Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: National Book Critics Circle Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

Well there sure were a lot of awards lists over the last week or so. I think I am through the backlog, for now. 

The National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists were announced here. Since 1974, the NBCC, made up of mostly literary critics, honors outstanding writing and fosters a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature. 

The finalists are in 8 categories:

• Fiction
• Nonfiction
• Biography 
• Autobiography
• Poetry
• Criticism
• John Leonard Prize-- Best First Books
• Gregg Barrios Book in Translation

Of note, the John Leonard Prize is for any first book, not just fiction. I find that fascinating. I believe it is the only award that is given for simply a first book, full stop.

Also, the separation of nonfiction, biography, and autobiography not only allows for more nonfiction to be honored, but is acknowledges the big difference between biography and autobiography both the obvious distinction of how it is written and the fact that the appeal for readers is different as well.

I always like comparing the National Book Award finalists to the NBCC. They are fairly similar, but you can see distinctions, especially if you follow reviews as I do. The NBA is chosen by a group of mostly authors, while the NBCC is driven by the critics. You can especially see trends emerging over time if you look at both. Thankfully, both awards make the backlist easy to access. [There is a box on the top right gutter of the "Awards" page for the NBCC.]

This year for example, while James is on both lists, the other nominees are all different. This gives you many more "best" options for readers. Add in the Booker Prize and you get the big picture view of the best books published in English in any given year.

While "best" books aren't always the most popular with readers, they are the harbinger of larger movements. For example, as award finalists have gotten more diverse, the demand for more titles by marginalized voices has made it way into the conversation about all books.

Also, the emergence of small presses into the larger spotlight is another trend that I have noticed. Here we see Two Dollar Radio with a best novel nomination. But go down the whole list, there are a bunch of very small presses with nominations here.

So use this award list as a resource as I note in the introduction to this post above, but also, think about grouping similar awards together, consider their backlists from the last 5 years, and see if you can notice a few trends or changes yourself. When we embrace trends and larger movements as they are developing, we show our patrons we understand them. Anticipating what they want is not that hard if you pay attention and it leads to more check outs.

All of our work with readers starts with resources, and awards lists are one of my favorite resources.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Audie Awards Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool. 

As part of my Year in Review presentation for NoveList on 2/4 (details and registration link here), Yaika Sabat and I have a lot to say not only about how much audiobook listening is growing, but how ubiquitous listening to an audiobook has become.

Look at this mind blowing report from the APA about the ubiquity of audiobooks right now. That information is in general, but then there is also this report that came out earlier this month, done with LJ and SLJ-- DIGITAL AUDIOBOOKS LEAD GROWTH IN LIBRARY CIRCULATION FOR THE SECOND YEAR.

And then, The Guardian UK went on the declare 2024, The Year if the Audiobook back in December.

All this is lead up to remind you that even if Audiobooks (and especially eAudio) are not part your general area of work, if your job is more print (physical and ebooks), you cannot sleep on audiobooks. You need to know about how the appeal of audio can be different than print, about who the best narrators are, and which books translate best to the audio format. And that is just the tip of the iceberg,

I begin my general RA training program with a reminder that audiobooks (and graphic novels) are reading and that this information is non-negotiable. If you disagree with me, I explain, you are wrong and you need to get over it. There is no room for discussion here. 

I have been saying this for over 10 years now, and I think the library world is finally catching up with me.

Knowing all of this, the announcement of the Audies long lists are a treasure trove of a resource. First, the current list of finalists. From the APA's Audie Awards Press Release for 2025:

JANUARY 22, 2025, NEW YORK, NY – Today, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) announced finalists for the 30th Annual Audie Awards®, the premier awards program recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. Full list of finalists below. Winners across 28 competitive categories will be revealed on March 4 in New York, which will be hosted by Emmy® nominated actress, comedian, and author, Amy Sedaris (2008 Audies finalist). 

“As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Audie Awards, we’re reflecting on three decades of honoring the incredible talent and innovation within the audiobook industry,” said Sean McManus, President, Audio Publishers Association. “This year’s finalists represent the very best in storytelling, and we couldn’t be more excited to celebrate their achievements. We’re also thrilled to have Amy Sedaris as our host—her wit, charm, and unmistakable sense of humor will bring a unique spark to the evening. It’s a perfect match for an event that celebrates the art of voice and performance, and we can't wait for everyone to join us in this special celebration!”

“I’m absolutely thrilled to be hosting the 30th Annual Audie Awards this year,” exclaimed Sedaris. “It’s such an honor to celebrate audiobooks and the many talented voices involved—especially since mine is usually reserved for explaining how to glue things together or reading instructions on soup cans.”

Click here to see the 28 categories and the list of nominated audiobooks.  I will note, for our work (matching books to their best reader), understanding the different categories is as important as the titles that are listed under them. Why? Because these categories help us to work with readers. For example, do they want a full cast recording? Or are they like me, do they prefer a specific genre or nonfiction category for their audiobooks? (I love mysteries, memoir, and history of science in audio--more than reading them in print).

And because this I say blog, notice the Horror category which has 2 Stephen Graham Jones releases and Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle-- all 3 of which are among my favorite reads of 2024. The Bury Your Gays audio has many narrators, including Stephen Graham Jones. 

Again click here for the entire list.

Make sure you have as many of these as possible in your eAudio collections. If you have the means, add a few to your "skip the line" collections. Personally I just got Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham, Narrated by Jacques Roy through this exact method.

And thankfully, after years of frustration and me having to do deep searches on the APA website in order to find the backlist press releases and nominee lists so that you could have easier access to them all, the Audio Publishers Association has created easy to access lists of the last few years of nominees and winners on the main Audie Awards info page, as well as  providing a link at the bottom of that page to downloadable spreadsheet of every nominee and winner ever! Since it is a spreadsheet, you can sort it however you want-- by year, by category, by narrator, etc. Have at it! And tank you APA for this wonderful resource of backlist goodness.

Remember you can make lists in Overdrive, in your catalogs, or on your websites to connect people directly to "displays" of eAudio. Or add QR codes in your buildings to get people to the lists from their phones as they browse.

Our patrons no longer look at format as much as we do. The increase in downloads of eBooks and especially eAudio means people will try to get a book in the format that comes the fastest. They don't always make the same distinctions or set up the silos we seem to be obsessed with. Make sure they know all of their options, especially their "best" options, by pointing them to Audio specific awards lists-- including those from the last 2-5 years.

Back tomorrow with one more post to round out this awards list heavy week.

Unshelve Your Collection in 2025: A Guest Post by Lila Denning

One of my regular guest posters is Lila Denning, an expert presenter on library book displays. In early January she proclaimed 2025 the year we "unshelve our collections" on her Passively Recommending Books Blog.

From that post:

While we all re-evaluate what will be different in 2025, I want to encourage you to unshelve your collection more this year. I've chosen that well-used library phrase to describe taking books out of the stacks and moving them around your building to show off what treasures are in your stacks. 

You can keep reading that post here.

While Denning plans to post on this topic all year (you can pull up all if her "unshelve" posts here), after I read it, I asked her to expand upon this introduction for my readers. The simplicity of the idea and the fun word play makes this an easy to promote strategy.

And so, here is Unshelve Your Collections by Lila Denning.

Shelves and shelves of book spines can create a great picture but it's not always the best way for a patron who is browsing your stacks to find their next great read. That's why this year I am encouraging everyone to unshelve their collections. All this means to find as many ways as possible to get your collection away from being lost in your stacks and out where it can be discovered by someone. 

There are simple ways to accomplish this. The easiest is to purchase some easels and put one book face out on every shelf. You will be amazed at what will be checked out simply because you put it face out on a shelf. This also is easy for any library worker to help keep filled; all that has to be done is pick a book from that shelf and place it on an empty easel. There is a sort of serendipity to this as everyone in your building will likely pick a different book so what’s faced out will constantly change. 

Book displays are another way to unshelve your collection by curating a small collection of materials on a theme and grouping them together. I cover basics and try to provide ideas on my blog and in my presentations for library workers. The magic behind book displays is that when the covers are faced out, they will always catch someone’s eye. Mix up fiction and non-fiction. Move materials to a part of your building that is far from where the rest of the collection is located. Add audiovisual materials to a display with books. Keep the signage and decorations simple. The focus should be on the covers.

Your eBooks and eAudiobooks are a treasure that not everyone in your community knows about. You can unshelve them by setting up a book display with covers from the titles included in your digital collection. Add QR codes to the website and information about how to sign up for the service. You can mix the face outs on your shelves by adding signage on some shelves with suggestions for titles in your eBook collection. 

Whatever social media accounts your library uses can also help you unshelve your collection. One idea I have suggested is a “Five for Friday” series. Just pick five titles on a theme and take a picture. You can put them on a cart, table, or have a staff member hold them. A schedule can be set up and anyone who works in your library can have a chance to pick a theme and their five items. Add a short paragraph explaining the titles and provide information about how to put them on request. If staff are comfortable, you can have a short video where the staff member explains their choices. 

If a topic pops up in the news, use that as a reason to add a post with some titles that might be of interest to someone who wants more information. Find a theme similar to what you would use for a book display and create a grouping of covers for your social media. If someone has the interest and skills, you can create clever graphic or just use a series of book cover images. 

Don’t limit your unshelving efforts to your building. Partner with local businesses and get small posters and fliers out into your community that include titles and covers from your collection. You can use local celebrations and events for inspiration. Create bookmarks with covers that can be given away. Make some themed posters and book marks with coffee related titles for a cafe or pizza related titles for a pizza shop. There are pet speciality stores that are popping up. There are many pet related titles in our collections. Remind the people in your community who don’t regularly come into your building how amazing your library is. 

These are but a few examples of unshelving your collections to get you started thinking about the concept. For the rest of 2025 I am going to try to discuss many ways of unshelving your collection that can be used by libraries regardless of size or budget. Reach out to me if you have ideas that your library has used to show off the titles in your collection. I would love to share them! Let’s use this year to help readers discover what treasures are waiting for them on our shelves. 

Click here to join Lila in her "Unshelve Your Collections" year of posts. Let her help you get your ideas to get started and then reach out to her (as she mentions above) if you have idea that worked for you so she can share them with others. 

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: RUSA Books and Media Awards and Bonus, YALSA Alex Awards

 This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool. 

On Sunday,  RUSA presented their Books and Media Awards, including the most prestigious prize The Andrew Carnegie  Medal for Excellence in Fiction and  Nonfiction. Below are the individual links for the lists a winners with the ACM titles singled out. For each award I will also explain what it is for, but note, these are all the best and most readable titles for a general adult audience. 

I cannot stress enough how important these awards are to us as we help our patrons. These books were picked as excellent by our peers-- people who do the job of connecting books with readers through the public library. I have served on the ACM committee and have many friends who have served on all of the others below. These choices are from a consensus of people who understand readers and what they are looking for in their leisure reads. This is not a popularity contest. These books represent proven winners. And as such, you can trust all of these books to appeal to your patrons. You should own them and add them proudly to displays and lists for years to come. 

Please go to the excellent RUSA Book and Media website which has a link for each award with the current winners displayed and very easy backlist access. That backlist access is here, but please note, you need to use the links below for Sunday's winners until they update the main page.

First up, The Andrew Carnegie  Medal for Excellence in Fiction and  Nonfiction. The Carnegie Awards, established in 2012, serve as a guide to help adults select quality reading material. They are the first single-book awards for adult books given by ALA and reflect the expert judgment and insight of library professionals and booksellers who work closely with adult readers.Please go to the ACM website for the finalists, long list, and backlist, but the 2025 winners are: 

Fiction:
Percival Everett
James
(Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC)

In an astounding riposte, Everett rewrites Huckleberry Finn as the liberation narrative of the enslaved man Huck befriends. Determined to rescue his wife and daughter, James takes the story in a completely different direction than the original, exemplifying the relentless courage and moral clarity of an honorable man with nothing to lose.

Nonfiction:
Kevin Fedarko
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
(Scribner)

Centering his own lifelong relationship with the Grand Canyon, from reading about it as a child through his time as a clumsy canoe guide, Fedarko shares his canyon-spanning hike, replete with steps, missteps, and arguments along the way. He particularly inspires in detailing the ancestral history of the land and some of the Indigenous individuals who continue to fight against overdevelopment and ever-booming tourism.

All the other awards are for multiple titles.

• 2025 Notable Books: An annual best-of list composed of  titles written for adult readers and published in the US including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. 26 titles this year.
• 2025 Sophie Brody Medal Winner and Honor Books: Given to encourage, recognize and commend outstanding achievement in Jewish literature. Works for adults published in the United States in the preceding year are eligible for the award.
• 2025 Listen List: Outstanding Audiobook Narration: This year’s committee evaluated 257 titles with a total listening time of more than 2,724 hours. The final deliberation produced a list of 12 winners. This award highlights extraordinary narrators and listening experiences that merit special attention by a general adult audience and the librarians who advise them. Each of the 12 winners has three "listen-alike" as well.[Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay made the list!]
• The 2025 Reading List: An annual best-of list comprised of eight different fiction genres for adult readers. Winning titles are also presented with readalikes. A shortlist of honor titles, up to 4 per genre was also announced. This year the committee chair said that while the books came from every genre, there was a common theme uniting this comfortable and cozy titles-- found family. I do love how one committee does all of the genres because of outcomes like this-- a theme across all for he reading. The genres are: Adrenaline, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Relationship Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction. [The Horror winner was Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle.]

Again, please peruse all of the winners from last night here. And explore the rich and easily searchable backlist of titles here. That excellent and easily searchable database of current and past winners will be updated later this week. It is a site you should have bookmarked at all times because there are many choices for a broad adult audience.

Finally, on Monday morning as part of the Youth Media Awards, the Alex Awards, identifying the 20 best adult books for teens were announced. Here is the link to the list of all of the Youth award winners including the Alex award titles.

Yes this award is given to adult books with the idea that they are good for a teen audience, but I have used this award for years to identify high interest titles that I can use as sure best for adults. The Alex Award is also always more genre fiction friendly than general adult awards meaning I have a wider range of titles than typical "literary" awards. 

The Alex Award winners, past and present [use that backlist] are one of my go-to resources for "sure bet" titles for my adult patrons anytime. These are titles I know will be compelling and interesting. Click here  to access the backlist. Put all of the winners on display. You don't have to identify them as "for teens," just  make it a library worker award winners themed display. Put up these titles, past titles, and other titles by the winning authors as simply, "Sure Bets." The resulting display will be diverse in every way by default.

Back to the 2025 award specifically. It is not on the homepage yet, but again,here is the full list. One of my favorite books of the year made the list-- I Was a Teenaged Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones. You can click here to read my STAR review of this amazing title about a male-female teenaged friendship and of course, a tale that upends the Slasher Genre as we thought we knew it.

That's the end of this long but helpful post. Congrats to all the books and authors who got awards from the library world over the last few days and a big thank you to the library workers who volunteered their time to serve on these committees. As someone who has been on the ACM, I know how hard this work is, but I also know how rewarding it can be as well.

Tomorrow, we will take a short break from awards lists with a guest post about "unshelving" your collections. 

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Edgar Awards Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool. 

Well it is a busy week of awards long lists. I am going to be posting them all week here on RA for All. This also means it is time for me to do my HUGE annual update of my genre program. This is also why I don't give that talk in the first 2 months of the year-- I need time to update it.

More about that soon as I will post the update when it is ready with commentary. 

This week we have Mystery, Literary, Audiobooks, and all the Library Books and Media award winners. 

I am going to start with the Edgars, one of my favorite awards. 

Here is the link to the Edgar Awards database (so easy to use) and the specific PDF with all of the information about the 2025 nominees. 

The Edgar awards are an EXCELLENT resource, for all of the reasons I normally discuss [see link in the intro], but also because 3 of their awards are straight up readalike awards-- The Mary Higgins Clark Award, the Lillian Jackson Braun Award, and the Sue Grafton Memorial Award. I rely on these awards to help fans of these authors find new titles and authors.

The Edgar Awards also have a WONDERFUL database of past winners and nominees. You can easily search back 79 years [!] and because mysteries are so popular in our libraries, there are endless display and suggestion possibilities held in that database. You can search by category, author, year, basically anyway you might want to look for titles, they have you covered.

Explore the database for yourself.

The range of titles as usual is large and the options are all great suggestions for a wide range of readers. Take just the "Best Novel" category as our example:

BEST NOVEL

• The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Penguin Random House – Random House Worlds/Del Rey
• Rough Trade by Katrina Carrasco (Farrar, Straus and Giroux – MCD)
• Things Don’t Break on Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins (Penguin Random House – Crown)
• My Favorite Scar by Nicolás Ferraro (Soho Press – Soho Crime)
• The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (Penguin Random House – Riverhead Books)
• Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera (Macmillan Publishers – Celadon Books)
• The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell (Penguin Random House – Doubleday)

You want a snapshot of the "mystery" landscape, one of our most popular areas for library checkouts, look no further than the Edgar Awards nominees this year, well any year really, and especially over the last 5 years. You can track trends, rising star authors, and key readalike titles with just a click or two. 

And you want diverse displays that cover a wide swath of mystery readers? The last few years of Edgar nominees will make you a great display or online list. 

Click here or on the image above to access the full color, PDF press release for this year's nominees.

Just Say No to AI: Reddit

This post is part of a series entitled, "Just Say Not to AI." Click here to pull up all the posts in this series (in reverse chronilogical order). For the first post in this series, click here.

Today I am beginning a new series where I counter the unabated proliferation of generative AI in the library profession. While I will focus on AI and Readers' Advisory, I am not closing the door to speak out about other areas of librarianship in this series.

This is the first post in that series and it will be linked in the heading for all future posts; therefore, I wanted to also give a little background as to what finally pushed me to start this series.

Stated simply it was the RUSA Town Hall Meeting on January 8. 2025. At this meeting, Melissa S. Del Castillo presented "Leveraging AI for Enhanced Reference & User Services" You can view the recording here. You can also view the slides here.

This presentation was infuriating. The things the presenter promoted using AI for were not only terrifying but I think quite dangerous. Concerns about deprofessionalization are already huge in librarianship and while I do not think every library worker needs the Masters Degree to do good work, we are all information professionals. We cannot cede our place as the people who help make sure our users have access to credible and accurate information.

Early in the presentation the slide I have inserted to this post (above) was offered as a list of examples of things AI can already do for us. Look at this list! The presenter went on to give some detail about the examples from this list and each one was more terrifying than the last. Literally we were told, "Let AI do the stuff you don't like doing." The presenter then went on to use themself as an example, "I hate doing LibGudies so here is how I use AI to do them for me." 

LIBGUIDES?!?!?! I screamed out loud. LibGuides are literally thing we make to help people navigate access to resources and information on a topic. It is literally the thing that best defines why we are irreplaceable as the connection between information from credible resources and those who want that information. 

In case you think I misunderstood and am overreacting, I am not. I passed the link on to a few of my colleagues and they all were terrified and infuriated by this presentation. They had other examples that made them even more mad. And the fact that it is all being passed off as our "duty" as information professionals to use AI ....I just can't Just watch the recording, but make sure you are ready to be angry.

Deep breath....

Readers' Advisory is also right there on the left. Now while I think none of these things should be done by generative AI, I of course took umbrage with RA being there. Why? Because RA requires human interaction. Readers' tastes do not follow an algorithm. People like what they like and it often does not make sense to a computer. RA is all about leveraging the human interaction involved in making connections between books and readers. As I discuss here and in all of my presentations, our connections with readers begin with books; those connections lead to relationships; those relationships create community; and libraries are nothing without our communities.

And so, I true Becky fashion, when I am angry and disagree with others, I act. Hence this new series-- Just Say No to AI. In this series I will highlight the resources and RA practices that are not only the opposite of AI but also are among the helpful to all of us. The idea is to highlight why and how RA is human driven.

Today, I will begin with the most people driven resource, one that I love and use so much that I have added it as one of the "Practice" examples in my 10 Rules of Basic RA Service-- Reddit.

From Reddit's own about page:

Reddit is home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic human connection. Whether you're into breaking news, sports, TV fan theories, or a never-ending stream of the internet's cutest animals, there's a community on Reddit for you.

Reddit by definition is a place of authentic human connection and interaction. And "books" is a topic that is thriving, vibrant, and chock full of real life readers discussing their favorite books, suggesting books to each other, and discussing book topics on the site. But it is not just a free for all of people and their opinions there. Most Reddit feeds and topics are moderated by humans as well.

An important note: you do not need to login our register to use Reddit as a resource. You only need an account to comment. I use Reddit daily and have never once logged in.

The main page for all book information is here. It is a human moderated space. From that page you can use the provided links to explore. Or, you can do my favorite thing. I use Google to run searches to find reader driven suggestions and add "Reddit" to my search language. So, the search "books for fans of Stephen Graham Jones Reddit" gives me multiple places where I can enter different Reddit forums and see what readers are saying about this popular author.

I have found many unique suggestions and readalike options by following the trail of readers who care enough about the books they love to share their thoughts with other readers. And you can easily drill down to very specific interests, likes, and dislikes. Here are a few example searches I have done for readers with the "subreddit" or specific area of the site where the information is filed to give you a sense of the breadth of subreddits.

• Romances with NO miscommunication  (r/RomanceBooks)
• Books for those who like the liminal space trope (r/horrorlit)
• Science Fiction in space without war  (r/booksuggestions)
• Historical Fiction not about WWII  (r/suggestmeabook)
• Memoirs by people who are not celebrities  (r/suggestmeabook)

Try it for yourself. Do a Google search for something uber specific. Ask your most picky patrons to give you their most difficult suggestion and then add reddit to the search string. And if by chance you don't find an answer, no worries. You can login and start your own string and ask your specific question. I promise you, a human reader (or 10) will start giving you answers ASAP. 

Please stay vigilant about the intrusion of generative AI into our very personal work of matching books with readers. Do not let others, especially those who claim they are on our side and or part of our community, lead you to believe you need generative AI to do your job. You do not. In fact, your work will suffer if you forget that readers like what they like and it does not always make sense when plotted on a chart or extracted from an algorithm. But when you, the RA information professional, have a conversation with a reader, you can help navigate their specific likes and dislikes, sort through the resources, and help them find their next great read.

Look for more of this series soon.

And if you have ideas on how we can just say no to AI, contact me for a possible guest post.

Keeping Up with Books: 2024 Year in Review-- Free Webinar Featuring ME!

As I have mentioned a few times here on the blog, I have been working on the 2024 Year in Review with Yaika Sabat to present for NoveList.

Well the FREE webinar is now up for you to register. We cannot wait to see you there. Details and direct registration link below. There is no need for your library to be subscribed to NoveList to signup. All are welcome.  However, please note, you can only view this live for free. Only those with  a Learn With NoveList subscription will have access to the recording. Anyone can purchase just this class though.

We just did a full run through yesterday and I think it is very good. You will want to join us for sure! Okay, now the details...

Keeping Up with Books: 2024 Year in Review

Do you feel like there are too many books and not enough time to stay up to date? Trying to stay "in the know" is overwhelming with countless books across genres. That's why we're offering the webinar Keeping Up with Books: 2024 Year in Review. If you feel like the year flew by, you barely got a chance to look at everything published, can't get enough of the "Best Of" lists, or want to know how to use these trends to provide better service to your readers, this webinar is for you.

Join Becky Spratford, Readers' Advisory Specialist at RA for All, and Yaika Sabat, Manager of Reader Services at NoveList, as they discuss:

• Library and publishing news and trends
• 2024 bestsellers and "Best Of" lists
• The books and authors library patrons searched for and checked out
• How to use this information to help readers
• What you can expect in 2025 

The webinar takes place on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, at 2 p.m. EST.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches on Circulating Ideas

Long time readers of this blog know that I am a huge fan and past guest of Circulating Ideas. Listen every week because Steve Thomas always has something new for me to learn. He is a curious librarian who goes out of his way to have conversations with library people about what they are doing, writing about, thinking about, etc...

With this knowledge, that I am already a fan of the podcast, I need you to understand when I say this that I am NOT exaggerating-- the current episode (277) is one of his best and most important ever.

Thomas interviews the three editors (Billey Albina, Elizabeth Nelson, and Rebecca Uhl) of the new book from ALA Editions (also my publisher), Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches.

Listening to Albina, Nelson, and Uhl talk about the book on the podcast had me shouting for joy and cheering in multiple places. These three editors talk about inclusive cataloging in ways that Robin and I do in our anti-racist service training programs, with one big difference-- they are the catalogers we are not. 

But they still say the same things we do. For example, you cannot wait for subject headings to be officially changed, rather, you can do the work at your own library no matter how big or small, as long as you do the back end  work to create authority links. I have been advocating for this for years, but I was told, "Oh Becky, you don't understand how important subject headings (no matter how harmful they are) work; You can't just change them." Catalogers talked down to me all the time. But here's the thing. Albina, Nelson, and Uhl agree with me and they are not only acting, they have gathered others to share their actions, libraries big, small, public, academic, everyone.

There is so much in the book (I am getting a copy for myself) yes, but there is also A LOT here in the podcast for you to listen to. 

There are days Robin and I are tired and defeated. People come to us with their stories all of the time. We are thankful that they know they can trust us. As a result, we also know how hard it is out there. We know that sometimes you are battling more than your patrons; you are also fighting against your administration, bosses, even other larger library entities. The weight of these stories, on top of one an other, is heavy. And there are days it feels like there is no signs of improvement. However, it is invigorating to hear about others who are on the same journey as us. Who are fighting for inclusivity, fighting against systemic oppression, and seeking a place where everyone belongs.

Please listen to the podcast, get the link and more information below and consider buying the book-- even if you are not a cataloger. There is much for you to learn here. In fact, I am adding this post, the book, and an excerpt that was also published in American Libraries-- all of it to my portion of the upcoming program Robin and I are doing with ALA eCourses (sign up here). I want to make sure I let as many people know about this as possible. I want the great work of Albina, Nelson, and Uhl to reach as many people as possible.

Thanks again to Steve Thomas for all of the work he does on Circulating Ideas always and with this episode in particular. Use this link to subscribe to his newsletter as well.

277: Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches

Steve chats with Billey Albina, Elizabeth Nelson, and Rebecca Uhl, editors of Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches about their journeys into librarianship, the importance of inclusive cataloging, and how to implement inclusive practices even in small libraries.

Read the transcript!

Filling a gap in the literature, this volume provides librarians and catalogers with practical approaches to reparative cataloging as well as a broader understanding of the topic and its place in the technical services landscape.

As part of the profession’s ongoing EDISJ efforts to redress librarianship’s problematic past, practitioners from across the field are questioning long-held library authorities and standards. They’re undertaking a critical and rigorous re-examination of so-called “best” practices and the decisionmakers behind them, pointing out heretofore unscrutinized injustices within our library systems of organization and making concrete steps towards progressive change. This collection from Core details the efforts of some of the many librarians who are working to improve our systems and collections, in the process inspiring those who have yet to enact change by demonstrating that this work is scalable, possible, and necessary. From this book, readers will

• gain an understanding of the theoretical underpinning for the actions that create our history and be challenged to reconsider their perspectives;
• learn about the important role of the library catalog in real-world EDISJ initiatives through examples ranging from accessibility metadata and gendered information to inclusive comics cataloging and revising LC call numbers for Black people and Indigenous people;
• discover more than a dozen case studies drawn from a variety of contexts including archives, academic and public libraries, and research institutions; and
• see ways to incorporate these ideas into their own work, with a variety of sample policies, “how to” documents, and other helpful tools provided in the text.    

Billey Albina (née Amber Billey) served as the Chair of the Leadership Team for the Core Metadata & Collection Section and Co-Chair of the Core Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is a member of the PCC Advisory Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and was Chair of the PCC Ad Hoc Task Group on Gender in Name Authority Records. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Digital Transgender Archive, and the editorial board for the Homosaurus – a linked data thesaurus for the LGBTQ+ community. Previously, she was the Associate Director for Bibliographic Services at Bard College.

Elizabeth Nelson is the Cataloging and Collection Development Librarian and Library Department Chair at McHenry County College, where she has worked since 2008. Prior to working in academic libraries, she started her career in public libraries and then spent seven years in special libraries. She is also the current editor of Library Leadership & Management.

Rebecca Uhl has over 30 years’ experience as a catalog and authority control librarian at Arizona State University. Currently serving as the Principal on the Acquisitions and Metadata Services team, she has experience as a manager, supervisor and department head, in addition to copy and original cataloging in all formats.

SHOW NOTES:

Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches
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[This is Becky again. Normally you have to subscribe to the substack to get the show notes, but these are too important to my readers to not include for this episode. Use the link to subscribe for free for future episodes. 

Ready Reference

Mentioned on the podcast:

• Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches

• McHenry County College library

• Arizona State University library

• Stevenson Library | Bard College

• University of Toronto MSW program

• Field Museum

• “Illegal aliens” (Library of Congress Subject Heading)

• Resource Description and Access (RDA)

• Core | Metadata and Collections Section | Diversity & Inclusion Committee

• LCSH

• LCGFT

• Trans Metadata Collective | Queer Metadata Collective

• ERIC

• Cataloging Lab

• Program for Cooperative Cataloging

• Sanford Berman

• The Joy of Cataloging

• Hennepin Public Library

• Jenna Friedman

• #critcat

• Troublesome Catalogers and Magical Metadata Fairies

• Braiding Sweetgrass

• A is for Axolotl

• Paula Munier