Collection Reflection

Good morning! As we heard towards 2014, I'm thinking about all the posts that I meant to post over the year. Mostly, all the questions that I've wanted to ask and never seemed to find the time to ask. Some of them will come around in 2014, I'm sure. But, for today, the question is about: Short Stories! Where do you put your short stories? When I first started here, we put short stories in the non-fiction number of 808.3. Which was the how to write fiction number. But, it was legacy cataloging, and so the number didn't change. Then, when we switched to putting short stories into the fiction (or genre) area with the rest of the fiction, there was a little consternation about the difficulty of finding  just  short stories. There were ideas of adding a short stories qualifier to the call number so that all the short stories would fall together at the beginning or the end of the fiction run. We didn't do that, but I have been forever curious since that conversation. ...

The end of the year buying season is in full swing! That means, of course, not much time for doing anything other than spending money.  But.....I think I can carve out a few minutes for some news, don't you? Diversity is NOT narcissism  (I can't believe we're still talking about this....) Another great response here   and here and here GoodReads best books of 2013 . Pick a genre, any grenre! Ebooks for libraries: still a ripoff . (it all turns to bitchiness in the comments...) 25 books that changed the course of history . The "Douglas County Model" gives libraries new e-book leverage . Audible (Amazon) buys the rights to 5,000 titles from the AudioGO catalog. (hmmm) The LA Times reveals their holiday gift books guide.  Weed your library!  Thank you. Speaking of libraries, Fresno, CA has an interesting concept: the 7-11 library 20 things that happen when you're a book nerd. (true facts) Is truth in genre labeling hard to come by...

There have recently been some big changes at my city library system. As of this week, seven of our branches will be open almost twice as many hours, and two branches will be closed. One, a one-room branch, is currently being  re-purposed by the city  as a Senior Center. The other will reopen in 2014, with much of its collection gone, as an " Express Library ." This Friday, all hands available will head up to the latter branch to pack away the items that our collection development head determined will stay, making room for the renovation process. In the case of a branch closing, thousands of library items have to go somewhere! Last year, we closed branches because of budget shortfalls and then reopened them months later. In the hope that funding would eventually be found, their collections were left mostly intact, although we did some weeding before they reopened. The ideal conditions under which to weed an entire library's collection quickly, in my opinion, include a cl...

NY Yankee star Derek Jeter is launching a publishing imprint . Random House integrates website with Pinterest. RIP Doris Lessing RIP Barbara Park The 8 best SF Steampunk novels of all time . (of ALL time?) Seems fitting that Star Trek would be he vehicle that introduces the Navigraphic AMC making a pilot of the Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon classic Preacher . (I pray this is awesome!) BuzzFeed has ranked every Buffy  ep from worst to first . (worth a look if you're a fan) Happy Tuesday!

I think I'm convinced now that the thing that will finally kill libraries is ancient thinking. There is an entrenched unwillingness to hear new ideas or shift thinking. It's kind of like when my dad goes on and on about how gas prices should be $1. That's great, but it isn't  $1. That's a wish, not reality. If you are stuck in the habit of looking at your current measurements (we'll just call them circ, program, or door count stats) in the hopes that they'll increase, that's a wish. After all, those are the people ALREADY using the library. Where are your new initiatives to bring in the part of the community that has forgotten about you? People will parse those usage stats to the nth degree, trying to find some sort of meaning, yet spend very little time looking to the outside for guidance. Sometimes, it isn't all about a failure of marketing. Sometimes, what you're marketing is failing. Why someone isn't coming in (either in person or electr...

8 Apps to "make you a better reader". Not sure if I agree that these apps do that, but who doesn't want to hear about new apps? Omnivoracious picks the best YA books of 2013 What are your favorite SF/F/H reading memories?  (I love this discussion) Science Fictions that became science facts in 2012 Random House and Politico team up for The Bookshelf Blog . The number of self published titles up 59% between 2011 and 2012 . New USPS Harry Potter stamps!  (one of them had better be an owl....) 300 Sandwiches for your lover: the book! Shelf Awareness breaks down the Book Tv schedule for this weekend .

Disney to produce The Princess Bride  musical If you haven't read Frankenstein , just read Frankenhooker  (I'm not sure I endorse this advice....)  The periodic table of storytelling is awesome!   And you can get the full version at TV Tropes . A book with no ink? It's kinda cool, actually... . The year in ebooks....and libraries . The Fox becoming a juvenile book. 12 vintage advertisements featuring famous authors . Have a great Wednesday!