0 415
controlled releases caught 0 0
books found 0 70
tell-a-friend referrals 0 46
new member referrals 0 68
forum posts 0 22
Extended Profile
last updated 1/18/2021
Former sponsor of the following two Official BookCrossing Zones:

Highnooner's - 1414 "O" St. [no longer in business]
The Mill - College View [no longer an official crossing zone]

Note to all requesting trades: I do not participate in book trades through the mail, or in person, at all...Sorry!]

Attention Lincoln BookCrossers: The Nebraska BookCrossers group on YahooGroups! has now been dissolved, with the cessation of YahooGroups! as a going concern.


I'm a fan of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and (to a lesser degree) horror and series romance fiction. I've been a collector of "fanzines" (fan-created magazines with stories based on popular tv-series or movies) since the early 1980s...too bad there's not a way to share those here, too! I'm also a huge fan of the television series produced by the late Stephen J. Cannell from the 1970s until 1999, when he pulled out of tv production to become a full-time novelist. I preferred him as a TV writer! I'm a member of Lincoln, Nebraska's long-time science fiction club, STAR BASE ANDROMEDA (the club started in 1974; I've been with it since 1981). One of my local friends is Robert Reed, one of the most critically-acclaimed yet relatively unknown SF authors in the past 20 years, and I formerly maintained the official website dedicated to his work -- 11 novels and over 140 published short stories. I enjoy the experience of sharing my love of genre writers, both old and new, with other readers through this quirky BookCrossing experience!

I currently work as a "Readers Advisory" librarian for the Lincoln City Libraries, in Lincoln, Nebraska, where one of my primary responsibilities is to develop resources (like booklists, award-winner lists, "readalikes" lists and other RA tools) for and maintain the library's BookGuide page. I've read literally hundreds of novels and non-fiction books over the past 50+ years, but my BookCrossing philosophy at present is to only register books that I have a reasonable expectation of releasing. I'm not going to register all the books on my own personal bookshelves from home! I've had several people ask me what my sources for books to release are, since I have so many, and some of them are duplicate titles. I have three main sources: (1) I weeded my own personal collection and eliminated a lot of stuff I don't plan to read again; (2) My favorite used bookstore (A Novel Idea regularly puts out boxes of overflow/unwanted books on the sidewalk outside their front door, which I pick through for BC release possibilities; (3) At the Lincoln City Library's annual Book Sale each October, on the final day, you can buy books for $1 a box -- that's about 80-100 mass market paperback books for a buck...close to a penny apiece! I try to pick up mostly books I've already read and can offer an opinion about, or books that I'm familiar with and that I wouldn't hesitate to pass on to someone else. Rest assured -- If I have read a released book, I will rate it and journal it!



Some stats about my shelf (as of 2010):
3647 - number of books registered
3592* - number of books released or distributed
98.5% - percentage of my registered books released in wild or distributed directly to other BCers
476 - number of my released titles which have been caught
[342 of those were "wild" captures or taken from my releases at Official BookCrossing Zones (71.8%); 134 were trades, exchanges at Meetups or similar non-"wild" captures (28.2%)]
13.3% - percentage of my released/distributed titles which have been caught and journaled by someone else
* I've had sixteen releases which were captured before I could post my release notes...hence a noticeable discrepancy with my "official" statistics at the top of my profile above.
89 - number of books I've "found"
[33 of these were "wild" captures I've either hunted down or found at OBCZs (37%); 56 were trades or exchanges at Meetups (63%)] -- don't know why my basic profile shows this as much lower!

My LiveJournal
My Flickr
My LibraryThing



Warning: Most of the links to crossing zones in the rest of this profile have become non-functional following the launch of the new BookCrossing site software. Sorry...don't blame me, blame BookCrossing! I'm leaving the links in, in case more boks get released at those locations and they become "active" links again!

Starting 10-23-2002, I launched my own SiDiC UNL Release Program. I plan to release at least one book in every building on both the Downtown Campus and East Campus of the University of Nebraska here in Lincoln. Make that every building in which classes are held -- I don't plan to hit the student housing buildings. This will be done sporadically, but I will put a note in each of the journals, to indicate how many have been set free this way. As of 11-27-2004, 20 books have been released in this program, not counting 18 Star Trek books released in the auditorium of the Student Union on 9-9-03 during a special Trek-related lecture. I haven't done this for a while...I need to start it up again!

On 10-18-2003, I initiated my first BookRay -- I've sent out the first five books in Spider Robinson's "Callahan's" series -- Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, Time Travelers Strictly Cash, Callahan's Secret, Callahan's Lady and Lady Slings the Booze. These are linked short story collections with contemporary settings and a strong SF/Fantasy element, but filled with emotion, intelligence and pun-encrusted humor. If you'd like to join on this five-book BookRay, please PM me and I'll add you to the end of the list. The books were mailed to the first participant 12-03-2003, and there are currently seven BookCrossers on this bookray! [UPDATE: As of March 2005, this BookRay has stalled out at LadyofUnicorns in Santa Fe, NM. She has had all five books in this set since February of 2004 -- over a year. She has not replied to several e-mail inquiries and requests that she let these books go to the next person in the BookRay. And based on other people's comments in the journals about other Rings and Rays that have stalled out with LadyofUnicorns, it appears this is nothing new with this particular BookCrossers. I highly recommend not allowing LadyofUnicorns to join any BookRing or BookRay you are planning to launch, until they can show that they'll let the book(s) move on in a reasonable amount of time! My sincerest apologies to everyone who joined my Callahan's BookRay -- I am trying to track down second copies of these five books to send out to let this circuit continue, but I'm afraid we're all being held hostage by LadyofUnicorns for the time being!

I launched Lincoln's first OBCZ on 10-21-2003, the 2nd on 11-19-03, and helped TigerLily4 to launch the 3rd on 11-21-03:

OBCZ#1 - Highnooner's - 1414 "O" St.
OBCZ#2 - The Mill - College View
OBCZ#3 - The Mill - Haymarket District

I contributed a box of books to wufmama and tabithdarling for the launches of three new OBCZs they intend to sponsor, including:

OBCZ#4 - Matt Talbot Kitchen - 19th & "R" St.
OBCZ#5 - Friendship Home {dropoff) - 56th & "A" St. and
OBCZ#6 - People's City Mission

Some of my other favorite drop zones (None of them "Official BookCrossing Zones", but all of them successful drop zones for me!) are:
LOCAL (Lincoln or Omaha, NE)
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Downtown Campus
University of Nebraska-Lincoln East Campus
Ivanna Cone also in the Haymarket District
Mo Java Coffee Shop in the Uni Place neighborhood
The Coffee House downtown -- 2 blocks from where I work
Eagle-Landmark Parking Garage across the street from my workplace
Capital City Ribfest [annual event in August]
OUT-OF-TOWN
The Mall of America shopping center [Bloomington, MN]
MediaWest*Con [Lansing, MI] - a convention for TV/Movie fans each Memorial Day weekend -- books released in 2004, 2005 and 2008 so far

And finally, here are some shortcuts to all the Lincoln and Nebraska sites where books have been released in the past 30 days, as well as the other Lincoln and Nebraska BookCrossers:
Release Zones: Lincoln | Omaha | All Cities in Nebraska
Area BookCrossers (04/20/10): Nebraska [2041] | Lincoln [455] (22.3% of NE) | Omaha [771] (37.8% of NE)
For those with an interest in useless trivia, here's when we crossed the various century thresholds for registered Nebraska BookCrossers:
100 - uncertain | 200 - Aug 22, 2002 | 300 - Oct 08, 2002
400 - Feb 22, 2003 | 500 - Jul 26, 2003 | 600 - Nov 05, 2003
700 - Mar 14, 2004 | 800 - May 24, 2004 | 900 - Sep 01, 2004
1000 - Jan 08, 2005 | 1100 - Jun 07, 2005 | 1200 - Sep 29, 2005
1300 - Mar 16, 2006 | 1400 - Sep 16, 2006 | 1500 - Mar 25, 2007
1600 - Sep 09, 2007 | 1700 - Jan 19, 2008 | 1800 - Jun 22, 2008
1900 - Dec 30, 2008 | 2000 - Jun 28, 2009
These figures were complete altered by the launch of the new BookCrossing site in mid-2010. I've left them up as a historical archive, but will not update them following the "2000" figure...

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