June 19th, 2008 Brian Herzog
This is worth repeating: Kate over on Adventures in Library Land highlighted an AbeBooks article that listed a few examples of things that were found in used books:
- Forty $1,000 bills
- Piece of bacon
- Credit cards
- Valuable baseball cards
- A diamond ring
I'm sure most libraries have a collection of odd things, too - just this week I found a Pokémon card (in a book about dealing with bullying). I tend to use receipts myself, or whatever random scrap of paper is handy at the time. Perhaps there should be a Where's George?-like program for bookmarks, too.
Tags: book, bookmark, bookmarks, Books, found, Library, mark, marker, markers, marks, Random, used books
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May 17th, 2008 Brian Herzog
I was traveling most of last week, so this week's reference question is actually something I was asked outside the library (and hear often, as I'm sure most librarians do):
Aren't you going to be out of a job when computers replace books?
There's lots of answers to this, but I was happy to illustrate my point with a quote a book.
In Douglas Adams' Mostly Harmless, two characters are comparing astrology to the science of astronomy. One of them makes the case that its rules and methods is what gives astrology value, because they serve to bring out the information someone is seeking.
"It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not important. It's just the means of revealing their indentations."
I immensely enjoy books, and don't think they are going anywhere any time soon, but this question implied that libraries are just book warehouses. In fact, libraries aren't about books at all - we are about information, and access to that information.
Printed and bound books are just one form of "graphite dust" that can be used to reveal the important part - the information they contain. E-books, newspapers, websites, DVDs, journals, mp3s and paintings are also types of delivery media for information.
As long as there information, there will be a need to organize it, convey it, give it context, and help others use it. Talk about job security.
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April 1st, 2008 Brian Herzog
Hot on the heels of its announcement of mp3-based and iPod-compatible audiobooks, Overdrive is introducing a new product line: Large Print Audiobooks.
Designed to cater to the elderly and vision-impaired library patrons (just like our print large print collections), OverDrive has contracted with various large print book vendors to convert their catalogs into large print audio versions.
I think it is great that vendors aren't always trying to cast wide nets to scoop up as much profit as possible, but instead are providing products based on the needs of our smaller patron groups.
The only catch is that, like large print books, the audiobook files will be larger than their normal versions. Also, larger headphones are required, too, to accommodate the extra sound.
Still, it's great. You can keep up with more announcements on the OverDrive News page.
Tags: audio, audio book, audio books, audiobook, audiobooks, book, Books, large print, large type, libraries, Library, overdrive, public, Random, slooflirpa
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February 23rd, 2008 Brian Herzog
I know I said I wasn’t going to post anything this weekend, but I’ve heard a lot of talk about this and wanted to help disseminate:
Libraries get solicitations and purchase suggestions all the time. A few times a week I’ll get emails from authors or publishers, asking us to buy their books, or from patrons, asking us to buy a book they want to read or that would be a good addition to our collection.
But this week, I (and many other librarians, it turns out) got a cross-over: a message from someone apparently posing as a patron.
I am not providing links out of sheer irritation, and I won’t publish the person’s “name” for privacy reasons, but the email came from someone with the initials M.T., and the text of the message read:
Hi there -
I was searching in the library and trying to find the book [title] by [author], ISBN [isbn] and did not find it.
I heard about it on NPR, BBC America and saw it on Amazon and the author's website at narcissism.ca.
Will you be getting a copy in soon?
With requests like this, I always check our catalog to see if the book is available from another library in my consortium, and I look up the patron to place them hold for it. But this time, I found neither the book nor anyone by this name in our system. But I did read about it on Amazon, so I replied:
Hello-
This does look like and interesting book, so I'd be happy to order it for our collection. I searched for your name in our catalog to place you on reserve for it when it arrives, but did not find a [patron name] listed.
If you can email back your library card number, I'll be sure you are first on the list when the book arrives. Thanks for the suggestion, and take care.
Brian Herzog
Head of Reference
Chelmsford Public Library
I then got a message back saying "Hi Brian - I just moved. I'll be down soon to get my card."
That's when I started seeing other libraries asking about this strange request. I wrote back saying that when they came to get a card, to come to the reference desk and I'll order the book then. I haven't heard anything back.
So, any library getting a similar request can probably safely ignore it, as it is a dishonest sales pitch. It sounds like most library book vendors don't have it, anyway.
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February 19th, 2008 Brian Herzog
It's been a busy week. This is vacation week for the schools, and a lot of kids have been in the library working on their projects. During their vacation. Imagine.
I feel bad that my postings lately have just been repeating things I've seen elsewhere, but it's just been that kind of a week. However, this is neat:
A friend of mine forwarded me a link to a "library staircase" built into a London apartment. I want to build a second floor on my house just so I can have one of these (more photos.
And here's a few more interesting book-related oddities, from growabrain:
I especially like the last one. I tried to build something like that myself once, but it didn't come out nearly as well or practical.
Tags: book, bookends, Books, ends, libraries, Library, Random, shelf, shelves, stairs, stairway
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February 14th, 2008 Brian Herzog
Last week's Reference Question was about me finding a new source for suggesting good books for patrons - the Mass Book Awards.
Liz's comment on the post was a good one, and I thought it warranted a bit of research and a full post devoted to answering it. She said:
There are a few websites which allow you to enter some of your favorite bands and it pops out suggestions of similar bands you might like - wouldn’t it be awesome if they had a site like that for books?...
Here are some resources I found that let you search for a book/author you like, and then link from it to similar books:
- WhatShouldIReadNext.com - search for a book to see recommendations
- reader2.com - search for a book to see recommendations; also shows tags associated with each book
- AllReaders.com - search for a title or author, and similar books are listed at the end of each book description; also allows searching by plot, setting, or character
- StoryCode.com - lets you search for a title or author and suggests similar stories (based on user data); also has other features
- LibraryThing.com - offers book suggestions based on user-entered tags; you can also browse tags for books on a certain subject, or use their unsuggester to find books unlike a particular book
- GoodReads.com - seems a lot like LibraryThing, but puts more emphasis on recommendations of people in your friends network rather than cumulative data
- NoveList - the old standby, but you probably need to go through your local library for it
- Amazon.com - it is Amazon, so it's primary focus is to sell book, not recommend them, but it does offer suggestions based on what people purchase and search by topic (as it were)
There are lots of other sites devoted to book suggestions. A few others I found that didn't fit above but that are also useful are:
- Listal.com Books - search (hidden in upper right corner) for books and link to others via tags (seems to focus more on social connections)
- FictionFinder from OCLC - offers Subject cloud (like tag cloud) to find similar books; also allows searching, and each book has links to see other books with the same subjects, genres, characters or setting
- Find a Good Book from Hennepin County Library - search for an author to find recommended reading lists where that author's books appear (plus links to other listings and resources)
- Staff Recommendations from the Skokie Public Library - search for a subject to find books their staff has reviewed and recommends
And here's a few resources that are list-based - you click the subject you like, and you browse the list of books in that subject:
I'm sure there are tons of others - even my library also has a readers advisory webpage. If I missed one of your favorites, please share it with a comment below.
Tags: advisory, book, Books, libraries, Library, public, reader, readers, readers advisory, reading, recommendations, Resources, suggestions
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