Ricklibrarian Reporting from Indianapolis

Greetings. I have arrived in Indianapolis in time for the start of the 2014 Public Library Association Conference. In the next four days I will attend programs on various topics of interest to those of us working in public libraries. I will share reports here on my blog for those of you who would like to but can not attend. The notes will also help me recall what I heard when I get back to my library.

I have been to most of the PLA conferences since the event in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2000 and have some fond memories, not particularly just about the programs.

Charlotte, 2000 - Great soul food restaurant to which we returned for a second meal.

Phoenix, 2002 - Last conference at which I could read attendee name tags, before lanyards that dropped them to the region of the navel. I used to count states from the name tags. It is impossible now without bending over awkwardly. I saw librarians from over 40 states in Phoenix.

Seattle, 2004 - I saw Nancy Pearl everywhere.

I missed PLA in Boston in 2006.

Minneapolis, 2008 - Girl Scout cookies a month after they were sold at home.

Portland, 2010 - Snow-capped mountains and waterfalls along the Columbia River.

Philadelphia, 2012 - So many historical sites and great art museums.

What will I remember about Indianapolis? Two candidates are 1) tomorrow's possible snowstorm and 2) the Big Ten basketball tournament that is competing with PLA for hotel rooms and restaurant seatings.

Stay tuned.

Save on Readers' Advisory Books at ABC-CLIO's Booth at the Public Library Association Conference

If you happen to be attending the Public Library Association Conference in Indianapolis next week and you would like to buy some books on readers' advisory, go now to the Citizen Reader blog to get a coupon for 20 per cent savings on ABC-CLIO readers' advisory titles. Print the PDF and take it with you to the conference and look for the company's booth on the exhibits floor.

My Read On Biography is among the books offered on the coupon. You can save $8.00. Other titles are from the Genreflecting, Real Stories, and Read On series, focusing on topics such as women's fiction, travel, sports, and graphic novels.

You do not actually have to attend the conference to get the savings. The PDF has a code that you can use to order by mail, phone, or online. You can pre-order Read On Romance by C. L. Quinlen and Ilene N. Lefkowisz this way.

I'll be at the conference and hope to see many library friends.

American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago

Bonnie and I have attended two full days of the American Library Association in Chicago and are heading back in again today. It has been good so far.

My highlight on Saturday was being a part of a focus group for Booklist, a review journal aimed at public libraries. We were asked questions about how we used the journal in collection development and what we would change in the publication to aid our work. These questions led to a broader discussion about our libraries. I enjoyed the meeting greatly.

On Sunday, I attended several author events. During the day, I heard both Temple Grandin (Animals in Translation and The Autistic Brain) and Ann Patchett (Bel Canto and State of Wonder) speak in the auditorium and Timothy Egan (The Worst Hard Time and Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher) at the Booklist booth on the exhibitions floor. In the evening, Bonnie and I attended the Carnegie Awards presentation, where we heard Timothy Egan, David Quammen, and Richard Ford live and saw videos from Junot Diaz, Louise Erdrich, and Jill Lepore. Egan and Ford won the prizes.

My to-read list is growing longer every day (I came home with a bag of free books from the awards ceremony), and I am looking forward to applying some new ideas at work, especially concerning readers' advisory. I have also seen many friends at sessions and along the hallways, as well as at last night's ceremony. I am feeling recharged.

We are heading in today via train for a third day. More reports later.

True Stories into the Hands of Readers

Today I am speaking at Reaching Forward Conference in Rosement, Illinois. I'll talk with library staff about helping readers find books with true stories in their library collections.

Click to view my slideshow: True Stories into the Hands of Readers

Click to view some of my true story suggestions arranged by appeal factors: The Appeal of Reading True Stories

Here are some notes to go along with and explain some of what I will be saying with some of the slides:

2. Our focus today is reading true stories for pleasure. I define pleasure broadly, so that does include reading for knowledge. Wanting to learn about a person, time, or place and satisfying that want  can be as good as spending time with well-written stories populated with compelling characters in settings that interests readers.

In doing readers' advisory, Joyce Saricks advises that you suggest books instead of recommend them. That lets the client decline more gracefully, gives the client more control of the transaction. You are working with the reader to pick books. You also have less to lose if the reader then dislikes the books she or he takes home.

3. Readers have long had a choose to read fiction or true stories. Both of these books deal with the Battle of Gettysburg. Killer Angels on the left is a story told by soldiers. Stars in Their Courses is an intimate account of the battle incorporating letters, diaries, and other accounts of the time. Shelby Foote also wrote fiction. Neither his fiction nor history disappoints.

4. Both are emotional stories about women suddenly widowed by well-known authors. I was mesmerized by Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and how she moves around and around her topic. I could hardly put it down.

5. The Natural was first a short story based on a true incident about a former Chicago Cub being shot by a young fanatical woman. Eight Men Out is the true story of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox Scandal. Both stories have complicated baseball players navigating through difficult situations. Both should be required reading for anyone interested in Chicago - no love of baseball necessary.

6. The advantages for true stories are information and authority. Truth should be informative and verifiable. Of course, these qualities may also be in fiction based on truth, but it may be hard to know where authors take their liberties for the sake of story.

7. I am using the appeal categories emphasized in the Read On … series of readers' advisory books. A good story is the most common quality wanted in books by readers. History that appeals broadly is focused. It takes a certain event or follows a certain theme. It validates the story in history.

8. Readers often say that they want books with sympathetic characters. Some like villains. Of course, biographies and memoirs give us plenty of both.

9. Setting has always been a big appeal to me. I particularly like to learn about places far different from my own environs. Stories in Asia, Africa, or South America appeal to me. Place can be presented almost like characters by talented writers.

10. By language, we refer to the type and quality of the writing. Some readers say that they will read anything that is written well. Personal essays are the true stories equivalent of fictional short stories. Sometimes every word and sentence has been crafted.

11. By mood, we mean books that have a certain atmosphere. Like mystery novels, true crime stories have a particular gritty toughness necessary to recount horrible events. Like romance novels, true romance recounts amorous relationships that may succeed or fail.

12. In the past, history and biography tended to be academic in tone, filled with lots of facts with an emphasis on scholarship and less concern for storytelling.

13. The trend now is to write a slice of biography or a slice of history, well-crafted works that use an especially noteworthy bit of the story to evoke the whole story. There is more celebration of true story writing. More reporting and more awards. Colleges and universities offer courses in creative nonfiction, including the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Readers keep books like Seabiscuit and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand on best seller lists for months and years. Bill O'Reilly is reeling in profits with Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, and in Setember Killing Jesus.

Of course, there are a lot more slides. I'll try to add more after the conference.

The Appeal of Reading True Stories

I will be talking about nonfiction readers' advisory next week at the 2013 Reaching Forward Conference. One of the points that I want to make is that true stories have as much appeal as fiction, and like fiction, certain subgenres of true stories have different primary appeals. Story, character, setting, language , and mood are the categories identified by books in the Read On ... Series of books from Libraries Unlimited.

For the attendees of Reaching Forward and for readers who find their way to this page, here are some book suggestions according to appeal categories.

Story

Historical episode

City of Scoundrels: The Twelve Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago by Gary Krist
Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked the Nation by Deborah Davis
The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and the 82 Days That Inspired America by Thurston Clarke
The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964 by Jon Margolis
The Day the Revolution Ended: 19 October 1781 by William H. Hallahan

Microhistory

The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story Of Rock and Roll's Best-Kept Secret by Kent Hartman
The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift
Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World by Tom Zoellner
Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester

Character

Biography

The President is a Sick Man by Matthew Algeo
Branch Rickey by Jimmy Breslin
The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl's Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster by Tim Crothers
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Memoirs

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
The Grace of Silence: A Memoir by Michele Norris
Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Ebert
Just Kids by Patti Smith
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

Setting

Foreign adventure

A Wedding in Haiti: The Story of a Friendship by Julia Alvarez
Never the Hope Itself: Love and Ghosts in Latin America and Haiti by Gerry Hadden
Instant City by Steve Inskeep
Burma Chronicles by Guy DeLisle
End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica by Peter Matthiessen

Language

Nature discovery

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds by Julie Zickefoose
Settled in the Wild: Notes from the Edge of Town by Susan Hand Shetterly
Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story by Dame Daphne Sheldrick

Personal essays

Farther Away by Jonathan Franzen
Off Main Street: Barnstormers, Prophets, & Gatemouth's Gator by Michael Perry
Havanas in Camelot: Personal Essays by William Styron
At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays by Anne Fadiman

Mood

True crime

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor by Mark Seal
The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago by Douglas Perry
A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale

I have built a preview slideshow for the Reaching Forward Presentation. It shows a lot of true story books that I like.

ricklibrarian to PLA in Philadelphia

Today I will fly to Philadelphia to attend this year's Public Library Association Conference. I am looking forward to seeing friends in the field (not the grassy field) and attending a bunch of programs aimed at public librarians. I also am eager to see my new book Read On ... Biography which is scheduled to debut at the conference. I like that Jane Goodall is one of the figures on the cover. I will be with Joyce Saricks and Barry Trott at a signing event at the Libraries Unlimited exhibit (too big to call a booth) on Thursday from 4 to 5 p.m. Come by if you are at PLA.

In the meantime, I will be trying to see as many historical sights and American Art as I can before the conference officially begins.

Once the conference begins I will be reporting on programs and exhibits here at ricklibrarian and at PLABlog. I will also be sending a report or two to Sarah at RAOnline.

Marketing as Conversation: How to Interact with Your Community Through Your Website

What I liked best about this meeting at the Public Library Association Conference in Portland was seeing Gina Millsap with whom I worked at Daniel Boone Regional Library in Columbia, Missouri years ago. The program was good, too!

The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library is a leader among libraries in innovative adoption of social networking tools to advance its mission. TSCPL has ten people working for "the digital branch," which includes its website and social websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. The Lester Public Library in Two Rivers, Wisconsin is a small library in town on Lake Michigan north of Milwaukee. All of the library's social networking and web development falls on the library director. The difference in size between the two libraries is vast, but both are creating digital identities and connecting with their communities.

Jeff Dawson is the Director of the Lester Public Library in Two Rivers. (He said there are two other libraries by the same name in other parts of the state.) He said that he had never even had a computer of his own before he became the director about three years ago. Knowing he needed to do something easy to get his library into social networking, he got a camera and an account on the photography website Flickr. He began posting pictures with some library information and then broadened his efforts posting pictures about sites and events in his community. Soon people began to say that he covered the community better than the local newspapers. He then started a blog to serve as the library website; he write posts there but usually posts photos from Flickr that feed automatically onto the blog. He has now also set up Facebook and Twitter accounts; again most of the content comes via Flickr. Dawson said that he takes fifteen minutes each day as he arrives at work to load a new picture on Flickr, which then goes to the other three websites. The result has been that the visibility of the library is up as is its use, and Dawson has become a recognized person in a community that strongly values being native-born.

David Lee King is a well-known figure in the online library community. As Digital Services Manager at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, he leads a team that builds an elaborate website, manages the library use of social networking tools, and even produces podcasts and YouTube videos for user education and promotion of the library. Even with a large staff, King repeats that reusing content and feeding it to different websites is important. One of his department's jobs is constant watching for and responding to comments from the community harvested from the library's blogs and all of its social networking sites. King showed examples that resulted in the purchasing of library materials, answering of informational queries, solving service problems, and improving library services.

Gina Millsap, the director of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, spoke about how important her library's digital efforts have been. She said that her library has mastered the art of conversation, increasing community involvement and the demand for library services. Though not a primary mission, getting community involvement has led to political strength when the library has been threatened with reduced funding. When asked how a library gets reluctant staff to participate in providing digital services, Millsap said that she wouldn't let staff refuse to use the telephone; digital services are now basic and everybody's duty. "Serving our patrons wherever they might be is not optional."

The slides for the presentation may be found at http://www.slideshare.net/davidleeking.

Sarah Vowell at PLA

Going into yesterday's final presentation at the Public Library Association Conference, I thought author Sarah Vowell was an inspired choice for closing speaker. I have enjoyed listening to the audiobooks The Partly Cloudy Patriot and The Wordy Shipmates, which are masterfully read by Vowell herself, and I anticipated a stirring presentation. What transpired was a bit more complicated. Neither Vowell nor the audience ever really seemed at ease. The librarians in attendance mostly wanted to be entertained, and Vowell was more serious than anticipated.

One of the services for which we as librarians pride ourselves is getting the right book into the hands of the right reader. Throughout the conference there has been an effort to broaden this message to media and electronic services. We try to get the right DVD or website or database to our clients. Perhaps we should go (and do go) even further in getting the right speaker or performer for our communities that attend programs. Sometimes our choices are not embraced, but the library clients return for us to try again. Advisory service is always a negotiation.

Another idea that I sometimes hear at meetings is the wish to get clients to read or view something outside of their "comfort zone." This is librarianship as advocacy, an idea that is not always accepted. How far do we go with advisory services? Do we have the mission of expanding minds? I think that we do, if done respectfully and allowing the reception may be slow in being appreciated or may never be appreciated.

Here is where I return to thinking about Vowell as a keynote speaker - maybe both inspired choice and an awkward first date. Vowell had a more serious message than a tired group of librarians expected. They learned a lot more history than they anticipated. They may have laughed less than they wanted. They were also exposed to the idea (which I like to think librarians know anyway) of looking at both sides of issues.

When you examine Vowell's writing, it is somewhat confessional. Right off the bat she began telling of her research into the history of Hawaii, the topic of her next book. She began the work anticipating her sympathies to be for the Hawaiian queen deposed by the sinister actions the intruding whites, but the more she read the more she realized that the queen herself stood for ideals Vowell disavows. The study of history is messy business, and it challenges our values. This theme of being torn in her sympathies ran through and underneath her program and came to top again in the questions at the end. The last question was how she felt about the way textbooks are chosen in Texas. Her answer was not a condemnation of the right wing advocates who have such a hold over the textbook selection process. She agreed with them that religion should be a topic in textbooks, but she disagreed how it should be there. She felt both right and left wing pressure groups mess up education in most states. The irony is that it is these people trying to fence in history who make Vowell's unorthodox writing so appealing and refreshing.

Vowell spent much of the program reading from her books, which I enjoyed. She seemed a little confused or perhaps even annoyed at some of the laughs. She also seemed rather small in a huge cavern of a hall. I think I would rather hear her again in a warmer setting. I hope it wasn't our only date.

Thrilling Tales and Selected Shorts: An Adult Story Time for Your Library

Are you ever too old for storytime at the library? David Wright of Seattle Public Library thinks not. When his library moved into its new building in 2004, he found that he had a small theater at his disposal, so he started a storytime series for grown-ups. He told the Public Library Association Conference about reading stories to the older set at his program Thrilling Tales and Selected Shorts: An Adult Story Time for Your Library.

David foresaw that a storytime for adults would go well in his location, a busy city library. Having a noon-time program twice a month would provide an entertaining activity for local workers and tourists, practically a captive audience. He also figured that the popularity of audiobooks could carry over to live events if well presented. He further believed in the importance of story, saying that telling our stories is one of the actions that defines us as human. He knew he had nothing to lose, and he is still publicly reading aloud six years later.

Knowing that not all libraries can draw noon-time audiences, David had other ideas that libraries can try at other times, including the following:

• Short story discussion groups
• Reading aloud while knitting programs
• Short stories and movie adaptations
• Stories that go along with one book/one city programs
• Stories that help celebrate historical anniversaries
• Stories for outreach to seniors, patients, etc.

David discussed his experiences and provided a variety of "take away" advice.

Always use a microphone. You will be heard better, preserve your voice, and be able to range from whispers to raised voices.

Read at least two stories. The first should be really short, 5 to 10 minutes. It gets the audience used to listening before starting the main story.

Promote as entertainment rather than literature or culture. Then choose very entertaining stories, modeling the program on the methods of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Twilight Zone. Start with sure bets, such thrilling stories by Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, or Patricia Highsmith.

Use different voices for characters. Turn slightly for changing character.

Practice, practice, practice. Practice aloud to learn what are the hardest words and phrases. Mark up a script to help with voices and emphasis.

Keep water handy. Plan pauses.

Have a clock handy. Don't rush.

Plan ahead so that the program can be well marketed and the reader has plenty of time to practice.

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.

You Say You Want a Revolution

When the Adams County (Colorado) Public Library spun off from the county in 2005, it owned seven crumbling building, had sadly out-of-date collections, had little funding, and foresaw the prospect of closure or partial closure. In 2006, speculating that the library would close if it did not get a tax increase, the library's third referendum attempt passed. The board of trustees hired a new director with the assignment to reinvent the library. As new director, Pam Sandlian Smith said that she knew that the library had one chance to become a vital part of the community. "We had to get it right," she said.

PLA's Thursday morning presentation You Say You Want a Revolution told the inspiring story of a down but not quite dead library reviving. New funds helped but were not the most important element, Smith insisted. New leadership, teamwork, rebranding, and radical institutional change were needed and realized. The library was renamed The Rangeview Library District. New logos were designed. Most importantly the library became a user-centric, experience emphasizing service. In designing a new main library, spaces for people were designed before spaces for materials. Dewey numbers on spine labels were replaced with natural language subject labels, which the library marketed as "Wordthink." Fines were eliminated. Big desks were eliminated. Library programming emphasized interactive programs. The story seems right out of a made-for-television movie, but it really happened, if the five people on stage and the visual evidence is to be believed.

I'm not sure the program really communicated how much work the library revitalization must have been. The presenters told about all of the committees formed with staff, trustees, and community volunteers, which must have involved countless hours. Changing all of the spine labels and related data entry must have taken many months of work. Everyone on the staff had to learn new jobs with new titles, such as "wranglers" and "guides." The presenters went quickly past the topic of work to get to "the fun stuff." They even threw out T-shirts just like between innings at a minor league baseball team.

The marketing firm Richocet Ideas influenced much of the redesign, helping the library design a campaign to appeal to client aspirations, selling experiences. The firm even helped create new imaginative language, such as "flufferovin" (the job of tidying displays to make them more attractive) and "Yellow Geckos" (staff who do something that I did not quite catch) and "Anythink" (the message that anything can be done better at the library). The work seems to have become more fun. The happy staff seems to have infected the clients who now come to the library more frequently.

The underlying message is that disrupting the library's long-lived conventions may enliven a library bold enough to embrace change aimed at pleasing clients. The hardest part may be believing that it can be done. With their backs against the walls, the Rangeview staff embraced the change. Over two dozen of them came to PLA to help spread the word, which is itself impressive.

Talking with Friends

Wednesday was a good day for conversations at the PLA Conference. I enjoyed the day of meeting new friends and reconnecting with old. I am not going to quote from any of them, for I did not advise anyone that I might blog their words, but I would like to show how far the conversations ranged. Many questions were asked, of which these are just a few:

• How did you become a librarian?
• How many of your staff work on your website?
• How long does it take to write a book?
• Can you get the free wifi to work?
• Will the corporations that own electronic content continue to license any of it for libraries to distribute?
• Who came from your library?
• What do you want to eat?
• What do we do if the state fails to fund library systems in Illinois?
• Which publishers are giving away advanced reading copies of upcoming books?
• What are the prospects for subscription services when so much of the web is free?
• How many nights in a row can you go to Powell's Book Store?
• Is there software for indexing?
• Are we paying too much for our ILS?
• Will you be my Facebook friend?
• What programs will you attend tomorrow?

The first question may be my favorite. The last is what I need to deal with now.

Readers' Advisory 2.0: The Next Dimension

"Readers advisory is not ready reference." Barry Trott, Portland, Oregon, 2010

I don't know if Barry Trott of the Williamsburg (Va.) Regional Library has said this before, and I don't know if he borrowed it from someone else. He said it almost as an aside part way through his half of Tuesday's presentation Readers' Advisory 2.0: The Next Dimension. Still, it sticks with me. I think it explains the whole need for the service. Readers' advisory is work - worthwhile work - and librarians are only going to be successful if they practice and prepare. He and Jane Jorgenson of the Madison (Wis.) Public Library, both managers of online library RA services, addressed how librarians can adapt the tools of Web 2.0 to provide "proactive and reactive" readers' services. "Proactive and reactive" are Jorgenson's terms for taking readers' services to readers (via reviews, lists, displays) as well as dealing with readers' individual requests for books and media.

The Williamsburg and Madison models have similarities. Both have staff from many departments writing reviews that are posted on WordPress-based blogs. They each gather these articles in advance to assure there is a steady stream of content on their sites. Both have personalized readers' services based on surveying a reader for her interests and producing an individual annotated titles list. The two libraries are also connecting these efforts to their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Barry likes the letter "F" while Jane like "C" to describe the elements of successful library RA blogs.

Barry's list:

• Focus - a review blog should not have extraneous posts
• Frequency - regular so readers will know there will be new content
• Fortitude - strength to keep to the focus and frequency
• Flavor - good writing with personality
• Flexibility - staff cover for each other, ability to review new formats, etc.

Jane's list:

• Content - thoughtful reviews for books and media
• Contributors - numerous reviewers allowed their own voice
• Commitment - reviews published on a recognized schedule
• Comments - listen to and share what readers have to say

Barry explained the Williamsburg Looking for a Good Book reading suggestion service. Individual readers may fill out a four-page questionnaire to identify readings tastes, and staff at his library then generate personalized annotated lists identifying ten suggested titles. The library averages about 100 of these each year, having done about 700 total so far. Various staff members prepare them, taking about one-week on average to complete the process. The library asks the clients for permission to retain the original questionnaires. The clients are urged to provide feedback, and there is a shortened form for a second requested list. The users of the service have been about 85 percent women, averaging about 36 years of age with a range of 8 to 88.

Barry knows this is a lot of work for both the client answering a long form and the library. He believes the process has brought his staff closer and taught them a lot about RA. He warns other libraries to do only as much as they can sustain. He recommends having librarians who write well without biases.

Barry spoke about what makes a good review for a library RA blog, such as Blogging for a Good Book. The reviewer should never gush, spoil the ending, or sound corporate (like a functionary of the library). Reviewers should tell what is appealing about the book, movie, or music while being personal, letting his or her individuality shine through. Jane lets her reviewers write negative reviews but only for bestselling, very popular items. Their primary mission is to promote and not expose faults with items, but a few negative reviews gives them some added credibility.

Jane told how Madison services have developed. First, they subscribed to BookLetters; not content to just let the vendor send out its monthly genre lists, Madison reworks each list and creates many more of its own. Second, the library started the MADReads blog, which is turning four years old in April. Third, Madison started a Book-alikes database to keep track of their annotations and use them in individual lists. Fourth, the library has taken the content to Facebook and Twitter. Fifth, the library is looking to produce podcasts and vodcasts (video podcasts that could be distributed through a YouTube channel).

Sadly, Jessamyn West was unable to present her portion of the program due to an unfortunate strike of lightning disabling the plane that was to fly her out of Vermont on Monday. Barry and Jane tried to address some of the issues that would have been Jessamyn's. Her presentation outline with links can be seen at www.librarian.net/talks/pla10/.

As the program ended, Jane spoke about "The Big Silence" that libraries may encounter after starting their RA blogs. She and Barry have stats and incidental evidence that once well promoted, the reviews are read. Comments are slow coming mostly because the review readers have not read the books or seen the movies yet and have nothing to say. RA blogs may never get many comments. Future research could be done to see if titles reviewed show signs of increased circulation.

Things That Go Bump in the Stacks: Whole Collection Advisory for Paranormal Fiction

Sunday at the American Library Association was my day to attend programs on subjects about which I knew little. I started with Things That Go Bump in the Stacks: Whole Collection Advisory for Paranormal Fiction, introduced and moderated by Neil Hollands of the Williamsburg Regional Library. Neil presented a brief history of these books with their vampires and other dark creatures. They differ from fantasy in that they bring magic into the everyday world. They spring from horror and often include appeal factors from romance and mystery. Some are even literary. Their rise has been spotlighted by the success of the Twilight novels by Stephanie Meyer.

With Neil were three authors. Marjorie Liu has spent much of her life in foreign countries and draws on her travel and diplomatic experience in crafting settings. She began her writing career in 2005 with Tiger Eye, a paranormal romance paperback. Liu says that she includes many forms of creatures in her novels, including her Dirk & Steele and Hunter Kiss series. she already has over a dozen books.

Charlie Huston is a classic rags to riches author, having been everything from a struggling actor to a bartender before becoming a successful author. His books are violent and often reflect life in the underside of society. Since his debut with Caught Stealing in 2004, he is known for the Hank Thompson trilogy and the Joe Pitt series. He jokes that he writes for maladjusted young men. "Splatter" is his favorite word.

Charlaine Harris is the most known of the panelists. She began her career writing Southern mysteries and segwayed into paranormal in 2001 with Dead Until Dark. Her latest book Dead and Gone, the ninth title featuring Sookie Stackhouse, debuted at the top of the New York Times Bestseller List.

Harris sympathized with librarians asked to recommend paranormal novels to readers. She said they range from cute and sweet books to titles filled with violence. She urged us to discover the differences before we put the books out. Huston agreed, admitting that his books are not for every reader, especially the young.

Neil listed appeals for paranormal fiction:

• magic
• blending of genres
• paranormal characters
• strong women
• real world issues beneath the story

What I found most interesting during the session was the discussion about how one writes fiction. None of the panelists were like J.K. Rowling, having planned out the story for a whole series of books. Each book is a revelation to them. Harris also said she sometimes finds herself writing in parts that she does not particularly like. She said that she really like Sookie's grandmother, but she had to kill her off for the sake of the story.

Many titles were mentioned throughout the program. You can find many of them on the paranormal cheat sheet at the Readers Advisory website. With the cheat sheet are lists of TV, film, and music links for paranormal fans. Most importantly, there are paranormal titles suitable for younger readers.

Chicago as ALA Conference Site: Is It Really Working?

ALA Chicago 2009 013
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

Nearly every librarian I know enjoys coming to Chicago. The city is especially beautiful this time of year, filled with flowers. There are more than ever since Mayor Daley has put planters everywhere and the parks have installed more gardens. The city is also full of museums, zoos, and great architecture. Having the American Library Association Annual Conference in the city is a popular idea.

As a librarian residing the western suburbs of Chicago, I benefit from having the conference here. I can send everyone in my department to the conference in shifts - we do still have to run the reference desk. My library's librarians benefit from all the opportunities the conference offers. The enthusiasm is high.

The organizers worked hard to present a good conference and people are leaving with many good memories and many ideas for their libraries. Still, I have to question whether Chicago is a good city for the conference.

I see one big, big problem - the distance between McCormick Place (the convention center) and the city center where all the visiting librarians stay during the conference. Complicating matters is the practice of holding many meeting away from the convention center. I heard numerous complaints on the buses about the distances and short times to get between meetings.

The real indication of a problem is the attendance at the remote meetings. I attended programs at the Intercontinental Hotel (where there is a bottleneck at the elevators to get to the seventh floor) and the Hyatt Regency. There were plenty of empty seats at the LITA Technology Trends forum and the RUSA President's Program on Readers' Advisory. I heard friends say that they did not attend because it was such a hassle to leave the convention center and get back for other meetings. I believe ALA needs to look at program attendance figures and see how the remote programs are not working well.

McCormick Place is clean and expandable, but not really warm and inviting. Food vending at this conference was definitely inadequate. Still, it might have been better to have all meetings at the center. There were more rooms. I know I could have attended two or three more programs if I hadn't been off on buses.

Still, there is a benefit from getting out of the sterile environment of the conference center. The city has many restaurants, shops, and parks that are just waiting for visitors between meetings.

If Chicago had a light rail to get people back and forth from McCormick Place, much of the problem would be solved, but that should have been put in place years ago. It would be more environmentally responsible to have the conference in a city that would not require so many bus and taxi rides. People like to walk. I suggest that we try Minneapolis, Indianapolis, or Milwaukee, cities with more accessible conference centers.

Libraries in Hard Times: The ALA Membership Meeting

For the last week, I have receiving emails and flyers urging me to attend Libraries in Hard Times at Saturday's ALA Membership Meeting. The marketing was well done, so my hopes were raised that it would be an interesting program. It was, but not really in the way that I expected. Patricia Wong summarized efforts of California Public Libraries to help the jobless and needy. Christopher A. McLean of the ALA Washington Office then reported on the federal government's stimulus package and what parts of it hold promise for library funding. The information was good (if a bit too general) but the setting and presentations and the timing did not do the subjects justice. The assembly hall was huge and the attendance slight. It was late in the day. We were very far from the speakers. I expected first hand stories from librarians telling what they are up against and what they are doing. I appreciate that the topic is being acknowledged before the assembly of membership, but it needs more coverage and debate in more intimate meetings where there will be more energy and passion.

On the up side, there were some useful web sites promoted, including Advocating in a Tough Economy Toolkit for the ALA President's Office. Another was the Library Use Value Calculator from Huntington beach Public Library.

Pride and Passion: The African American Baseball Experience

I almost went to a management program at the American Library Association conference this morning, but my love of baseball (and my sweetheart) drew me to "Pride and Passion: The African American Baseball Experience" instead. I should listen to love more often. It was a wonderful program that I would not want to have missed. Not only did I hear Negro Leagues historian Lawrence Hogan recount his friendships with the old players, I heard Sharon Robinson tell about her new children's book about her father, Jackie Robinson, and I heard Kadir Nelson explain how he wrote and illustrated his award-winning We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. I will want to see Robinson's book (illustrated by Nelson) this fall. I have seen We Are the Ship and will post a review soon.

Anytime time there is a baseball reunion, there are good stories. They resonate because they are loaded with more meaning than just sport. To Hogan baseball is American history and to Robinson it is also family history. For Nelson it is beauty and inspiration.

This celebration of African American baseball launches the ALA traveling exhibit "Pride and Passion: The African American Baseball Experience." Two sets of illustrated panels are traveling to libraries around the country. One is in St.Louis currently while the other is on the ground floor of McCormick Place during the conference. It will then go to Milwaukee. The tour continues into 2013.

What I'm Doing at ALA

I have been looking through all of the offerings at the American Library Association Conference that starts July 10 in Chicago and have come up with this plan.

Friday, July 10

The Unconference, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. I am facilitating a discussion about nonfiction readers' advisory using the web.


Saturday, July 11

Gregory Maguire, 8 a.m.-9 a.m. The author of Wicked will speak at the Auditorium Series. It is pretty early and I have to drive in, so I might be late.

Open Knowledge Commons, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Digitized books from someone other than Google.

Booklist Online: Books and Blogs, Made for Each Other, 1:30 p.m.-3 p.m. I'm obviously interested in this.


Sunday, July 12

Net Neutrality and Its Implications for Libraries, 10:30 a.m.-noon. I might get the gist in half the time.

Top Technology Trends, 1:30 p.m.-3 p.m.


Monday, July 13

Lexis/Nexis Breakfast with Bonnie.

Rethinking the Reference Collection, 10:30 a.m.-noon. I am a reference librarian first. This is about the heart of my work.

From the Book and Beyond, 1:30 p.m.-3 p.m. More readers' advisory.

Tracy Kidder, 3 p.m.-4 p.m. I enjoyed Mountains Beyond Mountains and My Detachment: A Memoir.

Cokie Roberts, 5 p.m.-6:30. I heard Roberts in New Orleans and would enjoy hearing more.


I will probably add other presentations. I will be blogging about the programs I attend at both PLABlog and here at ricklibrarian.

I will also be checking in at the ABC/Clio exhibit to see my book.

The Art Insitute of Chicago for Librarians

Librarians heading to Chicago this summer for the American Library Association annual conference should plan to set aside some time to visit the Art Institute of Chicago. It is downtown where most of the visiting librarians will be staying. By that time, it will have opened its new modern wing, a huge addition which will increase the size of the museum about thirty percent. This benefits everyone who enjoys art. As the modern art heads into the new wing, the museum has more room in its existing galleries for art from earlier periods. Many of these galleries have already been re-installed. Bonnie and I were there Saturday to see how much better the arrangement is. Visitors can now find the beginnings of European art and follow its progression more easily. The French Impressionists now have larger rooms. More importantly, the Art Institute has brought many paintings out of storage now that there is more space. We saw dozens that we had never seen before.

We went to the museum last Saturday to see several exhibits - Becoming Edvard Munch and Yousef Karsh: Regarding Heroes. Neither will be there this summer, but if you can visit by mid-April, they are worthwhile. My favorite paintings in the Munch exhibit were by his friends, not by Munch himself. I enjoyed the Yousef Karsh more. There were many striking photographs of leaders in art and literature. The museum website, however, does not show them.

We always visit the museum shop. I noticed several children's books that I will be reviewing soon. The shop is currently being remodelled, but I suspect it will be completed before the summer.

The museum will not really have any big exhibits this summer, as it will be celebrating the new wing and showing more of what it has had stored away for decades. There will still be plenty to see. Librarians should stop by the museum library, which usually has an interesting exhibit of art books. Also, the restaurant in the courtyard will be open. Lunch at the Art Institute is an indulgence worth every calorie.

PLA Reconsidered

Nearly 10,000 librarians, support staff, trustees, and others attended the 2008 Public Library Association National Conference in Minneapolis last week. Now, they have all gone home and must consider what they saw and heard.

As you might expect, there were some mixed messages. Some of my programs recommended new services and the tasks to accomplish their creation and maintenance. Others admonished us for trying to do too many things. The tough thing now is weighing what is worth doing.

I continued to report on PLABlog during the conference. Here are my final reports:

From Hype to Help: Making A Difference with New Technologies

Think Outside the Book: Online Service as Outreach - about teen services

When the Story is True: Practicing Nonfiction Readers Advisory

The next PLA National Conference is in 2010 in Portland, Oregon. I hope to go.