Beth Fish reads, ya’ll. It’s her life, her love, her url: http://www.bethfishreads.com/. “Ms. Fish” is a book lover and freelance book editor and book reviewer. Her blog features book reviews, author guest posts, and other bookish content (with a soft spot for Pennsylvania authors.) One unique feature is her Imprint Awareness Project, currently spotlighting Harper Perennial, Pamela Dorman, Amy Einhorn, and Algonquin.

Back in October I participated on a panel on weeding (one of my FAVORITE library topics!) with the fabulous ladies from AwfulLibraryBooks.net.

Ruth over at Artifact Collectors has posted a great interview with Holly Hibner of ALB, and there is some useful information about the weeding process and collection development in general.  Take a look at it!

 
As a side note, I am absolutely dying over this recent book posted on ALB.  Really??  The most shocking thing is the copyright date of 1991. Ai yi yi.  I’ve seen some pretty awful books myself in my day…this one ranks pretty high.

I’m sure at the beginning of this month, you were all inundated with Best-this-Best-that lists of 2011, yes?  But those lists likely all covered new books that came out in 2011.

How to qualify the best of the backlist?  The folks at Better World Books  (who do GREAT things with library discards – I mention them in all of my weeding workshops), who sell mostly used books, have provided their Top 25 Best-Selling Books of 2011. A list like this tends to reveal the kind of titles that have “staying power” rather than those that are currently topping mainstream lists. Take a look:

Better World Book’s Top 25 Books of 2011

1. The Shack
2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
3. The Kite Runner
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
5. Lord of the Flies
6. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
7. A Child Called “It”: One Child’s Courage to Survives
8. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
9. The Secret Life of Bees
10. StrengthsFinder 2.0
11. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2)
12. Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism
13. Love You Forever
14. The Help
15. Holes
16. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
17. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
18. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
19. Animal Farm
20. Into the Wild
21. Number the Stars
22. Of Mice and Men
23. The Pillars of the Earth
24. The Hobbit
25. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

I’m sure that library circulation records would also be interesting to view,  just to see the most checked-out books of the year.  No surprises, of course, these titles all hit the “best of” lists in their respective years, I’m sure.  But interesting all the same.

Sorry for the dearth of posts this month, the holiday season meant we couldn’t keep up with our reading.
Never fear, we’ll be back in the New Year with A VERY EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT. Stay tuned!

Penguin eBook titles for lending to Kindle restored

From OverDrive:

‘Get for Kindle’ for all Penguin eBooks in your catalog has been restored as of this morning. Penguin titles are available for check out by Kindle users and the Kindle format will be available for patrons who are currently on a waiting list for a Penguin title. Upcoming releases remain unavailable.

We apologize for the inconvenience this caused for your library and patrons. At this time, no further information is available. We hope to share more details in the near future.

I love the backlist. Hearts, flowers, insert its name into song lyrics kind of love. And, yet, when the Penguin Group says that libraries can’t have access to the new books that we purchased access to on behalf of our patrons–that we’ll probably still be allowed to lend some of their dusty old unsellable backlist, I take offense. Really, Penguin? Libraries are the problem?

You’re mad at Amazon.com and your taking it out on us. (I”m not the first person to come up with this theory. I just had nothing to back it up.)Your authors are jumping ship to “self” publish with Amazon. Amazon has a pipeline to its customers that you can’t even dream of. Amazon went out and built an eReader from scratch so that they could sell people your books in yet another format. And you’re going take your titles off of our digital shelves? And blame security issues?

You don’t have to fear libraries, Penguin.You don’t even have to respect us. But if you don’t think that we’re kind of smart and really pretty awesome at organizing stuff, then you’re going to be really, really surprised. Oh, and we’re the PR equivalent of holding a puppy. You really don’t want your picture taken kicking us.

Want to be in the know before the next YA crossover hit makes its way onto the adult radar? (I’m looking at  you Twilight and Hunger Games!) Check out Librarian in the Middle · book reviews, links, random tidbits, etc. for middle school students, their teachers and parents, and anyone else who might enjoy!

A fresh group of the best book blogs ever can be found here on Shelfrenewal.  If you’re interested in having Karen or Rebecca (or both of us, we’re a hoot when we get together!) come out and tell you and your staff (or your patrons!) all about these fabulous blogs, contact us.

If you attended the KCMLIN/MARRT workshop on Book Blogging, the handout can now be found here on Shelfrenewal.

With Halloween just a few days away, I wanted to make sure you are all up to speed on everything horror.  No better place to get your horror fix than at Becky Spratford’s RA for All: Horror blog.

An offshoot of her regular RA for All blog (we’ve crushed on her before, ’cause she’s awesome…), the goal of her horror-specific blog  is to help librarians match horror readers with their next good read.   She’s got an index of Horror Reviews, as well as information about publishers, awards, and other Horror resources.  This month (Oct 2011), her theme has been “31 days of Horror”, and she’s been diligently posting what she’s reading, roundups of horror links, blogging about film and TV, and more.

Boo!