Student Annotations

Dan, who had shared another one of this semester's assignments here, turned over his five excellent annotations for inclusion here at RA for All. Plus Dan gets props for trying a romance.

Mystery
Devil in A Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

Western
Sin Killer by Larry McMurtry

RomanceBlame It On Chocolate by Jennifer Greene

AdventureAmazonia by Jame Rollins

Nonfiction
Beethoven's Hair by Russell Martin

Compiled Best Lists and New Resources on BPL Web Site

I have been trying to stay on top of the hundreds of best lists that come out this time of year by posting them for you here, but I think I can give up trying to stay on top of it now since Cindy Orr over at RA Online's blog has compiled them all at the end of this post.

Specking of RA Online, Berwyn patrons can now go here and use their library card to log in to this wonderful database. We also have NoveList available for library card holders as well.

Those of you who are not Berwyn patrons can use the growing list of free resources Kathy and I have prepared for you. I have created all of the lists and Kathy editing and posting them as time permits, so keep checking back. We also have read alike lists for some of your favorite authors at this link. You can always just use my permanent link to BPL's RA page in my "Sites to Check Out" side bar.

Twilight Reading Map

Last night was final presentation night in GSLIS 763. One of my students, Colleen, a teen librarian at the Deerfield Public Library, created this reading map for the popular Twilight series.

I have talked about reading maps before here, and Colleen's map is a great example of how you can take a popular book and lead your readers to books, music, and web sites they may also enjoy.

Reading maps embrace the idea of whole collection RA to its fullest and using a site like pbwiki as Colleen did, also allows for patrons to directly interact with the librarian and help to shape the resources we provide for our patrons.

Grammy Nominees for Best Spoken Word Album

The Grammy Award nominees came out last week and they include the nominees for Best Spoken Word Album:

An Inconvenient Truth -(Al Gore)Beau Bridges, Cynthia Nixon & Blair Underwood
Born Standing Up- Steve Martin
I Am America (And So Can You!)- Stephen Colbert (& Various Artists)
Life Beyond Measure - Sidney Poitier
When You Are Engulfed In Flames- David Sedaris

As usual, these are all nonfiction titles. Past winners include, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. For more of a fiction influenced list of best audio books, you should try the Audie Awards.

The point is for you to provide your patrons with audio specific "best lists" alongside your lists of the best printed books of the year. You should be assisting your readers across all formats at all times. I am just providing a quick link to the tools to help you out.

BPL Display December 2008

We have our annual holiday themed display up at the Berwyn Public Library. Betty created this list of heart-warming holiday tales. She went out of her way to include different titles than those we have annotated in the past. Enjoy.

You Can Judge a Book By Its Cover

Each year, the Book Design Review posts its list of the best book covers of the year. Here is the link to further information on the winners.

How does this help with your RA service though? You'd be surprised how much a cover tells you about the text to be found within its pages. My colleague, Joyce Saricks has argued this point to me many times. The most important thing to keep in mind as you help readers is that the cover tells the reader what the publisher (not necessarily the author) wants us to know about the book. The book cover is a marketing tool, and as Readers' Advisors we should "read" book covers to try to decipher the appeal factors which the cover is trying to convey.

For example, books which feature the author's name more prominently than the title, are being sold on the popularity of said author's name, not necessarily on the content. Also, more complicated and abstract covers, tend to be put on more complicated and abstract books. There are also cover trends. A few years ago, all chick-lit books featured a pastel color theme with some kind of shoes on the cover; so finding readalikes was as easy as looking at the cover.

These are just a few examples, but if you want to test the theory, grab a couple of your favorite books and see how the cover reflects the story held within. What assumptions can be made about the book's context from the cover? I think you will be surprised at how much of the book you CAN judge by its cover.

Also, don't forget to put as many books as you can "face out" on your shelves to have the marketing power of the book cover work for your patrons.

NYT Best Books Promo Materials

As an addendum to my last post, The New York Times has made a site available where libraries and book stores can download FREE promotional materials (stickers, web banners, etc...) about their top books of the year. Click here all of the info.

New York Times Notable Books for 2008

I was going through my notes and I realized I never posted the link to the NYT's annual list of notable books. Here it is.

This list is great to look at for your own "to read lists" but it is also helpful to identify titles for those on your holiday shopping list since each title comes with a short annotation.

Reading Fights Childhood Obesity

Researchers at Duke University conducted a study on obese children and found that reading a specific type of book helped them to lose weight.

From the study which can be found here:

"The Duke researchers asked obese females ages nine to 13 who were already in a comprehensive weight loss program to read an age-appropriate novel called Lake Rescue (Beacon Street Girls). It was carefully crafted with the help of pediatric experts to include specific healthy lifestyle and weight management guidance, as well as positive messages and strong role models.

Six months later, the Duke researchers found the 31 girls who read Lake Rescue experienced a significant decrease in their BMI scores (-.71 percent) when compared to a control group of 14 girls who hadn't (+.05 percent), explained Alexandra C. Russell, a fourth-year medical student at Duke who led the study and presented the findings at the Obesity Society's annual scientific meeting."

This is a very interesting finding, although I am not sure how broadly it can be applied. Anyway, its food for thought and more positive press for reading.

Bailout is Word of the Year

Although this is not a strictly RA subject matter, I love when Merriam-Webster announces the most popular words of the year. This year, it is "bailout." Click here to see the entire top ten, which includes "maverick."