Its a good resource that I hope people will use. With magazines I think you will find that you will run out of shelf space. Periodicals have a tendency to out grow any space you give them and need to be culled and bound constantly if you want to keep back issues.

On 3/1/09, veganboyjosh@gmail.com veganboyjosh@gmail.com wrote:

Great idea. I'm very interested to see the responses.

As for magazines, we put the word out about a year ago that we were taking magazines. I had some ideas about the Youth program using them to make visual aids like posters and flyers, but that never happened due to one reason or another. As a result, we now have about 3 or 4 shelves worth of bike magazines that are not organized and tend to flop all over and slide off the shelf.

There's some good info in there, along with a bunch of ads, tho, so i'm hesitant to throw them out. I've been trying to thinkof a constructive way to use them. I'm thinking that having a volunteer/youth/Earn-a-Bike student go thru and cut/tear out the useful information about mechanics/riding/training is the way to go. once we have the ads removed, and the info pared down to a reasonable stack of pages, then we can go to work putting it all together in some kind of 3 ring binder format, maybe sorted and organized by subject, that makes it more useful than a shelf full of old magazines.

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 1:34 AM, Liza Mattana pedals2people@gmail.comwrote:

...

Hey,

We want to build a lending library at our shop, a place where members can check out books and magazines. Probably it wouldn't be more than a few shelves worth of materials. I can see the library broken down into 3 categories:

Resource materials to check out: books on how to do repairs, how to plan for bike tours, memoirs from people who have toured on bike, how to make your own gear books, interesting bike reads, etc.

Resource books, on-site only: tech manuals

Magazines: informative (not a lot of marketing hype), and good/entertaining articles

Or maybe not. Maybe not bother with magazines? Other thoughts? We have a good stack of books already from our volunteers, used books we've gathered from thrift stores mostly, but I'd like to seek funding for buying more books. I think we should have a few Park Big Blue Books, the Bicycle Wheel, and a Sutherland's for the shop.

What other recommendations do you think are must or should haves?

Thanks! Liza -- Liza Mattana president www.pedals2people.org Spokane, WA

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great list, macho.

i've also started a list of books and websites which are great for budding and experienced mechanics and cyclists on the bike collective network wiki, here. http://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mechanic

please do add to it as you see fit, as it's by no means a complete list. we print and distribute this list to our mechanic class students at the end of a class session. also please feel free to print and distribute it to your customers or staff as you see fit.

as for keeping greasy hands away from pristine white pages, i would offer a simple solution that i've used for a while: pregrease the pages yourself, then there's no issue. no pristine white pages=no problem!

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Macho Philipovich macho@resist.ca wrote:

The library is such a good idea! It's something i've been thinking of ever since we opened, but haven't had the chance to put together. The toughest part is figuring out how to keep greasy hands (including my own), away from pristine white pages...

Books I would count as essential would be:

1. Barnett's Manual - http://www.bbinstitute.com/manual.htm

This is the most comprehensive, serious, shop manual I'm aware of.

2. Andy Pruitt's Complete Medical Guide for Cyclists

http://www.velogear.com/prodinfo.asp?number=VP+APMG Goes very thoroughly over proper bike fit, as well as diagnosing injuries and preventative measures. It's no fun biking all day every day if you're just giving yourself repetitive strain injuries.

3. The Art of Cycling http://www.falcon.com/978-0-7627-4316-2

This is a great book covering the history of bicycles (and cars), riding skills, safety equipment, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It's very readable. The author has some ideas I don't agree with about Critical Mass and collective organizing (he doesn't see any value in it), but this is a really well-researched and written book.

4. Atomic Zombie - Bicycle Builder's Bonanza

Not really my thing, but enough people freak out about this that it should probably be in any bike shop library.

5. Bicycles & Tricycles: An Elementary Treatise on their Design and

Construction This is my preferred alternative to Atomic Zombie: the classic 1896(!) text on all aspects of bike construction. Unfortunately it's out print and will probably cost you, unless you have good used book sleuthing skills.

You might also want to browse through Microcosm's catalogue for bike books and zines at microcosmpublishing.com; it's important to support Do-it-Yourself publications, but if you're mainly interested in authoritative information, the books above will probably serve you better.

Good luck! Macho http://bike-dump.ca

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