Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: RUSA Adult Books and Media Awards including the Andrew Carnegie Medal Winners

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.

Yesterday, RUSA announced all of the Adult Books and Media Awards winners. 

Before I get to the links too the current winners, I want to remind you all that the entire backlist for all of these awards are available with one easy click on the RUSA Books & Media Awards Landing page here. The 2026 winners will be added soon, but 2025 and previously are all there, organized by award.

Remember, all of these awards lists are created by adult librarians from across the country, who do the work to create them over the course of the entire year as a committee. Their goal is to choose titles that are excellent choices for general adult audiences. These are the best of the best of 2025. These are titles you need to make sure your library owns.

The lists below encompass literary fiction, genre fiction, nonfiction, cookbooks, audiobooks and more with backlist access to all awards here.

First up is the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. You can click through to see the winners for this year, pervious years, and get information about the ceremony at ALA Annual.

Second, is the less prestigious, but in my opinion much more useful and fun, RUSA CODES Reading List awards. From the site:

Established in 2007 by the CODES section of RUSA, The Reading List seeks to highlight outstanding genre fiction that merit special attention by general adult readers and the librarians who work with them.

The Council, which consists of twelve librarians who are experts in readers’ advisory and collection development, selects one book from each of eight different categories. The eight genres currently included in the council’s considerations are adrenaline titles (suspense, thrillers, and action adventure), fantasy, historical fiction, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction, and relationship fiction. However, the Council is constructed in such a way to be adaptable to new genres and changes in contemporary reading interest.

This year's winners are not up on the awards page website yet, but the announcement can be found here. As it says above there are 8 categories-- all genre based! Each category has a winner. That titles gets an annotation [which you can use to book talk the title to a patron] and 3 readalikes. There is also a short list of other titles as well. 

This means that for each of the 8 categories you have 8 titles that you can trust for each genre. That is 64 genre titles at your fingertips just this year alone! And then, take into account that the Award homepage goes back to 2014, and, well, try not to explode with genre resource happiness.

Also, it is VERY important to note that these are genre titles picked NOT by genre specialists, rather by general adult services librarians. That's what I love about this list. It reflects what is most appealing to a wide audience, not just hard core fans of each genre.

The rest of the awards are listed below:

• 2026 Notable Books List: "The Notable Books Council, first established in 1944, has announced the 2026 selections of the Notable Books List, an annual best-of list composed of 26 titles written for adult readers and published in the US including fiction, nonfiction and poetry. The list was announced today during the Reference & User Services Book & Media Awards Virtual Ceremony."
• Announcement of this year's books
• Backlist access

• 2026 Listen List: "The Listen List Council of the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) has released the 2026 selections of the Listen List: Outstanding Audiobook Narration. This year’s committee evaluated 340 titles with a total listening time of more than 3,496 hours.  The final deliberation produced a list of twelve winners. This award highlights extraordinary narrators and listening experiences that merit special attention by a general adult audience and the librarians who advise them. "
• This one features annotations and listen-alikes
• Announcement of this year's audiobooks
• Backlist access

• 2026 Sophie Brody Medal: "The Sophie Brody Medal is 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."
• Announcement of this year's Medal winner and shortlist honor books
• Backlist access

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Andrew Carnegie Medal Edition [See Also Attack of the Best Lists]

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.  

Also

This post is part of my year end "Attack of the Best Lists" coverage. To see every post in my "Attack of the Best Lists 2024" coverage [and more backlist best of the year options] you can click here.

I have a soft spot in my heart for the Carnegie Medal Selection Committee because a few years ago year, I was a part of that group.

Late last week, the long list was announced. But first, unfamiliar with this award? From the website:

The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, established in 2012, recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year and serve as a guide to help adults select quality reading material. They are the first single-book awards for adult books given by the American Library Association and reflect the expert judgment and insight of library professionals who work closely with adult readers. The winning authors (one for fiction, one for nonfiction) receive a $5,000 cash award. For more information on award seals, please visit the ALA store.

A longlist comprised of no more than 50 titles is released in the fall. Six finalists, three fiction and three nonfiction, are announced in November. The winners are announced in January. All honored titles are nominated by the members of the selection committee. The awards do not accept submissions.

Part one of the selection committee's assignment is to select a long list of no more than 50 titles. 

Here is that official long list announcement for the current year:

 

 

Forty-five extraordinary books—21 fiction and 24 nonfiction—have been named to the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence longlist.

The six-title shortlist—three each for the fiction and nonfiction medals—will be chosen from longlist titles and announced on November 18, 2025. The two medal winners will be announced on Tuesday, January 27, 2026. 

Explore the full longlist and share your favorites using #ALA_Carnegie and our downloadable graphics.

Click here to see all of the titles.

Now the hard part begins for the committee as they must whittle down these 20+ titles in fiction and nonfiction to 6 titles-- 3 fiction and 3 nonfiction. That announcement will be on November 18th as noted above.

But all 45 books are excellent to suggest to a wide swath of readers. Why? Because the committee is tasked with choosing excellent examples of books for a general adult reading audience. When I was on the committee, there were some awesome nonfiction titles that we discounted because they were too academic, for example. 

I have read a few books on this list but I wanted to point out one in particular because it is amazing and it is 100% Horror-- The Unworthy by Augustina Bazterrica, Translated by Sarah Moses. I gave this book a star in LJ. 

Finally, like all of my awards lists post, I need to remind you about the backlist. The Carnegie Medal homepage has access to the winners, short list, and long list titles going all the way back to 2012 and up to the present all through a drop down menu at the top of the page. All of these titles make for excellent suggestions and the 6 annual short list titles all have an annotations for you to use to suggest them to readers immediately. 

Make sure you own all 45 books from this year and then combine those that are on the shelf with some backlist gems to make a display for the Andrew Carnegie Medal or save these up for your end of the year best lists displays. 

But most importantly, trust the library workers and book seller on the committee and suggest these titles far and wide.

Becky's ALA Schedule Including Me Interviewing Joe Hill

Click through for the full
schedule of events and panels

I think I may have my busiest ALA Annual Conference ever mostly because I am attending as a librarian and author.

Below is my appearance schedule. These are things I am actively participating in. Links go to the full details for each.

Please note, this is my official appearance schedule. I will be at other panels and events as an attendee. Come find me though. I will have RA for All stickers and pens as well as special stickers for my book.

Friday June 27

While the opening session for ALA Annual is not unit 4:00pm, I am beginning my conferencing participating in the Library Insights Summit which is happening from 8:30am to 3pm and includes lunch with your registration. It is in the convention center and if you click on each program in the schedule here you can see which rooms are being used.

From the Library Insights Summit landing page:

This is an in-person only daylong conference focused on bringing publishers and librarians together to improve their business relationship, LIS discussion topics include improving metadata for title discovery, balancing digital and print book demand, collaborating on challenges faced by librarians, and marketing tactics for reaching both rural and urban systems. Two keynote speakers, lunch, and refreshments round out the day with plenty of time for networking.

LIS was conceived as a forum for publishing professionals to better understand and interact with librarians, to learn more about current collection development needs, and to network with other publishers to energize their ALA participation.

A separate morning track is designed to meet the needs of author publishers. Please provide demographic information during registration to maximize your participation.

It is $225 for the entire day (with lunch) and you can still register here.

I am moderating and participating in the program for both tracks right after lunch. 

Library Challenges and How Publishers Can Help

This panel will discuss how publishers can offer librarians encouragement and support in the face of book bans, decreasing budgets, collection diversity impediments, technology advances, increasing data insight vs privacy concerns, and a more engaged community.

Saturday, June 28

9-10am, Booth 2442: I will begin my day appearing at the University of Illinois Booth 2442 with Robin to meet with anyone who has questions about our Call for Papers for the issue of Library Trends (published by the University) we are guest editing on Readers' Advisory. For more details about the Call for Papers click here. Also we will both have bookmarks on us that have a QR code with all the info you need.

Then later in the day...

1pm, Room 124: Booklist Presents: The State of RA Today:

Event Description: Readers’ Advisory (RA) is a staple of public library work, and it’s hard enough keeping up with those titles you want to suggest to patrons—but how do you keep up with developments in the field? This panel discussion will take a step back from specific books to take a holistic look at the state of readers’ advisory today. This wide-ranging discussion will focus on the latest RA research, actively anti-racist RA, tools for creating book displays, and how to make RA training available for all staff. This program is hosted by your friends at Booklist and features a host of library luminaries who are experts in RA.

Host:
Susan Maguire, Senior Editor, Collection Management & Library Outreach at Booklist

Panelists:
Becky Spratford
Robin Bradford
E. E. Lawrence
Lila Denning
Jessica Trotter

Next up, my first panel as an author ever!

• 4pm, Room 112 AB: ALMA/LibraryReads Speculative Fiction Adult Author Panel:

Event Description: What Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror will you be reading this fall? Get a preview of what's in store this year with this author panel, featuring the inside stories behind the stories from authors from a variety of publishers. Hosted by Library Reads.

Featuring: Alix E. Harrow, The Everlasting 

Kirsten Miller, The Women of Wild Hill

K. X. Song, The Dragon Wakes with Thunder 

Becky Spratford, Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature 

Andrew Joseph White, You Weren't Meant to Be Human

RSVPs requested for galley giveaways. Please register at: http://bit.ly/SaturdayAuthorsALA25

Please note, you must click on the link above so that there are enough ARCs for everyone. I will be doing a signing as part of this panel as well. 

I will also be at the ticketed Andrew Carnegie Medal Ceremony and Reception in the evening.

Sunday June 29

10:30-11:20am: I am moderating the following panel at the Chapter One Stage (Booth 112) 

Cli-Fi Panel: Exciting Forthcoming Environmental Fiction:

Join authors Anna North (BOG QUEEN, Bloomsbury), Wendy N. Wagner (GIRL IN THE CREEK, Tor Nightfire), and Yume Kitasei (SALTCROP, Flatiron), as they discuss their forthcoming novels, which explore environmental issues in bold new ways and through various genres, including literary fiction, eco-horror, and sci-fi. This panel will be moderated by librarian Becky Spratford, RA for All. 

After 30 minutes of discussion and Q&A, please join the authors for a 20-minute galley signing. Anna North will also have a galley giveaway and signing at the Bloomsbury Adult booth (#1909) immediately after the panel, from 11:30am-12:30pm. Wendy N. Wagner will have an additional signing at the Macmillan booth (#1917) at 1:00pm on Sunday. 

12:30-1:20pm: I am headed to moderate another panel. This time at the A Real Page-Turner Stage (Booth 2435)

Crossing Thresholds: The Rise of Transgressive Horror:

Join authors Eric LaRocca, Hailey Piper and Clay McLeod Chapman as they take you on a journey into the heart of transgressive, LGBTQ+ horror fiction. Discover how their bold and fearless narratives challenge conventions and continue to reshape the horror fiction landscape, inviting readers to question, fear, and understand the complexities of the human experience. The panel will conclude with a Q&A session, allowing attendees to delve deeper into the authors’ processes, challenges, and future projects.

Monday, June 30 (also know as Becky's 50th Birthday)

I am in conversation with Joe Hill on the Main Stage from 10:30-11:20 am in Terrace III & IV Ballroom

I hope to see many of you there. I will have some wrap up posts after I return.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Unwin Award for Nonfiction Edition With Some Real Talk About Nonfiction Displays (a Becky Rant Post)

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.  

Brand new award alert! And it is not only for nonfiction, but also for a body of work rather than a specific title. All of this means it is an awesome new resource.

Okay, let me back up a bit. The Publisher's Association in the UK has been working on launching the Unwin Prize. Who is the Publisher's Association? From their about page (which makes be adore them right off the bat):

We are the member organisation for UK publishing, representing companies of all sizes and specialisms.  

Our members produce digital and print books, research journals and educational resources across genres and subjects.   

We exist to champion publishing to the wider world and to provide our members with everything they need to thrive.

Our members are at the heart of our mission. We bring them together; provide them with the information they need; seek solutions to problems; and campaign to achieve them.  

We have helped change laws, improved business conditions and inspired people to become publishers. 

We are passionate about the capacity for books and reading to make life better for people.

So back in September of 2024 they had this announcement abut the inaugural Unwin Prize: 

The Unwin Award is a new, annual literary award administered by The Publishers Association, recognising non-fiction authors in the earlier stages of their careers as authors whose work is considered to have made a significant contribution to the world.  

The Unwin Award is intended to champion and showcase the value of the UK publishing industry to the world. The Unwin Award has been made possible following a donation from the Unwin Charitable Trust. 

Worth £10,000, The Unwin Award will be awarded to the author for their overall body of work, rather than being associated with a specific title. 

That page has the links to the rules, eligibility, and how to submit. One of the most interesting things about eligibility as listed on that page is this: 

"Nominated authors must have published no more than three non-fiction books."

So this award is for people early in their career and it is a judged award (judges names here). It is for authors to keep an eye on and so the shortlist is even more helpful. These are nonfiction authors who have made a track record for themselves. There will be books we can order and suggest with confidence because the author (not just a single books) was vetted by a panel of expert judges-- including a bookseller  (which is key as this is not just a snooty critics prize). And with a shortlist of six authors, we have access to more than just six books.

We always need more resources for nonfiction suggestions and I for one am totally here for this. And yes, we have no backlist, but if this prize continues....we will!

[Side note, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction and its longlist --and backlist-- is a good comparable prize here]

Here is the page with the shortlist announcement with some of the text below:

The Unwin Award has announced the six writers shortlisted for the inaugural year of this new, literary award recognising non-fiction writers in the earlier stages of their careers as authors, whose work is considered to have made a significant contribution to the world. Worth £10,000, the Unwin Award recognises authors for their overall body of work, with the winner set to be revealed at a ceremony held at The Royal Institution on 1 April 2025. The six writers in contention are:

• Catherine Belton is the author of Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West anda former Moscow Correspondent for the Financial Times – campaigning against the type of SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) laws she had been a victim of following the publication of her debut book. The Unwin Award Judging Panel 2025 praised Belton’s deeply scholarly and investigative approach, and her continued bravery to champion free speech in the face of Russian intimidation.

• Caroline Criado-Perez is a writer, broadcaster and award-winning feminist campaigner, whose book Invisible Women won the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award, the Books Are My Bag Readers’ Choice Award and the Royal Society Science Book Prize. The Unwin Award Judging Panel 2025 praised the scope of research, use of statistics, and the persuasive, resonant power of Criado-Perez’s writing, as well as the countless impacts of her work in influencing policy, research, news commentary and conversation.

• Helen Czerski is a physicist, oceanographer, broadcaster and author of three books, including Blue Machine, based at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London. The Unwin Award Judging Panel 2025 praised the way in which Czerski uses compelling data in her books to highlight ocean science literacy and the vital role the seas play in sustaining life, alongside the variety of ways in which readers have engaged with her work: from architects, parliamentarians, students, novelists and academics.

• Afua Hirsch is a writer, filmmaker, journalist, presenter, columnist and author of books including Brit(ish) – exploring Britishness, identity and belonging – for which she was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for Non-Fiction. The Unwin Award Judging Panel 2025 praised the ways in which Hirsch’s writing interrogates our national identity post-Brexit, sharing her personal story in a way that has transformed how we talk about history, race and belonging.

• Guy Shrubsole is the author of three award-winning titles including The Lost Rainforests of Britain, and an environmental campaigner on climate and nature crises, working for a wide range of organisations from Friends of the Earth and the Right to Roam campaign to the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The Unwin Award Judging Panel 2025 praised Shrubsole’s lyrical, inspiring and educational prose, and the ways in which his work has shaped public understanding of land ownership, conservation, and our relationship with the natural world.

• Chris Van Tulleken is an infectious diseases doctor at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, has a PhD in molecular virology from University College London where he is an Associate Professor, and is one of the BBC’s leading broadcasters and author of the acclaimed Ultra-Processed People. The Unwin Award Judging Panel 2025 praised Van Tulleken’s passion and knowledge of his subject, and the undeniable impact he has achieved in placing UPF into the news agenda and increasing public awareness and general conversation around what we eat. 

What a range of types of books they all write. Click through for more information about the prize.

Now check your catalogs to see if you can add books by these authors.

But remember the title of this series of posts-- they are about USING awards lists to help you help readers. To that end, I am here to tell you to use this post and the ACM site (mentioned above) to make a nonfiction display for all readers. Don't center it around a topic. Rather, call it "Great Nonfiction Reads." 

We get obsessed with our subject and titles for our displays and want to make everything fit into a tight category. But here's the thing, this is detrimental to reaching the largest number of readers. Readers don't care about your category. They want a good book they wouldn't find on their own. We put all these unnecessary barriers on our work because why? We like cute or punny titles. We think we have to make everything fit into an easy to define box.

It is dumb and infuriating to me how we continue to put our desire to organize things into categories above helping readers.

Look, we need to ALWAYS think more like a reader and less like a library worker. Readers will be more drawn to a display that has the largest reach. Why? Because if you have, for example, a nonfiction display of memoirs of politicians, you will get some interest from people who identify as readers of this topic. But if instead you have a display of "Great Nonfiction Reads for Every Reader." anyone who is looking for a nonfiction read will be drawn to look. And you can pull so many great books from all over the dewey landscape, including memories by politicians.

Your job is easier because the universe of books you can pull from is larger(again ACM website has hundreds of options) and you will reach more readers.

That's a win-win.

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. 

Reading Resolutions for 2025: Part 1-- Assessing How I Did in 2024

Today I am officially back to work for 2025 after a short break, and like I do each new year, I am kicking off 2025 on the blog with my annual 2 part Reading Resolutions posts. First up, I am looking back at the year I just completed by taking an honest assessment of how I did on my 2024 goals. 

I like to lead by example. As the author of this blog, one that I know is used by thousands of library workers all over the country as a trusted resource, I also understand that I must not only hold myself to a very high standard, but also, I need to model the behaviors I think all of you should also try.

This is why every single year, before I set out my own reading resolutions, I publicly assess my resolutions from the previous year. Here is last year's post where I kicked off my 2024 goals by assessing my 2023 resolutions.

Before you run headlong into a new year, any year, I advocate for taking a step back to assess not only the goals you set for 2024, but also taking a hard look at where the goals you set at the start of the year met reality, making those goals harder or even invalid. This is NOT an exercise in feeling bad that you didn't keep resolutions or complete goals. No one ever gets everything done.

Rather the exercise of setting goals is about learning from the past and making adjustments moving forward. I have learned this by living it. This two step process of assessment before gaol setting has saved me from burn out by forcing me to look at long held practices and make real changes, changes that have improved this blog and my professional life in general. In fact, if you have not done an assessment before, I highly recommend going back and looking at mine. I just went through the past 4 years of assessments before writing this post and it made me appreciate how much this process has helped me. I can literally see my growth and improvement. It is clarifying and quite honestly, inspiring. And honestly, when you can inspire yourself, that is a win.

But even if you have never done this before, please considering starting now. It is extremely important to look back at the year that was BEFORE you plan for the year to come, otherwise you are simply making goals in a vacuum, which helps no one. I will demonstrate why this is necessary for you today by using myself as your example. You cannot learn from the past without taking a moment to reflect.

But, before I get to myself, I want to make my annual plea to NOT make resolutions about the number of books you will read in a year. Many people set goals based on a number and in my experience this is never a good idea. It makes many anxious and leads to choosing books based on how quickly you can finish them. It is quality not quantity. Sometimes a book that takes you a month to finish will help you more [whether professionally or personally because it nourished your soul] than 5 that you could have rushed through in that same time frame. I have more to say on this topic here. 

Do what you want, of course, but that is my opinion on this issue.

Now on to the leading by example part. Here is the full post where I laid out my 2024 Resolutions with details. As a reminder those resolutions were:

• 2024 Resolution: Get Back to Reading More Than Just Horror
• 2024 Resolution: Double Down on Myself
• 2024 Resolution: Say No More Often (Without Feeling Guilty)
• 2024 Resolution: Start Planning For When I am No Longer "Officially" in Libraries

What I did well:

• I did read more than Horror this year. I made that goal because after being on the Andrew Carnegie Medal committee a few years ago, I was forced to read everything and I loved it. This year I expanded my reading especially through audiobooks, which I love. But, as you will see below, it was not 100% a win.
• Boy did I ever double down on myself. Right at the end of 2023 I got an agent and by the midpoint of 2024, I sold a book to Saga Press (a division of Simon & Schuster). Here are the details. As of this posting, the manuscript is turned in. The plan is for it to be released in January of 2026. ARCs will be available at ALA Annual in June and I will be appearing on panels to promote it. There are also plans in the works for me to be traveling throughout the Fall to promote the book and generate pre-orders. I am cautiously optimist about what comes next, but no matter what, I did what I set out to do. I bet on me and so far, it is working out.
• This one combines Doubling Down and Saying No. Midway through 2024, Robin and I were approached by the peer reviewed library journal, Library Trends to guest edit an issue dedicated to Readers' Advisory. Robin and I have both been careful about what we say yes to when it comes to the work we do together (see the next bullet point), but this opportunity was something both of us never could have seen coming. What an honor to be THE people to edit this academic journal on RA, an often disparaged area of librarianship that we have both dedicated our careers to elevate. To be recognized in an academic arena to solicit academic papers on the topic of RA, well those of you who do this work know what a big deal this is. Robin and I said yes fairly quickly but it is also because we are willing to say no to others. Coming this spring we will have the call for papers for this issue with a huge push at ALA Annual in June. More soon. The issue comes out November 2026.
• There was one big "No" moment this year that was not easy on me. After a few years, Robin and I decided to part ways with Learn with NoveList as the platform for our Actively Anti-Racist Service to Readers class. It was not an easy decision and the conversation about if we would continue  took up a lot of the year. We parted amicably as we could not work out the details. But saying no to people I gold as friends was hard. However, it did leave space for us to say YES to ALA eCourses where we are not only going to be offering the class exactly how we want to, but we are developing worksheets for people to use AFTER they take the class, with the hope that  we may be developing an entire workbook that people can buy to use with their staff sometime next year. This makes sense as ALA Editions is already Robin and my publisher of our RA textbooks. The first dog of classes for the year (live or on demand) are coming in February and they will come with 6 pages of worksheets as a test run. We have more planned but we want to see how people like what we have created. You can get the full details and sign up here.
• In other No news-- I have been actively courting others who can provide similar training to what I offer and have passed off multiple opportunities to these people in the last year. I cannot keep doing this forever. Not only am I turning 50 this year, but also, all of this doubling down on myself is opening up other opportunities and I don't want to have to say no to those because a library needs some RA training. I still want them to have great training, but it does not always have to come from me. I have also really enjoyed focusing on full state or large system training over the last few years. This train the trainer model is more efficient and I reach more people. In 2025 I have 2 states and a large system already set for the first quarter of the year. Smaller, single libraries, while fulfilling, may have to be sent to others as I have less and less time.
• In late May I will no longer be officially connected to any library as my 6th term on the La Grange Public Library Board will end. As of right now, I am emotionally ready for this to happen. As the deadline to run for reelection came and went, I made sure to check in with myself, and I am happy to report, I felt at peace. Now I still have the election in April and my final few meetings to get through, but I am feeling not only ready, but confident that it was the correct decision. When I left my job at a librarian 2015, I was 100% NOT ready to separate and was very anxious about only being connected the the official library world as a Trustee, but during that years between then and now, I actually did more as a library leader (serving open both the RAILS and the ILA Boards) because I had more time to do it. However, this was not just about my mental health as this transformative moment arrived, I also resolved to make real plans for things I could do when no longer serving on the library board. I will mention them in my goals, but I have had actually meetings and discussions to keep serving and doing more and this makes me excited.

What I need to work on: this list is really where I find my goals for next year.

• While I did read more than Horror, I was really only able to expand my reading to mystery on audio. As I looked at my year end list of books I read (my favorites are posted here), I saw some gaps where I wish I read more-- namely nonfiction which I tend to enjoy. I am also still balancing my have to reads for review with my reading for fun, but this has become less of a burden each year.  2024 felt like the year I managed the stress of my review deadlines the best. But again, it did not leave as much space as I wanted for fun reads. Next year I will build off of my success of coming up with a managing the workload plan with consciously interjecting more non-Hororr reads.
• I doubled down on myself as I planned, but what is the next step after doing that? I think I have an idea and will discuss it in my goals tomorrow. This is no easy task however. What is the next goal, yes, but also, how do I balance going too far in a new direction? 
• I did a great job beginning to plan for when I am no longer officially in Libraries having started a few conversations but now I need to move from preparing for that moment, to seizing it is happening on May 20, 2025 at 7pm. While I will make some tangible goals, I need to be prepared for how this moment will make me feel, especially because I will be attending ALA Annual in June more as an author than a librarian. 
• Speaking of being an author more than a librarian, as I mentioned above, I have turned in my manuscript for Why I Love Horror. From June 2025 into 2026 will be all about promoting the book. What will that look like for my life and my regular library work. The review deadlines I can plan for, but I need to be serious about the fact that my Fall is going to be just as busy as it usually is but it will look a lot different. How can I prepare mentally for something that is so new and different, something I cannot plan for? And I need to reconcile that I asked for this may doubling down on myself. Where will it take me? I guess I need to work on letting go and going with the flow of where this opportunity is going to take me.

Okay, that's a wrap on 2024's goals and how I did. Back tomorrow with 2025's goals.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Andrew Carnegie Medal Edition [See Also Attack of the Best Lists]

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.  

Also

This post is part of my year end "Attack of the Best Lists" coverage. To see every post in my "Attack of the Best Lists 2024" coverage [and more backlist best of the year options] you can click here.

I have a soft spot in my heart for the Carnegie Medal Selection Committee because a few years ago year, I was a part of that group.

Yesterday the long list was announced. But first, unfamiliar with this award? From the website:

The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, established in 2012, recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year and serve as a guide to help adults select quality reading material. They are the first single-book awards for adult books given by the American Library Association and reflect the expert judgment and insight of library professionals who work closely with adult readers. The winners (one for fiction, one for nonfiction) are announced at an event at the ALA Midwinter Meeting; winning authors receive a $5,000 cash award. For more information on award seals, please visit the ALA store. 

A longlist comprised of no more than 50 titles is released in the fall. Six finalists, three fiction and three nonfiction, are announced in November.  The winners are announced at the RUSA Book and Media Awards Ceremony in January.  All honored titles are nominated by the members of the selection committee. The awards do not accept submissions.

Part one of the selection committee's assignment is to select a long list of no more than 50 titles. 

Here is that official long list announcement for the current year:

Forty-six books (23 fiction, 23 nonfiction) have been selected for the longlist for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.

The six-title shortlist—three each for the fiction and nonfiction medals—will be chosen from longlist titles and announced on November 12, 2024. The two medal winners will be announced by 2025 selection committee chair Allison Escoto at the Reference and User Services Association’s Book and Media Awards livestreaming event, held during ALA LibLearnX on Saturday, January 25. A celebratory event, including presentations by the winners and a featured speaker, will take place in June 2025 at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Philadelphia.

Share your favorite Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence titles on social media using our downloadable graphics (fiction longlist and nonfiction longlist), and be sure to use the #ALA_Carnegie hashtag!

Click here to see all of the titles.

Now the hard part begins for the committee as they must whittle down these 20+ titles in fiction and nonfiction to 6 titles-- 3 fiction and 3 nonfiction. That announcement will be on November 12th as noted above.

But all 46 books are excellent to suggest to a wide swath of readers. Why? Because the committee is tasked with choosing excellent examples of books for a general adult reading audience. When I was on the committee, there were some awesome nonfiction titles that we discounted because they were too academic, for example. 

I have read a few books on this list but I wanted to point out one in particular because it is amazing and it is 100% Horror-- Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima. I gave this book a star in LJ and then I found out Lima lives near me. We have become friends. And it is all because of a book she wrote. 

[psst...I can also guarantee that this book will be on at least one more best list.]

Finally, like all of my awards lists post, I need to remind you about the backlist. The Carnegie Medal homepage has access to the winners, short list, and long list titles going all the way back to 2012 and up to the present all with one click. All of these titles make for excellent suggestions and the 6 annual short list titles all have an annotations for you to use to suggest them to readers immediately. 

Make sure you own all 46 books from this year and then combine those that are on the shelf with some backlist gems to make a display for the Andrew Carnegie Medal or save these up for your end of the year best lists displays.