Just a note to self on some online seller's of "big books," those large display (like 3'x1 1/2 ') picture books for storytime. Probably book vendors have these, but I don't know that I'll have access to them.
Scholastic Big Books
BookSource - not very many
Kaplan Big Books - bundled sets
Lakeshore - 3 bundled sets as of 07/2014, or buy individually
a helpful guide to other sources by TeacherBigBooks.com, including amazon and ebay lists.
Showing posts with label collection development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collection development. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2014
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
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.
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.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Black History Collection Word Cloud
I put together a list of materials on Black people and about Black history for my branch's Black History Month Display. I then listed the main subject for each of the 200+ books, standardized the vocabulary (ex. turned headings such as "Sports (Boxing)" into "Boxing") and then imported the subject headings into Wordle. My only frustration is that subject phrases such as "Social Condtions" are broken up, but that's a free word cloud generator for you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)