Collection Developments @ Sno-Isle

from today’s Shelf Awareness:

Library News: Early Word Gives ‘Em What They Need

Congratulations to Nora Rawlinson, former editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly, former editor of Library Journal, former librarian extraordinaire and a great onetime boss and dear friend, who has founded EarlyWord.com with another ex-PW person, Fred Ciporen. (More about him in another issue!)

Rawlinson said that Early Word aims to be to libraries what a great sales rep is to bookstores: offering insight on forthcoming titles that appeal to their customers and tips on titles that are suddenly taking off.

The centerpiece of Early Word is Rawlinson’s blog, “Give ‘Em What They Want,” where she writes every day in conversational and informative style about books libraries might otherwise miss or underbuy. “In libraries, there is so much else going on besides new books,” Rawlinson said. “Librarians don’t the time to look around and seeing what’s taking off. I’m trying to give them quick and easy access to what’s getting attention and rising in demand.”

For the blog, Rawlinson said she watches movement on Amazon as well as checks librarians’ catalogues and see what ordering patterns are. She also tracks reserve-to-copy ratios–in the case of Scott McClellan’s What Happened the ratios showed extraordinary interest, rising to 10 to 1 and 20 to 1, in some places, she said. Librarians also tend to read more pre-publication reviews than consumer reviews and can miss trends in that area, which Rawlinson addresses in the blog and with links to consumer review media.

Besides commentary, Early Word features a variety of resources for librarians, including links to national and specialty bestseller lists and to publishers’ e-catalogues. The site also offers information about book-related movies and TV and about one book/one community picks, a directory of publishers’ library marketing staff and their special services for libraries. (”The librarians’ sections on many publisher sites are hard to find,” Rawlinson said.)

The next main project for Early Word is to create a group of readers advisory and collection development librarians who will be paired with various imprints. “The imprint would pitch to the librarian, who would then write about their picks and takes on the books on Early Word,” Rawlinson said, explaining that “publishers don’t have reps who call on libraries because even though they are 10% of sales, there are too many of them.”

Rawlinson started posting in November, “just to get in rhythm and figure out what I wanted Early Word to be.” By the ALA midwinter meeting in January, she talked with groups of librarians to get more information about what they wanted from such a site. By the PLA meeting in March, Early Word had a soft launch. For the moment, the focus is on adult titles but eventually the site will grow to include children’s and YA books as well.

The arrival of Early Word is fortuitous: the importance of libraries continues to expand in the Internet Age, Rawlinson said. Library websites have long posted their holdings and allowed readers to reserve books. But now they offer downloadable audio and e-books, send out e-mail newsletters and are putting up staff recommendations. “These changes are bringing in a new group of users who don’t have time to go to the library,” she said. “Some of them come into the library once, to get a library card, and then do everything with the library online.”–John Mutter

in reading reviews for new adult fiction, i am often struck by the the contradictory tone of Kirkus whose reviewers seldom agree with other review sources.  also, it seems that Kirkus reviews are often written by frustrated wanna-be authors who diligently work at creating a cleverly constructed sentence that is sometimes impossible to understand.  here are 2 examples of disagreeing opinions, one from a review of “The Evil that Men Do” and the other, “This Night’s Foul Work.”  sure, reviews are subjective, but when a source is consistently different than others, one starts to take those reviews with a grain of salt.

“The Evil that Men Do”

Kirkus Reviews 2008 April #2

A down-on-his-luck ex-shamus returns to sleuthing to help his family.To say that Jackson Donne is at a low point in his life is like saying a tornado is windy. Abruptly widowed, deprived unfairly of his private investigator’s license, he spends much too much time looking for solace in the bottle. Since he can no longer legally sleuth, he earns a pittance as a night-time security guard for a storage company. Enter Susan, the sister he’s been forever out of touch with by his own choice. You simply discarded us, she accuses him, because you were afraid to let anyone get close enough to hurt. Now, however, there’s trouble in the family, and Donne realizes how enlivening it is to be needed. Their mother has been saying strange, even scary things, Susan informs him, things that suggest a family past murkier than anyone has ever suspected. Are these the ramblings of dementia? Susan has to know. It may be that someone who plays for keeps wants desperately to see that certain secrets stay buried. An uncle and aunt are brutally murdered before Donne can question them. He himself endures a “message” beating. History, Donne learns the hard way, can have a long reach and a devastating punch.This sequel to When One Man Dies (2007) shows distinct improvement. But tight-lipped, under-responsive Donne remains essentially charisma-challenged. Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Website: http://www.cahners.com

White’s stunning second crime novel to feature ex-cop and ex-PI Jackson Donne fulfills the promise of his debut, When One Man Dies (2007). Restaurateur Franklin Carter, Donne’s obnoxious but rich brother-in-law, hires him to investigate Donne’s mother’s claims that his grandfather murdered someone. Since Donne’s mother is suffering from dementia, the detective has his work cut out for him, even before someone bombs Carter’s New York City restaurant and later abducts Carter. When Donne becomes a suspect after his elderly aunt and uncle are gunned down in their quiet New Jersey home, he must ally himself with a sympathetic cop to gain any traction in the case. Readers will readily forgive a major coincidence at the heart of the plot because the author does such a fine job of depicting the inner conflicts of his fallible but ultimately heroic protagonist. (June)

“This Night’s Foul Work”

Kirkus Reviews 2008 April #2

When two thugs are found with their throats cut, the local narcs claim the case, but as usual Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg knows better.Adamsberg, who looks like Columbo and thinks like Holmes, heads the Serious Crime Squad in Paris. His flights of fancy are scorned by his detractors. Often his “unstructured mind [is] like an unreadable map” even to his own people. So it’s business as usual when, after the briefest of examinations, he declares that though the stiffs were certainly drug dealers, their murders were not drug-related. On the strength of this gnomic observation, Adamsberg wangles a few extra days to make the case for his side of the turf war. Insights provided by beautiful, elegant, world-class pathologist Dr. Ariane Lagarde point Adamsberg toward a serial killer who, for reasons of his own, battens on young virgins with splendid hair. With two virgins down, Adamsberg intuits—he rarely makes a move not proceeded by an intuition—that one more is to follow. He’s right, of course. So the game’s afoot, the race is on—and eventually the case is cracked in a way that apparently convinces the powers that be but may leave readers shaking their heads.A sub-par performance by a popular French writer (Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand, 2007, etc.) who this time out seems unduly charmed by his own eccentricity. Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Website: http://www.cahners.com

The outstanding fourth whodunit to be made available in the U.S. from Vargas (Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand ) makes it’s easy to see why he’s twice won the CWA’s International Dagger Award. Paris Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, an endearing oddball sleuth in the tradition of John Dickson Carr’s Henry Merrivale, is convinced that the two narcotics dealers recently found with slit throats weren’t the victims of business rivals, relying largely on his intuition and the unexplained presence of dirt under the dead men’s fingernails. Adamsberg’s dogged pursuit of small details leads him to a series of unusual mutilations of wild deer as well as to a serial killer who targets virgins and may be seeking the ingredients to an elixir for eternal life. While the final twist will be less than shocking to some readers, the immensely enjoyable prose, seasoned liberally with humor, should help the author gain the larger American audience he deserves. (June)

In January, a new avenue for transmitting collection suggestions debuted on the Intranet. The Staff Collection Suggestion form replaces lists of suggestions staff collected on paper and sent through delivery or via emails.

Some features of the Staff Collection Suggestion are:

• Should be used to submit individual title or subject suggestions.

• Staff can use this form to pass along suggestions for DVDs, CD music, CD talking books, and books.
• Suggestion is routed directly to the appropriate selector’s MS Outlook email. A list of selection areas for all of the Collection Development staff ensures suggestions will reach the appropriate selector allowing CD staff to be more responsive to suggestions from staff.
• Staff can indicate whether or not follow up from the selector is needed.
• A notes field is can be used to include any additional information about the suggestion.

Holds for individual staff members will not be placed for titles requested. The form can be found on the Intranet under Collection — Staff Collection Suggestion.

Jim

Library Journal has a great collection development article on developing a punk rock collection with books, music, and film. I’ll be using it for the new year, and maybe you’ll want to as well. Is anybody besides me sad that CBGB’s is no more….