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Reference Question of the Week – 2/3/08

This week's question is one heard often:

"do you have any suggestions for a good book?"

Librarians either love of hate this question. I've talked about various readers advisory tools (and the old standard, NoveList), but I learned of a new one this week.

On Thursday, I went to the Massachusetts State House to attend the presentation of the 2008 Massachusetts Book Awards (photos).

Each year, the Massachusetts Center for the Book evaluates hundreds of entrants in the categories of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and childrens books, and selects a winner and two honorees in each category.

Part of the criteria is that the author is a Massachusetts resident or the work in some way is significant to Massachusetts. Their website has the list of this year's winners as well as winners from past years, and I think this is a great resource for readers advisory. This year's books included Nathaniel Philbrick (Mayflower), Noam Chomsky (Failed States), and Martín Espada (The Republic of Poetry), among others, so these aren't local interest-only works.

What I also liked is that the Massachusetts Center for the Book is part of the Library of Congress' Center for the Book program. Which means, not only can I refer patrons to these few Massachusetts, but there are 49 other state programs, all evaluating and highlighting significant books.

I've used the Center for the Book for other things, but never the award winner lists for readers advisory. So not only was it a fun trip to Boston, but I learned something, too.

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Stephen King on the Kindle

I know a lot has already been said about the Kindle, Amazon's new book reader. I more or less gave it all a miss, because I am kind of a Luddite when it comes to techno-toys. Go figure.

But a friend of mine forwarded me an article from this week's Entertainment Weekly, in which Stephen King reviews the Kindle. This caught my attention because King has long been out front exploring and playing in the post-print/electronic book world.

It's a short article, and worth reading. King's bottom line is:

[It's] a gadget with stories hiding inside it. What's wrong with that?

His point is that, although a physical book does have its own intrinsic value, it's the text, the story or the information, that's the most important thing. I agree. He says that in the case of the Kindle, once you get used to the device, you forget about it and let the story encompass your attention.

He wasn't "using a Kindle," he was reading a story. And that's what's important.

Another recent development in the "it's the information, not the package" department is Phonepedia. Casey mashed up a voice-recognition front-end with Wikipedia. People call a phone number, ask a question, and the Wikipedia article answering that question is then texted/emailed to them. Information Without Borders in action.

But back to the Kindle: from what I gather (from outside the article now), the biggest drawback seems to be that Kindle-compatible books can only be purchased from Amazon, and only used on the Kindle. Their Whispernet apparently makes it very easy to do, but when you're locked into a technology like that, it essentially is building in a short lifespan. Just ask anyone who bought a laser disc.

From a consumer point of view, it seems like a neat product. But from a library point of view, it just doesn't seem applicable. The adjustable font size is great, as are automatic subscriptions to newspapers and magazines. But for for circulating books to patrons, it just doesn't seem to fit.

amazon, bisson, books, casey, ebooks, electronic, kindle, king, libraries, library, phonepedia, public, stephen

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Books, Coming and Going

This post is somewhat in the New Year's spirit of "out with the old, in with the new..."

Although I've worked around books for a long time, two things happened last week that have never happened to me before:

Books, Coming:
I was chosen to be a LibraryThing Early Reviewer! I've been trying ever since they started, but this is the first time I've gotten to participate.

A copy of Tim Dorsey's Atomic Lobster showed up on my doorstep right after Christmas '07, even though it's not being published until 1/22/08. I've never read anything by him, let alone the preceding books in this series, but I'm always open to reading new things.

Thank you, LibraryThing and HarperCollins. I'll read and review it as soon as I finish one of my Christmas presents, Water for Elephants.

Books, Going:
Faithful readers may remember me mentioning the idea of an Airport Public Library, and then using BookCrossing to kick it off.

Since then, every time I've flown somewhere, I leave books in airports. My trip to Ohio for Christmas resulted in the APL's first circulation - someone "captured" and registered one of my books on the site.

What a good week for books.

airport public library, apl, book, bookcrossing, books, early reviewer, early reviewers, library, librarything, lt, thing

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Life, the Universe, and Street Names

It's not uncommon to honor someone by naming a street after them. To honor one of my favorite authors, a group in Portland, Oregon is trying to get 42nd Avenue named after Douglas Adams.

What a great idea. It is so much better than just changing the name of "Elm St." or "Main St." to the name of a famous person - 42 actually is relevant to Douglas Adams' life, works, and his fans.

Here's a few more reason, from the group's website:

• It will reflect Portlanders’ commitment to the arts.
• It will reflect Portlanders’ respect for the environment.
• It will reflect Portlanders’ desire to provide technological access to all.
• It will reflect Portlanders’ passion to further education to all people.
• It will remind all Portlanders’ the most important lesson in times of uncertainty and fear…
  …DON’T PANIC.

I hope that the Portland Library has gotten behind this effort, as it is a great way to promote reading and fun. This is also something other communities could do, as well - well, those with 42nd streets.

via slashdot

42, 42nd avenue, author, authors, books, douglas adams, rename 42nd

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Special Topics in Calamity Physics

I recently finished reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl, and there's a library reference I wanted to point out.

The main character, Blue van Meer, is a high school student. During her study hall period in the library, she describes how she spies on her fellow classmates:

...[I] slipped into row 500 and then the densest section of row 900, Biography, where I repositioned some of the larger books from row 600 to the holes between the shelves, in order to avoid detection. (Librarian Hambone, if you're reading this, I apologize for the biweekly repositioning of H. Gibbons' bulky African Wildlife [1989] from its proper place in the 650s to just above Mommie Dearest [Crawford, 1978] and Notorious: My Years with Cary Grant [Drake, 1989]. You weren't going mad.)

What caught my eye was her saying the proper place for a book called African Wildlife is in Dewey 650s. Presuming this book is actually about African wildlife, the 650s isn't even close (by Dewey standards). It should be more like 591.96, which is in stark contrast to said 650s.

The reason this stood out is that Calamity Physics is loaded with literary references - everything from the classics to technical manuals to contemporary romance fiction to journal articles. This author must have spent Much Time in a library researching this book, as shown by her excellent use of these references to aptly describe characters and situations (unless, of course, every single one of them was just made up).

For example, when describing being honest with her father:

I had to confront him. Otherwise, the lie could wear me away (see "Acid Rain on Gargoyles," Conditions, Eliot, 1999, p. 513).

When describing a classmate named Jade:

Jade was the terrifying beauty (see "Tawney Eagle," Magnificent Birds of Prey, George, 1993).

And describing another student's bedroom:

We walked by what had to be Bethany Louise's room, painted gum pink, a pile of clothes on the floor (see "Mount McKinley," Almanac of Major Landmarks, 2000 ed.).

There were about one of these references every other page, which means this 500 page book had a lot of references. So I'm surprised that the Dewey numbers were so far off (although, maybe the author naming the librarian "Hambone" belies a disdain of libraries?).

And since I'm talking about, here's my overall impression of the book: I enjoyed pages 1-100 and 300-500, but the two hundred pages in between kind of dragged. Lots of high schooly angst and controversy, whereas the rest of the book held interesting plot and character interactions - not to mention an underground conspiracy organization. I ended up liking it, but had to force my way through at some points.

book, books, libraries, library, library quotations, library references, marisha pessl, special topics in calamity physics

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Childrens Books with Phone Sex Numbers

This is kind of funny - one of those "it was bound to happen" situations that eventually happened.

There's a series of children's books called the Magic Attic series. In the back of each, there's a tear-out postcard for kids to join the Magic Attic Club. On the postcard there's also a toll-free number.

The company (based in Portland, ME - hooray) that ran the Magic Attic Club apparently went out of business, and their phone number was sold to someone else - someone who is now using it for a phone sex line.

Needless to say, my Children's Librarian went through our collection and tore out all of those postcards.

Feeling daring? "Join the club:" 800-221-6972

Read more of this story at Orlando's WKMG Local 6.

book, books, childrens books, libraries, library, magic attic, magic attic series, phone sex

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