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November 30, 2006

Is print reference becoming obsolete?

Lately I notice that as I walk past my juvenile reference shelves, I increasingly think of it as an awful lot of money tied up in books which aren't used very often. I'm sure there are books there that go an entire year without being touched. Obviously, that's partly a staff issue--like everyone else, we've fallen into the habit of going to the Internet first and not quite getting around to checking the print resources. Using a powerful search engine can be a lot less frustrating than looking through indexes for a piece of information that might be a needle in a haystack. I remember once trying to help a boy with his assignment where he was supposed to find a number of different animals associated with Texas. After trying to demonstrate how wonderful books were but not finding the information, I put in three keywords together in Google and found exactly what he needed.

The problem with online reference sources is that they are also a lot of money, may not get used that much, and disappear once your subscription is over. At least print materials stick around to look pretty on your shelves, and so you look like a Real Library. So I'm not sure what to do. Perhaps the best solution at this point is to promote the sheer appeal of juvenile print reference materials. The pictures are sumptuous, the design usually very sleek and appealing, and there are subjects to appeal to every interest. Best of all, they are something that you can sit down with for just a few minutes, open it anywhere, and learn something new!

What are other libraries doing with their juvenile print reference? Holding steady, buying more, or cutting back? Are you buying online resources to make up for it?

Posted by susan at 3:16 PM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2006

Crossing my fingers for M.T. Anderson

The National Book Awards are announced tonight, and I am crossing my fingers that M.T. Anderson wins for his stunning historical novel The Astonishing Adventures of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume OneI: The Pox Party. It's an amazing book about slavery in the time of the American Revolution--heart-wrenching, poetic, beautiful, ghastly all at once.

Anderson shows such control and craftsmanship over his material, working in all sorts of historical details but never at the expense of character, and never in that way historical writers so often do where the research shows through the fiction. It is seamless, and it will break your heart.

I can't think of another writer with the range Anderson has. He was nominated previously for the NBA for his futuristic YA novel Feed, which has one of the all-time best first lines and a theme that is becoming ever more frighteningly real. He's also the author of the hilarious Whales on Stilts, a satire on series fiction for kids, and a picture book biography, Handel, Who Knew What He Liked. And that's just some of his published work!

I fully expect him to eventually win the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his body of work, but for now, I will be delighted if he comes away tonight with a National Book Award!

Edited to add: Hooray! Hooray!

Posted by susan at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)

November 5, 2006

Books are good medicine

My 16-year-old came home from school on Thursday and went directly to bed. Since then, he has moved from bed to couch to bed again, and has basically been miserable. Tonight, his temperature is still up, and he hasn't had much to eat yet, but I hear him chuckling in his room over the new Terry Pratchett book, the third in the series about Tiffany Aching. He even staggered out of his room to read something out loud to me that particularly amused him!

And that's where people who look to books for bibliotherapy are going astray. They think in terms of "I need a book about a 16-year-old suffering from a yucky virus" in the hopes that reading about someone like himself will make him feel better. Most of the time, Terry Pratchett or whoever tickles their literary funny bone will work much better.

Posted by susan at 5:27 PM | Comments (0)