As most of you know, I took some time off to focus on my pregnancy. I am very pleased to tell you that our first child was born on September 29. 2010. We are over the moon with our beautiful baby girl, Lily. Below you can see the front of the birth announcement. Of course with a bookish touch ;D
Since we are now pretty much settled into parenthood, I will pick up on posting again. So, from now on, you can visit Kimbooktu.com again for your regular fix of bookish gadgets!
Hi!
I told you about my pregnancy a couple of months ago. And that I would take a break in posting blogs. You can be updated by following me on Twitter, a couple of you do. If you are interested to follow me you can do that via www.twitter.com/kimbooktu.
For the dear readers that do not follow me, I will post this little update. We are doing great. The baby – a girl – is fine and growing fast. I am now over 26 weeks pregnant. My due date is around October 2nd. We had a lot of building work going on at our house, which made it very busy times the last months. Now I am entering the last trimester, I am happy to say almost everything is done. I now hope to relax a bit more and enjoy my pregnancy leave that starts the last week of August.
I hope to pick up my blogging again when the little girl is born. Thanks to everybody for their kind e-mails, their congrats posts et cetera. I really appreciate it! If you want to support Kimbooktu in any way, you can do so by shopping at Amazon. đ
I’ll keep you updated on our ‘Great Expectation’!
Hi All!
So, you have been wondering what I have been up to lately. And what my excuse is for letting my posting slack? Well, I am very happy and proud to inform you that my husband and I are expecting our first child. I am 14 weeks and 3 days pregnant today. I have been very tired the last months and simply could not bring myself to sit behind the computer again after a days work. The tiredness has not passed yet. Since we are starting a big renovation on our house and start preparing for the little bookworm after that, I do not expect to post much in the near future.
For this reason I have done the unthinkable. I promised myself that I will not do the craziness and ‘ tweet’. Now, I can see the benefits of it. So, if you like to be informed about me, my life and the occasional bookishness, you can follow me. Simply search ‘Kimbooktu’ on Twitter, or click here.
The end of the year asks for lists. Even more so when there is an anniversary too. Last Monday, the 21nd of December, Kimbooktu celebrated its third blog year. All in all, it seems like a good moment to evaluate the year. I also did this in 2007, click here to see that post. I forgot to do it last year, for some reason⌠Anyway here are some facts and figures about the three year existence of Kimbooktu:
Total Views until today: 326,467
Views in 2009 until today: 104.938
Best day in views ever: 2,955 on January 4. 2007 (Thanks to an article in the ALA newsletter, see here.)
Total amount of posts until today: 503
Top 3 of the best viewed posts in the last year until today: (Click on the title to read)
1. Design your own book cover (6.650)
2. Catalog your books online (3.245)
3. The worldâs best bookstore (2.085)
Top 3 of Kimbooktuâs favorite posts in the last year: (Click on the title to read)
1. Biggest bookish wish came true
2. Kimbooktu writes for Bookstore Guide
3. Kimbooktuâs library at night
Total of comments until today: 1.293
Google hits on âKimbooktuâ: circa 31.500
Fellow Book Lovers!
Kimbooktu wishes you a merry Christmas and a bookish new year.
Thank you very much for your interest in this blog! I look forward to posting for you in the new year…
Over the years, I have posted photo’s of my library. Since a library is almost a living creature that ever changes and evolves, I thought it would be nice to show you how my library looks today. But first, I will take you back in time.
The first time I posted a picture of my library, it was on Kimbooktu’s sister website Yourshelves.com. Click here to see what my library looked like on July 14 2007. Back then, we still lived in our apartment and had only four cases with about 200 books in them. A couple of months later, on September 18, I posted another picture to be seen here. Still in the same house, but now with a few more cases. And a bit more books. We realised our house got to small for our books and started to look for a new house.
We moved into our new, much bigger, house six months later. I kept you updated on how my new library was coming along. My biggest wish came true. An entire room for all of my (our) books! It was so much fun putting the shelves in and unpacking all of the boxes of books. All the books were placed in a certain section, so they are easy to find back. There were a few empty cupboards back then, to be filled up in the years to come. You can read this post of April 30. 2008 and see the photo’s here.
Now, over a year has passed and the library has changed a lot. Not only are there more books it. There are now a little short of a thousand books in there. So, the empty cupboards are getting filled already. Along with these cherished books, I keep special possessions. Things that people I care about give me, nicknack’s I bring back from my travels. The room has gotten far more personal.
The decor has changed too. I replaced the chairs, that so many of you loved, with a little sofa. So much more comfortable when reading! Above the faux fireplace hangs a fantastic picture now. My parents gave it to me last Christmas. I adore it. Next to the picture are little shelves to hold nice bookmarks, special books and different sorts of book related things.
Click ‘more’ below to see the photo’s I took less than an hour ago. Kimbooktu’s Library at Night. (Title pinched from this
As you might know, I am a keen (amateur) photographer, next to a book lover. Back in 2004, when my husband and I were still dating, a photo project came to existence. It all revolves around a stuffed mouse, our love and our passion for photography. And travel. I won’t say anymore, because I want to surprise you.
After 5 years this project, Mouse, is still going strong and I wanted to let you know about it. I have posted about it before here, and I was not sure if I should post about it again. This because it is not bookish and it really should not belong on Kimbooktu. Since it turns a smile on the faces of a lot of people, I decided to mention it again.
Since we – and the people around us – are so excited about our project, I hope you will enjoy it too. I recently made a short YouTube film about the project. You can view it below. If you like it, I hope you will rate the video, visit the website, sign up for the newsletter and spread the word. I would love it if Mouse could put a smile on as many people as possible. And have them experience the world in a different way…
Sorry for this non bookish post…
Since I value the opinion of my readers, I would like to ask for your opinion. A while ago, I have created a logo for my library. I had seen logo’s of personal libraries before and I thought it would be fun to have one too. Even though my personal library is not as large as the people who have logo’s for their collection… Yet.
I would like to use the logo on – yet to be created – bookmarks to stick into books I (sometimes) loan out. And as an e-mail header when I write bookish friends. I already use this one on LibraryThing. There probably will be more occasions on which I want to use the logo. It is just a pride thing. My books (library) are very important to me and when things are important, people tend to name them. Like a child. Or a dog.
Since my library is going to be around at least as long as I am, I want to get it right. The logo. So, this is where you come in. I would like your opinion on the title and the design of the logo. Let me explain the title first. It is common to give libraries a Latin name. My Latin is not that good, so I consulted the library and the web. I came up with ” Bibliotheca ad Finitor”. Which means, if I am correct, ” Library of the horizon”.
This might seem strange, but it all has to do with my first name. Kim means ‘ horizon’ in Dutch. Horizon also means infinity, to me. Since a library never stops growing, this seemed appropriate. The logo therefor depicts a stylized book and horizon. In a clean and simple way.
So, tell me what you think in the comments. You are very welcome to e-mail me a new logo with the same idea, if you like. I will post it on the site. If you have a logo for your library, send it to me too.
My friends of the website Bookstore Guide asked me to write an article related to independant bookstores. They are adding a dimension to their already fantastic website with a series of articles by people related to the book industry. I was honored to be asked to contribute.
The fruits of my labor will be published on their website this Wednesday night. I choose to write about the fixed book price agreement and what this means for independent bookstores. Please comment on the article, I’m curious to learn what you think of it. It might even start an interesting discussion! You can find the article here as from Wednesday evening. If you would be interested in writing an article in this series, please contact the people of Bookstore Guide via this e-mail address.
It has taken a while, a long while, but there are new libraries to see on Your Shelves! (Click here to go to the website.) As you know, this website is a special project of mine. Now that I’m getting back on track with Kimbooktu, I decided it was about time to post the libraries people from all over the globe have e-mailed me.
You can find seven new shelves of fellow book lovers on the site. To my utter joy, I received photo’s from people in countries that were not represented on Your Shelves! before. There are now some shelves from Mexico, Sweden, Argentina en the Philippines added to the list. I also received two libraries from the United States, from which one is located in Hawaii. You can also see another library from Singapore. At the moment, people of 23 countries are giving you a sneak peek into their personal reading room.
Keep the pictures comming! Click here to see what to do and where to send them to. You can also go there to learn more about this project.
