- Booklover/Reader Advisory Alert: "Reading Trails" Capitalizes on Reader-Created Title Suggestions
Posted January 30, 2009
If you've ever found yourself sucked deep down into Amazon.com's "Listmania" feature and profited by the experience, you're
going to love Reading Trails, a sort of "Listmania" on steroids.
The site allows readers who join the site to create lists on any infinite variety of topics, and, more importantly, to
discover topics that include the same title. That's how this site serves as a quick Reader Advisory resource: type in a
title you (or someone else) read and really liked, and you can get a list of "read-alikes" along a host of different angles
other than the mere plot (or subject) of the book. The site also allows you to create a list of books you've read, are
reading, or want to read. Details.
Found via OPLIN4Cast.
Read previously-posted Booklover Alerts
- Another Newspaper-Based Book Supplement Bites the Dust
Posted January 30, 2009
The bad news is that the Washington Post Book World, familiar to conscientious book selectors around the country,
will be published for the final time on February 15th. The good news is that the Book World will continue online.
Details were noted (among other places)
in a blog maintained by one of the few newspaper sponsors of a still-existing stand-alone book review supplement in this
country, the New York Times.
The demise of the print incarnation of the Book World is only the latest development in what looks to many observers
as the end of full-tilt attention to the reviewing of books in print newspapers. That recent trend is due to the flight of
advertising dollars from print newspapers, and the resulting layoffs and/or reassignment of newspaper employees formerly
devoted to producing their print-based book-review supplements.
Found via LISNews.
- Book Selector Alert: Foreword Magazine Still a Good Source for Small Press Books
Posted January 29, 2009
We've recommended Foreword Magazine before to AFPL book selectors, and still
do. When we most recently checked this selection resource, we noticed that the website includes not only publishing industry
news, awards lists, bookchat, and reviews, but also contains a handy list of hyperlinks to the online catalogs of numerous
small publishers.
As AFPL selectors herd themselves onto the on-ramp of the 2009 purchasing year, they might want to take a gander at this
excellent resource - and then cross their collective fingers in the hopes that most of the titles on offer will be stocked
by this year's book vendor for AFPL.
Found (this time) via Book Trout via Bibliophile Bullpen.
- Author John Updike Dead at 76
Posted January 28, 2009
The Associated Press obiturary, published (among other places) in the New York Times, is
here.
- Electronic Reference Resource Alert: Consumer Reports Now Available via EBSCO
Posted January 28, 2009
Of course, there's an extra fee, but the
product description sounds (computer) user-friendly and the electronic version offers some features missing from the
hard-copy magazine subscription.
Looking into the pros and cons of a licensing fee for Consumer Reports would definitely be worth the time of
AFPL's Electronic Resource Committee. And if the subscription is given a green light, branch libraries would need to immediately
begin lobbying for removing the print subscription to the mandatory $2,000+ worth of purchases dictated by the so-called
Basic Resource Set.
The BRS is one of the many relics from the William McClure era at AFPL, when the library's board of trustees that McClure
chaired frequently (and expensively) intruded into the internal management and selection decisions of the library system.
Removing the print subscription to Consumer Reports from the BRS - or jettisoning the BRS altogether - would give
branch libraries more flexibility in ordering the reference resources the different constituencies of different
branch libraries actually find useful. And a single system license for EBSCO's new databse might be cheaper than paying
for over two dozen individual subscriptions to the print version of Consumer Reports.
Found via Peter Scott's Library Blog.
- Woman Gives Birth in Lobby of Denver Public Library
Posted January 28, 2009
Details were broadcast by Denver's Channel 7
television station. Denver's Channel 9 also broadcasted
the story.
The Channel 7 story found via LISNews; the Channel 9 story
was found by an acquaintance of an alert WATCH reader.
- Dept. of Hilarious Library Videos: "Books I Will Not Read"
Posted January 28, 2009
YouTube meets Opinionated Librarian? This hooty video (and presumably
others like it), posted to the website of a public library in Wisconsin, probably results in a hundred times more website
visits than people make to websites like AFPL's, which doesn't have video reviews of the books on its shelves.
And why, pray tell, with all the talent on the staff of AFPL, doesn't the AFPL website contain video book reviews?
Found via Library Riot.
- Program Planner Alert: ALA Launches Online Resource for Program Ideas
Posted January 26, 2009
AFPL librarians still exhausting themselves planning and conducting programs on top of everything else they're
trying to do might want to check out the American Library Association's
Programming Librarian.
Found via Peter Scott's Library Blog.
- Dept. of Book-Themed Stuff: A Book Bank
Posted January 24, 2009
 Once you've saved up enough pennies to buy this thing, you can begin squirreling
away your pennies inside it to buy something else - a real book, perhaps?
Apparently, you can only buy this from the Museum of Modern Art's store. It originally cost $90, and is now on sale for $40.
For that price, one would have thought its designers would have made it a bit more attractive.
Found via Book Patrol via
SwissMiss, where an alert reader points to this ($24) alternative.
- Newspaper Reporters Continue to Discover that Bad Economies Mean Busier Public Libraries
Posted January 24, 2009
Another version of this not-very-surprising-to-library-workers story appeared last week in the
Wall Street Journal.
Found via LISNews.
- Budget Shortfall Threatens Closing of Oldest U.S. Public Library
Posted January 24, 2009
The Darby Free Library, located not too far from the eleven libraries in Philadelphia that that city's mayor
wants to close due to budget problems, was founded in 1734 - long before the U.S. government was established.
Details from the Philadelphia Daily News.
Found via LISNews.
- Iowa Woman Arrested for Not Returning Library Book
Posted January 24, 2009
Details.
Found via LISNews.
- Nine Predictions for 2009
Posted January 22, 2009
We're posting this a bit late, perhaps, but
here is our favorite list of library-applicable predictions for the new year. (The list was later posted
here as well.) Marketing expert Tom Ansacker posted them to his blog,
A Clear Eye, and prefaced his predictions with this remark:
"Someone once said that the pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity and the optimist sees the opportunity in
every difficulty. Which one will the challenging New Year draw out of you? Do you want to know?
Every person has both the dog of optimism and the dog of pessimism inside of them. The one you see most often is the one
you feed most often. It really is that simple. I truly hope that you feed the hopeful one in 2009 - the one with the
bright, shining eyes of possibility - and live a life of passion, not pretense."
The links and the image above were found via Library Garden.
- What Happened Last Month in the U.S. Publishing Universe
Posted January 22, 2009
The U.S. economic recession has blasted the U.S. publishing industry just like it has most other sectors of the U.s. economy.
As the usefulness of libraries partly depends on the continued gushing forth (or trickling out?) of new books from domestic
publishers, librarians might want to read about what's being called publishing's "Black Wednesday," a day in December 2008
when an inordinate number of publishing people lost their jobs. If you Google this term, you'll find a host of articles and
commentary, including the one published by The Nation.
The Age of Bloated Conglomerate Publishers may be at an end, says the participant/observer who wrote the article.
Found via Library Juice.
- Archivist Alert: New Book about the New Challenges of Collecting Personal Archives
Posted January 22, 2009
Archvists working in Central's Special Collections Department or at the Auburn Avenue Research Library
might want to add to their wish lists Richard Cox's new book Personal Archives and a New Archival Calling:
Readings, Reflections, and Ruminations.Just like any other book selector working at AFPL, the stupid, stupid, stupid purchasing rules of Fulton County prevent
the library system's
Library Juice recently posted the publisher's description of this
brand-new book.
Unfortunately, no one working at AFPL can order this book immediately, regardless of how useful it might be. Like everyone else
who selects materials for AFPL collections, selectors working at Auburn Avenue or Central are forbidden by the county's
stupid, stupid, stupid purchasing regulations from ordering any books whatsoever between mid-August and sometime the following
February.
As we and others have, among other things, been begging
him to do ever since he arrived here over three years ago now, we sure wish AFPL's library director would add to his list
of New Year's resolutions setting up a meeting with the County Manager and the county's purchasing department manager to discuss
how the county's purchasing rules could be modified to support the library system's need for year-round ordering.
This absolutely essential component to a functioning library has gone unaddressed for way too long, and is probably the
single most spectacularly dysfunctional feature of AFPL's current way of doing business.
Until this issue is addressed and remedied, it is difficult to see how library patrons and library selectors take seriously
the library system's Powers That Be and their straight-faced pronouncements (to commissioners, trustees, newspaper reporters,
and the public) of what wonderful things the library does for its users. Ordering materials only six months out of every
year is hardly doing anybody any big favors.
- Service Desk Alert: Index of Free Online Databases Available in Wikipedia
Posted January 22, 2009
With all the digitization projects going on across the globe, and with surely more to come, it's nice to know where one
can get a semi-comprehensive list of where the freebies are (vs. the ones libraries must purchase licenses for). Wikipedia's
alphabetical and subject-arranged list is here;
some of the language, literature, and history entries look especially useful.
Found via a reader's comment to a blogpost at Library Juice.
- Books for Mr. Obama
Posted January 21, 2009
The Washington Monthly asked nineteen "thinkers and writers" for the titles of the books they wish President Obama
would add to his bedside reading table, and to explain why they feel those titles are crucial for the recently-inaugurated
U.S. President to read.
We can't imagine how Mr. Obama is going to have either the time or the energy in the next four (eight???) years to
devote to whatever objects end up on his bedside reading table, but library selectors might want to check
this intriguing, annotated list to see which titles you might want to make available for your library's patrons to read.
Found via BookForum, which also posted a link
to a recent New York Times article that includes
some of the books Obama has read that influenced his values, beliefs and/or decisions.
- Booklover/Fiction Selector Alert: Writer Hortense Calisher Dead at 97
Posted January 21, 2009
The New York Times obituary, published last week, is
here.
Found via Bibliophile Bullpen.
Read previously-posted Booklover Alerts
- Booklover Alert: The 1000 Novels You Simple MUST Read...
Posted January 21, 2009
OK, you booklist-trawlers (including library fiction selectors) out there, here's a whale of a list
for you: a grab-bag of numerous themed booklists posted by the UK Guardian's columnists, with a grand total of 1,000
titles. Sure, some of these lists are skewed toward British readers, but there are plenty of candidates here for U.S. public (and personal) libraries here.
Found via Library Stuff via
January Magazine.
Read previously-posted Booklover Alerts
- Selector Alert: Recent and Classic Books about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
Posted January 21, 2009
Although AFPL selectors are not allowed to order books from mid-August to mid-February [!!!], they might consider adding to their
wish lists some of
these titles suggested by a blog maintained by the New York Times. As is often the case, the titles suggested by
the blogpost's readers are as useful as the ones originally suggested.
- Selector Alert: Painter Andrew Wyeth Dead at 91
Posted January 20, 2009
The New York Times' obituary, published this past Friday, is
here.
Found via Bibliophile Bullpen.
Read previously-posted Booklover Alerts
- Booklover/Fiction Selector Alert: British Writer John Mortimer Dead at 85
Posted January 20, 2009
The New York Times' obiturary, published this past Saturday, is
here.
Found via Bibliophile Bullpen.
Read previously-posted Booklover Alerts
- Australian Author Jailed for 2005 Book's Insulting Passage about Thailand's King
Posted January 20, 2009
CNN.com reported the details - although it
did not reprint the offending passage from the author's book.
One thing Americans can be thankful for: that the U.S. Congress eventually repealed the Alien and Sedition Acts
it had passed at the behest of U.S. President John Adams.
Found via BoingBoing.
- More Americans, Including Internet-Using Americans, Now Reading Fiction
Posted January 18, 2009
That's the encouraging finding of a recent study conducted
by the National Endowment for the Arts. Combined with the news that more people are using libraries as a result of the
latest economic recession, and you've got a perfect scenario for busy libraries.
One of the implications of this study seems to be that libraries who expand their services to library-using Internet users
aren't necessarily abandoning their traditional constituents (habitual book readers). In fact, they might be serving those
traditional users better if they'd expand their Internet-based services (like blogs, recommended reading lists, virtual
exhibits, etc.).
Found via Stephen's Lighthouse.
- What the U.S. Economic Recession Means for Librarian Salaries
Posted January 16, 2009
A rather long article (with charts) posted at
In the Library with the Lead Pipe.
Found via LISNews.
- Library Trainer Alert: A Free, 8-Minute Video History of the Internet
Posted January 14, 2009
Next time you need to explain the background of the Internet to a newbie (or a whole room full of them), you might want to
consider starting off by showing this nifty video. Nice features: zero talking heads, exclusive use of
diagrams that illustrate the (British) narrator's words, acknowledgement of the fact the Internet was initially a project
undertaken by the U.S. military.
Found via Stephen's Lighthouse
via Peter Scott's Library Blog.
- For Your Consideration: Hyperlinks to Four Hundred Biblioblogs
Posted January 14, 2009
...Actually, 399 biblioblogs. We don't quite understand what the
creator of HotStuff 2.0 is trying to measure with
his daily scoring scheme, but we did see links to a lot o' blogs we hadn't heard of before; maybe you'll see a few you
might want to explore yourself.
Found via the effinglibrarian.
- Library Settles Lawsuit About Religion-Based Program in Library Meeting Room
Posted January 14, 2009
Some details, as reported by MSNBC.
Found via the effing-librarian.
- The Manager's Role in a Recession: The Top 10 Ways to Keep Good Employees
Posted January 14, 2009
This blogpost isn't specifically about
LibraryLand (or written by a LibraryLand denizen), but it certainly rings true, and we hope AFPL's administrators
and managers will take the time to read the list and search their respective souls to discover which of these 10 Things
they are neglecting to do.
Found via
Librarian By Day via
Stephen's Lighthouse.
- 10 Librarian Blogs that LISNews Recommends Checking Out in 2009
Posted January 13, 2009
Each January for the past three years, LISNews has selected ten blogs written by librarians that show special promise
as sources of information, inspiration, or amusement for library workers.
Here's the list for 2009; links to previous years' lists are
here.
- California Mayor Wants to Require All Kids to Obtain Library Cards
Posted January 10, 2009
Details from KSBW.com.
Found via Shelf Awareness.
- Librarian: A Promising Career Choice?
Posted January 8, 2009
Every week brings news of another U.S. public library system cutting back on staff (and/or its materials budget and/or its hours of
operations and/or the number of its facilities), but if U.S. News & World Report says that becoming a librarian is a
prudent career choice, it must be true, right?
What's most interesting about this
article are the 100+ comments
the online version has garnered from readers.
Found via Jessamyn West's librarian.net.
- Booklover/Fiction Selector Alert: List of Top 20 Science Fiction Novels
Posted January 8, 2009
This list, touted as "the
20 sci fi novels that will change your life" is hardly that - especially as the majority of them just happen to have been
published within the past 10 years - but it - and the additional titles suggested by readers - is a great tool for quickly
compiling a short purchase list of sci fi novels that should probably be in every public library fiction collection.
Found via the AFPLS Blog
via Readers Advisory Online via
Conversational Reading.
Read previously-posted Booklover Alerts
- Public Libraries Have Some Good Friends...
Posted January 7, 2008
The president of the Friends of Georgia Libraries had his
op-ed published in this past Monday's edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His salute to libraries
includes varous interesting reminders of how much public support libraries enjoy, even in tough economic times.
- Flood Damages Oregon Library
Posted January 6, 2009
A few details on the extent
of the damage, posted by the Seattle Times.
Found via LISNews.
- The New Library-Using Environment Many Libraries Continue to Ignore
Posted January 3, 2009
Just a couple of snippets from a perspective articulated by library commentator
Lorcan Dempsey that many public library administrators foolishly believe applies only to academic libraries:
"Discovery happens elsewhere [than via the library catalog or website]: People [with Internet connections] discover items of
interest in a variety of ways: on search engines, in their RSS aggregators, in the resource networks created on social
network sites, in consumer recommendations, on collaborative bookmarking sites, in reading and course lists, and so on.
Increasingly, we cannot expect users to seek out individual Web sites or resources [including library websites or library
database interfaces]....
Information is abundant; attention is scarce: As resources, tools, and environments proliferate so does the attention
available for any single one of them decline. The implication here for libraries is clear: readers and writers have many
choices, so convenience of use is really important....
...The library systems environment was, by and large, shaped before the current period, and it was shaped by different
requirements...."
Given these indisputable facts, it is amazing - and increasingly mortifying - that AFPL continues to lumber on
self-destructively into its uncertain future as an institution without a full-time Technical Services Manager, allowing its
website to be controlled by county IT people unfamiliar with (and oblivious to the needs of) libraries, and generally
unfocused on aggressively addressing the expectations of its computer-owning/using library patrons.
These computer users' expectations will only continue to multiply as Internet use morphs into an ever-more-entrenced default mode
for how computer-owners seek information, how they seek out entertainment (in the form of fiction books, audiobooks, videos,
local events, exhibits, etc.), and how they pursue connections with other (computer-owning) people with similar interests.
Remember how painfully long it took for AFPL's librarians to cajole its administrators into dragging AFPL into the
graphical-user-interface (vs. an exclusively text-based) Internet world? It seems to be taking a similarly prolonged period for
AFPL to acknowledge and adapt its operations to the ways most people are currently using the Internet.
Is this not poor stewardship of library resources? Is this not minimizing rather than maximizing the use of the public
library's resources among the computer-owning citizenry?
- Citizens' Outcry Prevents Library Closures in Philadelphia
Posted January 3, 2009
From the Philadelphia Inqurier, a
description of how disparate groups of citizens in Philly rallied themselves into a
unified coalition to stop the implementation of the mayor's November decree that he
was planning to close 11 branch libraries by the end of 2008.
Found via LISNews.
- Mystery Writer Donald Westlake Dead at 75
Posted January 3, 2009
Obituary from the New York Times.
Found via Library Stuff.
- Selector/Booklover Alert: Another Website for Keeping Current with What's Happening in the Book Publishing World
Posted January 3, 2009
A year ago, a former editor and a former publisher of Library Journal launced a website/blog for helping librarians
navigate intelligently through the great marketing machine of the U.S. publishing industry. Read the site's
self-description and examples of its publishing-related scoops and predictions for 2008 and you'll probably decide you can't
afford NOT to bookmark Nora Rawlison's and Fred Ciporen's Early Word.
We're just added this website to "LibraryLand's" list of frequently-used sources.
Found via OPLIN 4Cast.
Read previously-posted Booklover Alerts
- Nonbook Selector Alert: National Film Registry Announces Selections for 2008
Posted January 3, 2009
Are these U.S. films recently dubbed as classics by the Library of
Congress in your library's collection?
Found via Peter Scott's Library Blog.
- Fake Memoirs That Oprah Helped Turn into Bestsellers
Posted January 2, 2009
Interesting re-cap of the four (!) books published as
nonfiction that were heralded by Oprah Winfrey, and whose authors later were exposed as frauds.
Found via Bibliophile Bullpen.
Continue reading previously-posted LibraryLand Bulletins
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