Biography Reading Up in Public Libraries

There are some interesting statistics about biography reading in public libraries in the Library Journal article "Materials Shift/Materials Survey 2014" by Barbara Hoffert. In circulation of nonfiction books, libraries responding to the survey put biography now at third highest category, after cooking and health/medicine titles. On the nonfiction ebook downloads chart, biography is in first place.

There is more good news about the circulation of library materials in the article. It is worth reading.

Collection Development & Community Expectations: Managing Collections and Balancing Resources in an Era of Budgetary Restraints

On the opening day of the American Library Association
in Chicago, a panel of librarians from public and academic libraries discussed measures they have taken to stay within their budgets for acquiring library materials. Rick Anderson of the University of Utah began by suggesting it helps to understand the internal and external forces constraining collection building, including funds, staff time, library space, library policies, and community expectations. The last is hardest to gauge. Should libraries chose to purchase everything that members in their communities desire or should they try to get only materials that will be popular with a predetermined minimum number of library members? What holds enough value (hard to measure) to justify cost (easier to measure)?

Stephanie Chase of the Seattle Public Library continued, telling about how libraries manage in periods of short budgets. To make up for not having as many new titles as readers would like, she emphasized marketing the available collection, especially titles that were little-read when new. Having strong, effective readers’ advisory service can connect members with these less recent books and relieve pressure for new titles. In lean times, she also suggested limiting the number of holds members can make, which makes them make choices similar to those the library has to make and shortens reserve lists that trigger purchasing of additional copies. She thought it a mistake to buy bestsellers disproportionately in lean times.

Chase also thought weeding must continue in lean times. Shelves in popular reading collections need to look fresh to attract readers; removing worn, battered volumes is especially helpful. At her libraries, circulation statistics have shown borrowing up in weeded areas even without significant new purchasing.

Michael Santangelo of the Brooklyn Public Library compared managing an electronic material collection in lean times to reality TV. If a database does not get the votes (visits or document downloads), it is this week’s cut. And there is always someone sad at the passing of a databases out of the collection. How to count the votes is the challenge, as every vendor reports different measures. The librarian’s task is to determine which databases have really provided the most service (not visits or searches) and which combinations of databases cover topics essential to members’ needs.

Santangelo issued several warnings. 1) Consortium purchases save money but they also introduce instability into the collection as groups may change vendors every year looking for better deals. 2) Ebook subscription plans may highlight highly popular materials but they also drag along materials of little interest. Study costs carefully before taking a package deal. 3) Having multiple platforms to provide ebooks from various vendors confuses readers and librarians. 4) Loyalty to vendors can stabilize an online collection and sometimes win discounts but do not go so far as to sign onto new databases just because a favored vendor recommends them.

Proposing the End of Nonfiction as a Label and Organizing Default

It's been said before. "Nonfiction" is a poor label for what is a majority of the books in our libraries. As librarians, we define these books by what they are not instead of what they are. It is no wonder that some readers fail to be attracted by this ill-defined category of books. We are not touting the legitimate appeal factors of reality-based books when we use such a vague word. "Reality-based." See, I am struggling myself to find an alternative encompassing term.

Think about "nonfiction." This term means "not fiction." "Fiction" itself means "not true." So we offer our readers a "not not true books section" from which to find books. Who'd go there if they did not already know the treasures to be found? Terrible labeling. Let's try to clean it up. Cancel the two negatives, and we are left with "true books." Better, but can you truly believe everything you will read from a book from the not fiction section of the library? No, there is much to dispute in reality-based books (lacking a better term). Will scientific theories prove true? Do histories recount events correctly? Are the policies of one political party really as bad as the opposition pundits claim? "True" sounds certain when much of the content is not.

"Real books," "verifiable books," "fact books," or "Dewey decimals books." I try to replace the term "nonfiction," but I find no better collective word or phrase, a brand with a good ring to it. Perhaps the reason is that "nonfiction" is really the section that we have created - a grouping of books with little in common other than not being fiction.

I think our stumbling block to connecting books with readers is our mind-set of grouping together all these diverse books that are not fiction. In libraries, when we separate fiction from everything else and then group all the remaining books together by Dewey Decimal numbers, we imply there are only two kinds of books - fiction and nonfiction. Then, when prospective pleasure readers enter the nonfiction area and come face to face with the 000s or generalities, they may stop and turn back toward the dramatic, action-packed, suspense-filled novels. They may never discover the many well-told narratives scattered among the books of psychology, religion, science, art, sports, history, and biography.

Librarians are not alone under the yoke of nonfiction. Some book review journals use fiction and nonfiction labels for grouping their reviews and lists. Laid out much like a library, part of a typical journal is the fiction section and another is the nonfiction section. Navigation to reviews can, of course, be improved with headings, and readers who have learned the layout can find what they want, just as they may in a library. But is it a good layout?

There are beginning to be some signs of breaking apart nonfiction at review journals. Library Journal has turned nonfiction into several sections. Also, within the last five years, the editors of the New York Times Book Review moved how-to and self-help books off of the "Nonfiction Bestsellers" lists (hardcover and paperback) and into new lists called "Advice and Misc." I suspect the literary minds at the newspaper tired of seeing investing guides and cookbooks crowd well-reviewed narratives off the revered nonfiction bestseller lists. Making new lists dividing the books was a simple but effective act. Dividing our library nonfiction books will take a bit more effort.

While I sometimes find it difficult to pinpoint the titles that I seek in bookstores, I do appreciate that they rely less on the nonfiction idea for grouping books than libraries do. Instead of a big nonfiction section, shoppers find specific sections for travel, art, sports, business, psychology, religion, cooking, health, history, biography, etc. The bookstores do not suggest by placement that mathematics texts or guides to writing resumes belong with histories of polar exploration or memoirs by movie stars. Dependent on sales to stay in business, bookstores are betting that most of their customers are browsers or will ask for help. Sadly, we see bookstores closing. Perhaps this is not the time to embrace the retail model expecting it to be enough to lure folks to the library.

Reorganizing and relabeling the reality-based books will help, but we will never find one method that will serve all of our readers well. Each reader comes into the library with different interests and skills at navigating collections. This is why libraries need skilled readers' advisory librarians who know their collections and their tools of discovery. The library is a service, not a building full of books, and the staff is the primary delivery system getting books to readers. Using word of mouth, in-library displays, printed book lists, book review blogs, and even social media, we tout our titles. We will lead readers straight to the books when allowed. Even when readers find the books on the shelves themselves and use self-checkout machines, staff have made discovery possible. In an effort to advance our cause, we need to design better tools for ourselves and for our readers, especially better online catalogs that serve discovery more than inventory.

Can we do this and not say "nonfiction"? Habit is hard to break, but we would be better off without it. Readers trust us to organize by design, not by default, and to be able to lay our hands on specific books or lead them to topical material. Some even know that we earned advanced degrees to learn how to organize and manage our collections. Let's not discourage them by using fuzzy words.

Memoirs That Will Last

My article has been published! In the January issue of Library Journal starting on page 42, you will find "Memoirs That Will Last." It is an installment in the monthly LJ Collection Development Series. In this four page article, I attempt to identify memoirs that will be of interest to readers for years to come and deserve to be in most public libraries, as well as some school and college libraries. Thanks to the editors' encouragement to expand the original draft of the article, I identify 27 books. At the end of the piece, I also name six movies based on memoirs that libraries will want to offer their clients.

After being asked by Library Journal in July, I had about four months to research, contemplate, and write the article. I scanned Read On … Life Stories by Rosalind Reisner and Life Stories: A Guide to Reading Interests in Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Diaries by Maureen O'Connor to create an initial list of titles to consider and then looked through the SWAN catalog of suburban Chicago libraries. I trimmed the list knowing that not all librarians would fully agree, especially with the 21st century choices. It will be interesting to see if the article gets comments once it is available on the LJ website. 

One thing I would change now that I see the article is the subheading "Twenty-First Century Stories." The books were published after 2000, but the stories go back before. I think I may confuse a few readers with that subtitle.

I'd enjoy hearing what memoirs you believe will continue to merit reading for the next couple of decades. Feel free to comment.

Weeding Biographies and Memoirs from the Library to a Tune from the Mikado

As some day it must happen that some books must be withdrawn
I've got a little list - I've got a little list
Of dreary, old, and tattered books that might well cause us to yawn
And that never would be missed - they never would be missed!

There are pestilential memoirs from loud politicos
Their long and suspect narratives will surely make you doze
And tales by business gurus who sail around in yachts
And adolescent rock stars who now have been forgot
And all the friends of friends who say they saw the starlet kissed
Their books would not be missed - they'd none of them be missed

(chorus)
He's got 'em on the list - he's got 'em on the list
And they'll none of 'em be missed - they'll none of 'em be missed

And there are Watergate conspirators who've enjoyed their prison times
And the lawyers who tried O.J. for his assorted crimes
There are television comedians who shows all got the ax
And haute cuisine chefs who now sell frozen snacks
Add long-haired bearded wrestlers to this distinguished list
Their books would not missed - they never would be missed

(chorus)
He's got 'em on the list - he's got 'em on the list
And we don't think they will be missed - we're sure they'll not be missed

And there are unauthorized biographies that now have grown quite stale
Kitty Kelley comes to mind - I've got her on the list
And tales about baseball players who should have gone straight to jail
These books are on the list - and they never will be missed
Annoying people, too - Rosie O'Donnell - Dennis Rodman - Jesse Ventura - and many more
Their times have all flit - now their books just sit - they'll none of 'em be missed

(chorus)
You may put 'em on the list - you may put 'em on the list
And they'll none of 'em be missed - they'll none of 'em be missed!

I Have These Statistics - Now What: Getting Started on the Path of Collection Analysis by Kathryn King

If I understand her correctly, Kathryn King, the Adult Materials Selector of the Ft. Worth Public Library, deals with collections instead of books in her library. By that, I mean she analyzes collections first and sets goals for purchasing and weeding before contemplating individual books. Those goals are pretty specific, too. Instead of getting rid of a certain number of books in a Dewey area or genre area when weeding, she wants to get a certain number of a certain age range out so that (1) she is left with certain ratios of age to collection and (2) to balance annual relative use (RU = percentage of circulation divided by percentage of collection). Weeding may not be sufficient, so she will then have to add a certain number of new materials to get the age ratios right and balance the relative use of highly used collections. To extend the horticultural metaphor past "weeding," King is a "landscaper" instead of a "gardener."

At the Public Library Association Conference in Portland, King told about her customer-oriented work in the Thursday afternoon session I Have These Statistics - Now What: Getting Started on the Path of Collection Analysis. She began by defining several measures of the collection, all based on statistics drawn from the database of the circulation system. The great detail about very narrow segments was impressive. It all worked toward measuring relative use.

Here is how King sees relative use:

RU = 1 (The collection is meeting the demand.)

RU > 1 (The collection needs expansion.)

RU < 1 (The collection needs weeding.)

King reported that the Texas State Library recommends that 25 percent of a library collection needs to be materials published in the last five years. She thinks that is not good enough overall and particularly bad in specific critical areas, such as health, finance, travel, and decorating, where at least 70 percent should be from the past five years. With these Dewey subject areas, it is the content that is most in need of being current. Even in less critical areas, most of the items should be from the last ten or maybe twenty years. With these areas, the driving concern is style more than content. Libraries want to have books that look contemporary. In other words, nice jackets and color photos instead of old library bindings and 1950s illustrations.

One King statement really challenges the way many of us buy books. She said that to meet demand in high use Dewey areas, buying multiple copies of the best books serves better than buying single copies of many titles. When there are single copies, some readers will take them all, leaving none for the next reader. Multiple copies leaves items for second and third readers. Customers are better satisfied and circulation rises.

Another statement for us to mull over is that it is unfair to apply less stringent weeding criteria to less critical areas. If a selector says that every book in one area had to circulate within the year and in another area let books that sat for two or three years stay, that selector will actually be withdrawing better circulating books and reducing the overall collection relative use.

Ft. Worth puts copyright dates on all spine labels. Readers like knowing the dates and weeding is easier.

King said that weeding needs to be done even in years of reduced funding for purchasing new materials. The relative use needs to be kept in balance. Not weeding now makes more work later. In her opinion, it is better to have no books than bad books.

Collecting these statistics should be relatively easy if library selectors have a good integrated library system. King emphasized that collection analysis should be done to better serve the public and to have hard data when arguing for continuing financial support.

BBC Report: Saving Africa's Precious Written Heritage

The idea that Africa was totally uncivilized before Europeans arrived for trade and taking slaves around 1500 is a racist fabrication. This BBC report tells about the wealth of written documents in Timbuktu that pre-date European influence being collected in a new library/archive:

BBC Report: Saving Africa's Precious Written Heritage

With the gathering and preservation of these important manuscripts, let us hope there is a flowering of scholarship and reporting to correct history, which will support a rebirth of Africa. If new books and documentaries are produced about the civilizations of Africa, let's also hope that Americans and Europeans bother to notice.

Advice for the Reluctant Weeder

I have always enjoyed weeding library collections because they always look so much better after the work is done. Tattered volumes disappear and there is room to shelve more books. Even more important, out of date materials are gone. Some librarians (I have known some) really hate to part with books. "Just think how the author would feel to know they were being weeded!" Now that I am an author that sort of resonates, but I still realize that the work has to be done.

Diane J. Young now has an article in Library Journal to help the reluctant weeder. Click here.

Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago

Last Friday I was lucky enough to join other reference librarians from Zone 1 of the Metropolitan Library System for a tour of the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago. Susan Augustine, head of user services at the Ryerson Art Library was our guide, taking us behind the scenes to see the conservation lab, the pamphlet files, technical services, the stacks, and the archives.

I was impressed by the wealth of the collection. The Ryerson is the second largest art library in the country after the library at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Augustine said the collection of periodicals is outstanding, noting that nearly every title in The Avery Index to Architecture Periodicals is held by the Art Institute's library. About 1000 books are added per month, mostly on art or architecture. Most titles come automatically through approval plans, of which two plans are U.S. and ten others are foreign. Most of the library collection is not in English. While most of the acquisitions are current materials, there is also some retrospective purchasing, especially in photography and Southeast Asian art. Another distinction is that the library is a research institution, not a rare books library; the library does not acquire rare and historical items just to have them.

The primary mission of the Ryerson is to serve the curators, who have many privileges that other users do not. Curators influence the acquisitions, get extensive reference help, and can visit most of the restricted areas of the library. They even get to check books out for a year and renew them annually. Augustine said that the curators do have to account for the books during the annual inventory, when library staff visit each department office to "see the books."

In recent years, service to other users has expanded from researchers and museum members to the general public. Unfortunately, the economic downturn has struck the library, which has reduced its public service staff greatly. The library is now open to the public during museum hours on Thursday and by appointment for limited hours on Wednesday and Friday.

As a librarian, it was fun to see the library's pamphlet file still exists. The Ryerson collection pamphlet file has everything from clippings and articles to letters from artists and promotional publications for gallery shows. Augustine said that for obscure artists, the pamphlet file sometimes has the only information that can be found. This valuable resource is in a locked room, protected for the ages.

Upstairs from the library reading room, accessible only by private elevators, we saw workrooms for the Art Institute's archives. The museum is accepting a limited number of collections from artists and architects with Chicago connections. Also, the museum has a second archives dealing with its own history. Both of these archives departments are up to their necks in documents and unusual items, including woodcut blocks, wine bottles, and posters. Only a patient person not troubled by piles of papers could work for such a service!

Our hour and a half passed quickly. My concern is that the library somehow ride out its funding shortfall and then restore more public services. It would be a shame to have such a great collection closed to the many people who would enjoy using it.

Reading and Book Buying News

Here are several fast things that I have been intending to write about:

Marianne Goss has put together a really nice web page listing literary novels that are NOT depressing. Look for her recommendations at Positively Good Reads.

******

The new Nolo Press catalog shows the publisher is changing direction to respond to the economic downturn. Several of the new titles should resonate with public library clients:

• Selling Your House in a Tough Market
• How to Save Your Small Business: Crucial Strategies to Survive Hard Times
• Saving the Family Cottage
• Estate Planning for Blended Families
• The New Bankruptcy (3rd ed)
• Credit Repair (9th ed)

******

My article comparing biographies of 1909 and 2009 has been expanded and published at Readers' Advisory News. You will find articles about online book discussions by Tom Peters, the history of reading by Christine Pawley, and the lack of critical bite in book reviews by Sarah Statz Cords. That's good company. Take a look at their articles.

Most Checked Out Biographies at Thomas Ford, 1999-2008

I am weeding lots of books this summer. When I ran a report of our biography section, I sorted it by number of checkouts. I was slightly surprised by the results. I knew the top two books would be at the top but I did not realize that the third and fourth books were that popular. I think book discussion groups may have influenced this list. I also notice that eight of the ten books are memoirs. The two books that are third person accounts about historical figures utilize letters and diaries heavily.

Here's the list, based on January 1999 to date (the length of time our library system has used its current vendor):

1. John Adams by David McCullough (57)

2. It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong (55)

3. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride (52)

4. The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls (49)

(tie) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (49)

6. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (38)

7. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott (37)

8. Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel (36)

9. Population - 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry (35)

(tie) The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raise 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less by Terry Ryan (35)

The checkouts include when our copies were loaned to other libraries, but they do not show when our readers got the same titles through interlibrary loan. I assume the two balance out, i. e. that our copies have gone to other libraries as much as other libraries' copies have come into our library.

I am obviously not deleting these books.

I'd be interested in learning what the top circulating biographies are in your library, too.

The Nonfiction Narrative: Exploring Nonfiction in a Readers' Advisory Context

Neal Wyatt of Chesterfield County Public Library in Virginia, author of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction, spoke to about 40 librarians from around the western and southern Chicago suburbs about The Nonfiction Narrative: Exploring Nonfiction in a Readers' Advisory Context this morning at the Metropolitan Library System headquarters in Burr Ridge. In the spirit of her presentation, here is a brief on the workshop.

Narrative: Low, for this was an instructional workshop. Wyatt did incorporate some story telling. I especially liked her quick summaries of the books that she highlighted.

Nonfiction Categories: Task Instruction, How-To

Nonfiction Types: Explanations

Subjects: Library Science, Readers' Advisory, Nonfiction Books

Pace: Fast, Quick, Lively

Tone: Upbeat, Affirming, Instructive, Humorous

Intent: Learning/Experiencing

Special Features: The attendees formed four groups (1) to write up RA briefs for popular nonfiction books and (2) to prepare to recommend other books to a client based on the book enjoyed and its appeal factors. Wyatt also provide helpful handouts with tips for working with nonfiction.

What You Should Know: Narrative is just another word for story. Narrative nonfiction includes books that are basically true (some memoirs less so) that score high on story factors, as apposed to straight factual style. Like fiction, narrative nonfiction appeals to readers for characterization, story line, setting, good pacing, and appealing tone. Unlike fiction readers, nonfiction readers want books about subjects from which they learn or experience. Any librarian can with just a little thought and practice adapt to recommending nonfiction as well as fiction, to work toward a whole collection approach to readers' advisory.

Target audience: This workshop (which I assume will play in other venues) will appeal to librarians wishing to improve their ability to get good nonfiction books into the hands of appreciative readers. They will also like getting a few new titles to put on their own reading lists.

What I'm Taking Away: I will play around with her nonfiction types, which are sub-genres that can move around beneath various nonfiction categories. Wyatt said that as a profession we are still sorting out how to organize our readers' advisory tools. This is of particular interest to me as I try to write a book on biography, which ends up as both a category and a type in the Wyatt's scheme. There is no one right way to do this. Various schemes will probably always be needed for differing client needs.

Last Thought: Wyatt says that pace and tone are the two most important appeal factors in recommending books that clients enjoy. I think that she is right, and they may be the most challenging to identify. The librarian and client may not have a common vocabulary from which to work. We're going to have to do good interviews, welcome feedback, and try again and again.

Between Barack and a Hard Place: Second City of Chicago's 94th Revue

Last night Bonnie and I attended Between Barack and a Hard Place, a hilarious revue at Second City in Chicago. Without prior knowledge, we were there on the 48th anniversary of the comedy club's founding in an old Chinese laundry in 1959. We got to sing "Happy Birthday" to the club at the beginning of the third set of the evening.

As you can guess from the title, the revue had a good bit of political humor. The members of the troupe began by all declaring that they were Barack Obama, representing every ethnic group and special interest in the country. This theme is repeated throughout the revue with variations. Other sketches deal with terrorism, minor countries that support U. S. occupation of Iraq, tax preparations, smoking in the workplace, and the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Two musical pieces that I particularly liked featured Meagan Flanigan singing a love song to Al Gore and Amber Ruffin singing about why it is a good time to be black.

Other than Obama and Clinton, no other presidential candidates were mentioned in the show. Public libraries were mentioned in the bungling terrorists sketch.

Not all the humor was political. Many of the skits revolved around the problems of being socially awkward. The comedians parodied couples entertaining other couples, students on dates, and workers discussing their sexual orientations. There was not time for applauding because you kept laughing.

One of the pleasures of attending Second City performances is wondering whether you will see any of the players later on television and in movies. So many alums have gone on to great careers in comedy and acting. We may have some trouble being certain of who we saw last night. The photos on the playbill insert are a bit grainy. We are sure that Flanigan and Ruffin were there. Dave Colan was also obviously Dave Colan. Was the guy in the glasses Joe Canale? Was the guy who played Lincoln Tim Sniffen? Who was the other guy? He most definitely did not look like Ithamar Enriquez.

The third and final set for the night was impromptu skits. The players asked the audience for ideas and did "something wonderful right away." Some of the biggest laughs of the night came in these skits.

Here is a bit of advise for attending The Second City, which I recommend:

• Wear warm clothes if you are going in winter. We are not sure whether there was any heat. The crowd did not warm the club.
• Park in the garage just west the club. Unless you park at roof level, you can get in and out without being in the rain or snow. Like the club, it is still cold and there may be ice to avoid while walking into the building. While there is snow, the side streets are a poor choice, as the plowed snow traps lots of cars.
  
• The waiters and waitresses will keep a running tab for you into the second set of the revue. There are nonalcoholic drinks, food, and desserts available in the club.
  
• There are numerous restaurants in the immediate area. Even suburbanites will recognize the chains.

Libraries with comedy collections should consider the books and DVDs for sale by Second City.

A Look at 63 years of ALA Notable Books

I have been mining lists of American Library Association Notable Books awards to find worthy titles for my biography project. In the process, I have read 50 Years of Notable Books thoroughly and noticed a few things that I wish to report. I also used the The Lists on the Reference and User Services website to bring the research up to date.


Some Lists Hard to Use

Identifying the biographies was not exactly easy, as the various committees at RUSA (and at both the Lending Round Table and the Division of Public Libraries before RUSA) have not agreed through time on how to report the Notable Books. A single alphabetical list that did not distinguish between fiction and nonfiction was issued until 1974, when the committee divided the titles into the two categories. Someone must not have liked the idea, for the dividing into fiction and nonfiction did not reappear again until the 1987 list. Most years since then are divided, but some are not. I am happy to see that the most of the recent lists do separate.

Before 1970, the committee did not write annotations. I had to look at a variety of online library catalogs to identify the subjects of many of the books without subtitles. The titles alone were often insufficient. Some possible biographies turned out to be fiction. Some that I suspected were novels turned out to be biographies, histories, or other nonfiction topics. I'm glad recent lists are more informative and of more help to readers' advisers.

For my purposes, I am excluding autobiographies and memoirs.


Biographies by the Years

The number of biographies in Notable Books have decreased since a high in the 1970s, but may go up slightly again in the 2000s.

• 59 in the 1950s
• 53 in the 1960s
• 67 in the 1970s
• 33 in the 1980s
• 21 in the 1990s
• 21 in the 2000s (through 2007)

Individual years can go way up and down. There was only one notable biography in 1991, 1992, 1997 and 2001. There were twelve in both 1950 and 1973.


The Lists Reflect Their Times

According to the introduction of 50 Years of Notable Books, the first list, called "Outstanding Books," was compiled by the Lending Round Table in 1944, a time of war. Among the titles on that first list were the following:

• How to Think about War and Peace by Mortimer J. Adler
• How New Will the Better World Be? by Carl L. Becker
• They Call It "Purple Heart Valley" by Margaret Bourke-White
• Ten Years in Japan by Joseph C. Grew
• America Unlimited by Eric A. Johnston
• U.S. War Aims by Walter Lippmann
• Prejudice: Japanese Americans by Carey McWilliams
• Brave Men by Ernest Pyle
• Tarawa: The Story of a Battle by Robert Sherrod
• People on Our Side by Edgar Snow
• Lend-Lease: Weapon of Victory by Edward R. Stettinius
• They Shall Not Sleep by Leland Stowe
• The Veteran Comes Back by Walter Willard
• Time for Decision by Sumner Welles

In the late 1950s and 1960s, there were many books reflecting the civil rights movement and environmental concerns. At that time, there were also many anthropology books suggesting nontraditional social arrangements.

What will people notice looking back at the 2000s?


Some Authors Repeat

As you might expect, some great authors appeared in several lists. Wallace Stegner, John Updike, and Eudora Welty were honored six times each through 1996. The committees always seems to like historians. Arthur M. Schlesinger and Catherine Drinker Bowen each appeared in the lists seven times. The champion of Notable Books was the very famous Sir Winston Churchill, whose books were listed eight times.


Some Subjects Repeat

Just publish a book on Samuel Johnson and you get a Notable Books honor. The same can be said for books about Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt. Margaret Bourke-White not only won for a book that she wrote, two books about her were also named Notable Books. Can you say John Maynard Keynes and Douglas MacArthur twice quickly. Did I mention John F. Kennedy?


Many of the Books Have Lasted

In my checking library catalogs, I found all the books that I checked were still available in Illinois somewhere. Most of the Notable Books of the last fifty years are still in my library's seventy library consortium. From the mid-1950s to the beginning lists, many of the titles that I searched are only available at colleges and universities. Of course, I was searching for the titles that I did not recognize. The more famous titles are available everywhere.


Reflection of Me

I was please to see books that I read on many of the lists from the late 1970s forward. I have often thought I had rather specialized tastes. Maybe I just fit a public librarian profile.

I also saw many books to try if I ever find the time. How about Popular Book: A History of America's Popular Taste by James D. Hart from 1950? I wonder what it would say to us now?

Take a look at the old ALA Notable Books lists. Allow a couple of hours.

Dewey Decimal Local

Personalization and localization of web services is an Internet trend that has been growing for several years. Why don't we take the same principle and apply it to Dewey Decimal Classification? Why don't we create Dewey Decimal Local?

"Wait!" you say. Independent thinking librarians have been playing loose with Dewey numbers for years. Former library school students, who got grades of B and C because they could not match the numbers that the cataloguing instructor wanted, have been putting books under locally appropriate call numbers for decades. What is the new idea?

Dewey is a massive scheme that takes four volumes in print. It seems to me that it would be helpful for someone (not me, I don't have the time or skill) to take an electronic version and filter it to allow local decision making. A questionnaire of preferences would let the local library personalize the scheme.

To make the scheme work best, each library would first have to identify its types of clients and rank them. This would require some polling of the community and fit into long range planning. The resulting group rankings would then direct call number selection.

What groups are borrowing library materials? If the library has more travellers than architecture students, then books on regional architecture would go in the travel section where they might be borrowed more frequently. If the library has more parents than psychology majors, materials on child development would join the parenting collection.

If a library has significant Jewish, Muslim, or other religious populations, the Dewey Decimal Local would reassign the 200s to give these groups larger ranges.

If it makes no difference (and is in fact confusing) to local readers whether a poet is American or English, the new DDL would combine them. They all write in English (usually).

Can some tech-wise librarian design a mashup to do this? Could it be called Dewey 2.0?

While someone works on this, lets all think about our local clients and how they find materials and try to set them in their paths.

Baseball Books for Display

Baseball season is fast approaching. It is time to put out some book displays in libraries. I have long been a fan, though I now read the books more than follow the daily scores. Here are some of the titles that I have enjoyed and recommend.

Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville by Stephen Jay Gould - Gould was a lifelong fan. This book collected essays he wrote over many years. Many of them weigh in on controversies, such as does a curve ball really curve and who were the best center fielders.

Baseball Lives: Men and Women of the Game Talk about Their Jobs, Their Lives, and the National Pastime by Mike Bryan - This is a Studs Terkel-like book about concessionaires, groundskeepers, ticket sellers, and everyone else who makes a living from major league baseball.

Home is Everything by Marcos Breton - Latin American players have had a huge impact on the game. Coming up from third world poverty, they have great desire to succeed. Many do not make it.

Glove Affairs: The Romance, History, and Tradition of the Baseball by Noah Liberman - This is a beautifully illustrated little book. You will hardly believe what the old players used to wear.

Lost Ballparks by Lawrence S. Ritter - There was a time when there were no flashing Jumbotrons.

Why is the Foul Pole Fair? by Vince Staten - Staten explains baseball rules and traditions with interesting stories.

I Was Right on Time by Buck O'Neil - O'Neil was a centerpiece of Ken Burns' documentary series on baseball. In his book he tells about the Negro leagues and integration of major league baseball.

Joe Morgan: A Life in Baseball by Joe Morgan - Now a broadcaster, Morgan articulately tells the story of a black player in the second wave still meeting discrimination. The Astros made a bad trade with the Reds.

The American Game by Ira Rosen - Minor League baseball is more fun.

How Do You Learn Best? Material Types in Libraries

On Tuesday I went to the hospital for pre-surgery testing. Upon arrival, I was asked to complete a four-page medical history. Among the lines about previous surgeries (appendix and tonsils when I was a kid) and about medications I regularly take (none), I found the following question.

Do you learn best by: 1) reading, 2) video, 3) listening, 4) demonstration?

I was uncertain how to answer, as I learn by all of those methods frequently. I have never had my abilities to learn ranked. Instead of totally skipping the question, I wrote to the side, "It depends on the subject." I thought the topic might then come up in the interview that followed, but it did not.

I assume that the question was asked so I can get effective self-care information. I think that I would like to get a combination of the four instruction methods. Before or after the surgery, I will have time to watch a video about my surgery and caring for my incision. I will listen to anything the doctors and nurses say. (I doubt they have recorded audio instruction.) I hope they demonstrate exactly how to do whatever it is I have to do. I will gladly take home reference material to remind me what it is I have to do.

Our clients would also like instruction from all four categories in our libraries. We do well having print material to read, but we sometimes fall short on the audio and video material. I try to keep (I sometimes slip) a list of requested items that my library did not have. Many of the items on the list are video related: a DVD on pioneer women of Kansas, a video on Anthony of Egypt, a video on the Tower of London, a DVD on Irish soccer stars, a DVD for mandolin instruction, and so forth. The expectation that we will have these materials is growing, sometimes fueled by class assignments that require a bit of video in the final presentation.

We use interlibrary loan more now than ever before, and getting video material is part of the trend. Unfortunately for us, there are still some libraries that will not loan video material. In some schools and colleges, the videos are on reserve for class assignments, which is understandable. In other cases, libraries want to keep their small number of videos and DVDs local. Whatever, we have some difficulties getting what is requested.

The other problem is that our clients request materials that do not exist. There is no profit to be made by making videos of some of the specific topics for which we are asked.

We are slowing shifting our budgets to buy more audio and video material. Whether we ever have a building as full of DVDs as books may depend on what happens on the Internet. Will higher transmission speeds foster more content that will be readily available for public use at a reasonable cost? Will libraries be left out of the loop? It is hard to say. I suspect our collections will never fully meet our users expectations, but we can try.

Back to my body. It may never meet my expectations either. On Friday, I have outpatient surgery for an inguinal hernia. I may not be posting for a few days. Wish me well.