Surviving the Challenged Book Process

Well, I've survived my first challenged book. I'm not going to mention it specifically as this post is more my thoughts on the process. This challenge was unanticipated because the work was a non-fiction and the challenger felt that it had no historical value. I was at a loss because I am no history buff and the book was huge. I did find several Amazon.com reviews that listed, with page numbers the historical errors, which I was able to verify whether or not the book did indeed have (and even note changes from the print to the digital editions) and then I would fact check using outside sources.

I remember being at the desk with the challenger approached a co-worker regarding the book. The librarian had suggested he contact the publisher and he responded, "you are the librarians and it is your job to make sure the books in the [non-fiction] collection are accurate." He has a point. Collection development is all about making sure informational works come from authoritative sources with editors that do the fact checking and make sure the copy is grammatically correct. Editors are supposed to make sure a work "flows" logically and that the writing style matches the intent of the work as a whole.

Then come the reviewers. I can't tell the number of times a selector has asked me if a book I'm recommending or requesting on behalf of a patron has been reviewed, and if so, from which publication, because they ask me every time. The selectors are fanatical about it. And as it turned out, the two big reviewers that we use, Publisher's Weekly and BookList, did not have a review of the book, whether good or bad. Nor did Library Journal. Now it begs the question (from me), this was a popular book, it was on the best seller list a few times, why didn't it get reviewed? I mean, come on, it's a history book. (That's not to say the book didn't get any press. It did. But getting press is different from being reviewed.)

So, I had no guidance from the professional literature. I had a bunch of gripes from some Amazon reviewers who at best could be considered history buffs (I have nothing against them, it's just the "Wikipedia question", you know?). I began reading. Wonder of wonders I learned something. And yet, the errors existed! WHAT DO I DO? I had the conundrum of what expectation should a reasonable patron have of the books in the collection? Is it reasonable to think a book could have say 10% errors? Or should a book have less than 1% errors?

This was a popular history book, in that it was written for the mass market and not written for academia. Should the book stay on the shelves, errors and all, as this public library collects popular works? What about if we were the type of librarians who "edited" a book. (This was known to happen "in the day." I've seen books that librarians have edited.) Would we keep the book with errors annotated and corrected? What professional obligation do I have to both the history buff and the newly curious to ensure the book I provide on my shelf has merit to their information need? What professional obligation do I have to the author that the public have access to his work? In the words of Charlie Brown, arghhh!

I submitted my recommendation. It haunts me to this day. It's only been two days.

Video Librarian Mar/Apr 2013

I thought about using Rotten Tomatoes and the Internet Movie Database to track my list of films that I want to view, but then I ran against the limitation that neither database actually had some of the titles I was interested in. Yes they exist! I saw them in Video Librarian. So here's just the full list of what I'd like to see from the March/ April review issue:

White Meadows

• White Meadows
• Wreck-It Ralph
• Zero Dark Thirty
• What God Hath Wrought
• Inocente
• YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip
• World Peace & Other Fourth Grade Achievements
• Admission
• The Company You Keep

App Reviews

I looked over my last app review post and saw that I had made a note to look at the Boynton Going to Bed Book. I wanted to note that I had bought it ($4) and my son really enjoys playing with it every once in a while, when enough time has passed that he's forgotten the story (though he never forgets the interactive features). The narration and the soundtrack is excellent, and the animations are playful. My only wish is for more play features, for example like being able to dress the characters in their pajamas. However, I suppose this is how you keep costs down. I also wish there wasn't the advertising for the other books, because all I hear from my kid are that I need to buy those too.

In the January 2013 School Library Journal, there is a brief article about a book reader called StarWalk Kids. I looked at it and basically thought, well, I'd rather have my son play with TumbleBooks, which has a huge collection of books and also has games and videos and is free with my library card. Not saying that StarWalk Kids isn't handy, just that I'm already happy with my current service.

Learning the RC: Dewey!

Compared to the instructions of the AACR2 rules for describing a work, the rules for classifying a work using Dewey are downright heinous. I am of that opinion because it means you (the classifier) must choose one and only one place for the work to reside on the shelf, even though the work could be about multiple shared concepts.

I will admit the DDDC22: Dewey Decimal Classification ed.22 (025.431 DEW 2003 v 1-4) is beyond me. Well volumes 1-3 are beyond me. They are basically instructions on when to use which divisions and sub-divisions. The tables in v. 1 completely throw me off. I'd probably do better to see an example of one of the tables in action. Volumes 2 and 3 are the schedules, laid out in order of the numbers and the subjects in words to which the numbers correspond. For example:

 371 Schools and their activities; special education (under the 300s Social Sciences)
.001-.009 Standard subdivisions (probably as seen in v. 1)
.01-.07 specific kinds of schools
.1 Teachers and teaching, and related activities
.2 School administration; administration of student academic activities
etc

Volume 4 is the glorious index.Seriously, this thing should have a halo and light from the heavens shining upon it at all times. When people come downstairs and say they want to browse the works on Garlic. I pull the index off the shelf and invite them to enter the stacks with me. Imagine this librarian, her hair swept up, not in a bun, but a french twist, dragonfly glasses reflecting the florescent lighting, eyes twinkling in amusement as I guide the patron through the 600s, pointing out Garlic works as they pertain to cooking, gardening, and pharmacology. And then I suddenly turn, clutching the Glorious Index, with its radiant light, to my bosom and say, "but if you want Garlic as it pertains to botany, we'll have to go to 584.33."

This is not a romanticized view of librarianship. Yes, this still happens! A librarian can use something other than a computer to help people find the books on Garlic that they need!

Resources for Teaching Copyright

I like the list, but not the formatting of the blog where I found the original post. Mad props to them for collecting this list, but I'm going to recreate the list for myself.

• Copyright Advisory Network- brought to you by ALA's Office of Information Technology Policy. Geared toward librarians and copyright issues as pertains to the profession, an insightful quote on the homepage is "with copyright, there are no definitive answers." How deliciously evil sounding. Some nice resources on the page are: 
• The Copyright Genie
• the Fair Use Evaluator 
• the Is It Protected by Copyright Slider- (nice visual infographic)
• the Section 108 (of the US Copyright Code) Spinner
• and the Exceptions for Instructors eTool
• the Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers chart- created by Tech(nology) and Learning, a site owned by NewBay Media, which specializes in creating products for the K-12 education market, this chart breaks down what you are thinking of using (it's medium), how you can use it, and the fine prints according to media.
• The Creative Commons website- Want to move beyond the restrictions of copyright? The CC can teach you how to put your stuff out there for use, while also protecting your right to make money off your stuff.
• The cute Cyberbee Copyright Classroom. Kind of simplistic, but an easy way to get started and explore the very basics of the issue with students using an interactive FAQ format.
• LoC's Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright- Flash based videos targeted toward younger teens present the info in comic style with story based examples.
• and finally, Teaching Copyright, a project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a thorough curriculum for older teens.