Lybrary.com: It’s Better Than A Buffet!Inside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

My Plate – Favorite Vacation Pictures

I have the same feeling I had when I discovered my first Las Vegas Buffet. How can this be? How can they make so many things available to me? How will I decide what to choose?

Logically, as with the buffet at Harrah’s, I picked up as much as I could carry on one plate.

So I had the shrimp next to the prime rib next to the potato au gratin and the Jell-O with mandarin oranges (which I had to pick out of the Jell-O because I hate mandarin oranges but I love lime Jello-O) and it was all next to the corner of the plate holding the horseradish for the prime rib, the cocktail sauce for the shrimp and the whipped cream for the Jell-O.

When I got back to my table, it was a mess or a “m?lange.” It was a mess. The waitress told me that I could go back to the buffet as much as I would like and that there was no need to “be a pig.”

I nodded like I had a clue what she was talking about ? I was too high on the wonderful cocktail sauce/horseradish potato dish I had accidentally prepared.

Lybrary.com is exactly like the Harrah’s buffet.

I Got This In 30 Seconds.

I was searching for information on a card index. I looked everywhere and someone suggested I check Annemann’s index system. Great, I thought, but where will I find Annemann on a second’s notice. There were plenty of sites that sold his Practical Mental Effects text but none could read it to me over the phone.

I am very much an “instant gratification” kind of guy. The microwave is not fast enough for me. I can’t stand refinancing my house because it takes too long so I’m still paying 12.234% interest (but I only have 22 years left). I threw out my Chia Pet because it didn’t sprout fast enough. (But it mutated, grew back and attacked my mail-person. It is now living in Vegas with the mail-person and they have two children: Fern and Daisy).

Lybrary.com,…

My Plate – Favorite Vacation Pictures

I have the same feeling I had when I discovered my first Las Vegas Buffet. How can this be? How can they make so many things available to me? How will I decide what to choose?

Logically, as with the buffet at Harrah’s, I picked up as much as I could carry on one plate.

I nodded like I had a clue what she was talking about ? I was too high on the wonderful cocktail sauce/horseradish potato dish I had accidentally prepared.

Lybrary.com is exactly like the Harrah’s buffet.

I Got This In 30 Seconds.

Lybrary.com, then, is perfect for me and maybe you — frankly, I care more about me than you but I am just assuming that you would find it to be perfect. In fact, if you are still reading this review, you have too much time on your paws and are not into instant-gratification enough.

I went to Lybrary.com, looked up Annemann’s Practical Mental Effects and there it was, ready for download for only $5.00. I could get the “Collector’s Edition” for $6.00.

I took the Collector’s Edition, paid with my Paypal account and the book was ready for download immediately. I brought it to my computer in seconds and was reading it instantly. The e-version of the book had a great system of hyperlinks to allow me to find what I needed instantly as well.

Recently I offered a review of the entire collection of The Sphinx that can be purchased on DVD or CD-ROM. The bottom line of that review, in case you’re into instant-gratification, was that you should purchase the collection if you have any interest in magic at all.

It was like being at a buffet and being told you can just pull your chair up to the serving area. No waiting for nothing.

I asked Chris Wasshuber how he got the idea to do this and how he is able to find such great books to make available to us magicians who can’t wait. He, like all of us, had more magic books than you could shake a wand at.

(Remember that old song from the 50’s from Chubby Checker, “Shake Your Magic Wand”? Man, that brings back memories. We used to dance all night to that song. I wasn’t born at the time but I could hear it in the womb as my parents danced the night away. They met at a dance. My dad was looking for some gum and so he was reaching under the table for a wad he had stuck there a week earlier and found it in my mother’s pony-tail.)

Back to Chris. Sorry.Chris said hewould remember a trick or routine but couldn’t find the source without digging through his old paper library. He certainly couldn’t carry his whole library with him as he traveled and he realized there had to be a better way.

This was still at a time where there weren’t many options for turning a book into a computer file. He could sit down and retype all of his books. That would be a perfectly fine solution if he had just one book and nothing else going on in his life. But the had hundreds of books and actually had a life beyond just typing at the keyboard all day.

Three years ago, he found that technology had reached the point where his needs could finally be met. He could scan in a book and use the Optical Character Recognition (“OCR”) software to convert it into something useable. He messed about and with persistence, was able to hit upon a great combination of hardware and software to bring an ebook to fruition.

Remember that he was not taking books currently on computer systems and translating them to ebook formats. He was taking ancient books of our craft, scanning and performing OCR. Chris said, “I still remember the first attempts where I converted five times Expert at the Card Table with different programs and different approaches. I have come a long way.”

Even with the great software and the outstanding hardware, he still has to work on cleaning the image and text before rendering an ebook. If the font is dirty or old, it won’t translate properly. If the images aren’t picked up correctly, it’s no good. You won’t pay $5.00 for a big black blob of Annemann’s head ? unless you’re some kind of freak. Or you’re so desperate for information about his card index that you don’t care if looks like a psychic made out of mud. (I mean no offense to those psychics that are made out of mud or clay; and if they are real psychics, they know that already).

Chris started with seven ebooks, including his rendering of S.W. Erdnase’s Expert at the Card Table. He now has over150 titles and allows instant downloading for those small enough to make it practical. For the larger books, he offers delivery by CD-ROM. This is very cool. You pick you the books you want, and Chris assembles a custom-made CD-ROM with your selections within two or three days.

Here’s the exciting part.

You can get the entire Tarbell Course for $35.00. You will have, then, the whole course and a word-searchable index for all volumes. You can find concepts, tricks, patter or even ideas as they link with common terms you define. Try doing that with your current Tarbell set. (Some of the old-timers will remember what excitement there was surrounding the pending release of Volume 8 because it was going to finally have an index to the first seven volumes. Am I the only one that remembers that? How come I can remember that but can’t remember if I have my shoes on when I take a shower or when I take a shower I can’t remember if I already washed an area?)

Chris also designed the reader for the ebooks. You can essentially view your books as if they were web pages. They contain hyperlinks to other parts of the book and you can configure the display to show you both pages at once ? as if you were really reading the book ? or one page at a time.

I love the interface. I know there are instructions somewhere on how to use it, but with my proclivity to jump in with both feet, I by-passed the instructions and tried it myself. I haven’t needed any help yet.

Check out his site. Like me at the buffet, I have already gorged myself. I have the entire Annemann collection downloaded and ready on my computer as I practice my act for the IBM convention. I’ll likely buy the Roberto Giobbi, Card College Volume One next. It is $45 but well-worth it according to those who have reviewed Lybrary.com’s version. The actual moves are taught with the text, the images and video. Check out this link for an example of how Chris has made an already great book better.

This site is, in my humble opinion, revolutionary. We owe such a debt of gratitude to Chris and his Lybrary.com site.