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Career Reality Check: Life Skills for New Grads | Collection Development

By Bonnie Easton Traditionally, graduating from college has signified that the graduate is ready to … [Continue Reading]

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Good-bye 2011: Best Short Stories, Poetry Not To Miss, Fiction in Translation

As I look back over 2011—and my office, piled high with books—I realize that there are so many … [Continue Reading]

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The State of Gaming

M. Brandon Robbins has written often as a guest blogger here, and takes on the position of games … [Continue Reading]

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The Word on Street Lit: Women Thugs on Top

Are street lit stories about sex or crime, or a combination of both? Do characters always use … [Continue Reading]

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Occupy This: Graphic Novels About Economic Justice, Social Movements & Historical Revolutions

Thousands of graphic novels and comics could qualify for this description, including story arcs in … [Continue Reading]

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What Else To Read When You Are Reading LJ’s Best Poetry of 2011

Several years ago, while wondering how to get more people to read poetry, I came up with an idea. … [Continue Reading]

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What the Authors of LJ’s Top Ten Best Books of 2011 Are Doing Next

Bolton, Andrew & others (text) & Sølve Sundsbø (photogs.). Alexander McQueen: Savage … [Continue Reading]

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Musical Renaissance: DIY Music | Collection Development

By Barry Trott Despite, or perhaps because of, the dramatic increase in the opportunities to … [Continue Reading]

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From the RA Horse’s Mouth: Favorite Reads of 2011 | The Reader’s Shelf

In keeping with this column’s annual tradition of asking readers’ advisors to write about books … [Continue Reading]

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Best Databases 2011: Librarians Decide Which Databases Make the Grade

Reference Supplement 2011 Best Databases 2011: Librarians Decide Which Databases Make the … [Continue Reading]

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Blogs

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Announcing the Finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards

Big-name authors like Jeffrey Eugenides and Alan Hollinghurst, plus show-stopping newcomer Teju Cole (Open City). Three books treating war: Adam Hochschild’s To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918, Maya Jasanoff’s Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War, and Amanda Foreman’s A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American [...]

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The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless [Library] Jargon

Okay, so this article in Forbes is really titled: “The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless Business Jargon,” but a quick read reveals that just about every one of these words and phrases have leapt (not crept) into the dreaded library jargon. Which does underscore my belief that libraries are increasingly aping business models more than [...]

RUSA awards

Reference Worth Screaming For

A packed ballroom at Sunday’s RUSA (the American Library Association’s Reference and User Services division) awards was treated to a dose of nostalgia of the kind that reference librarians love. First was an announcement from Dartmouth Medal Committee Chair Jack O’Gorman concerning a set that Library Journal‘s reviewer Michael Bemis described as “a verbivore’s delight” [...]

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The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless [Library] Jargon

January 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Okay, so this article in Forbes is really titled: “The Most Annoying, Pretentious And Useless Business Jargon,” but a quick read reveals that just about every one of these words and phrases have leapt (not crept) into the dreaded library jargon. … [Read More...]

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The Library Test Kitchen

January 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A colleague just sent me the link to this Harvard Graduate School of Design course, #: ADV-09115-00, Bibliotheca II: The Library Test Kitchen, which is being taught this spring by Jeffrey Schnapp and Jeffrey Goldenson. The course website describes … [Read More...]

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Xpress Reviews: Nonfiction | First Look at New Books, January 27, 2012

January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Week ending January 27, 2012 Allen, Anita. Unpopular Privacy: What Must We Hide? Oxford Univ. 2011. c.320p. ISBN 9780195141375. $35. LAW Many laws protect citizens’ privacy, and most—legislation that ensures medical confidentiality or Fourth … [Read More...]

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Xpress Reviews: Fiction | First Look at New Books, January 27, 2012

January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Week ending January 27, 2012 Kellerman, Jonathan. Victims: An Alex Delaware Novel. Ballantine. Feb. 2012. c.352p. ISBN 9780345505712. $28. F Drawing from insights gained in his clinical work with mentally distressed children, Kellerman pulls the … [Read More...]

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Xpress Reviews: E-Originals | First Look at New Books, January 27, 2012

January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Week ending January 27, 2012 Husk, Shona. Brightwater Blood. Samhain. Feb.2012. c.88p. eISBN 9781609285791 EPUB. $3.50. PARANORMAL ROMANCE As the last Were-lion of his bloodline, tracker Lachlan has a talent for finding difficult items. When he … [Read More...]

Collection Development

Wyatt’s World: RUSA’s Outstanding Books of the Year

By

The Collection Development and Evaluation Section (a part of the Reference and User Services Association, or RUSA) has announced its selections of the most outstanding works of 2012 (though the winners and contenders were largely published in 2011). These awards are unique in the pantheon of best lists, representing as they do the judgments of [...]

Career Reality Check: Life Skills for New Grads | Collection Development

By

Traditionally, graduating from college has signified that the graduate is ready to find a job and move away from home. Postrecession times, however, dictate a new scenario. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unemployment rate for adults ages 20 to 24 was 14.5% in August 2011. A college education used to ensure a well-paying job, but now many first careers are on hold until the economy ­improves.

Memoir Short Takes: BFFs, Agorafabulosity, & a Mom Gone Nun

By

Welcome to 2012, fellow memoir readers! This year’s initial crop of titles, if plotted on a Venn diagram, would appear as a bunch of nonintersecting circles: a search for a new BFF, a foodie memoir, and a tale of agoraphobia, too. While the memoirs featured here may not share many common themes, each deals in [...]

Books for Dudes: Six Novels That Will Keep You Up Past Your Bedtime; Plus, Dog Training

By

Pretty pissed off. That’s how you can characterize the staff here at BFD this month. Not only about the freak snowstorm that took out power for 11 days at World BFD HQ in Connecticut recently. Cry me a river, you say? Well, I’m pissed off about other stuff, too—namely six authors named Donatich, Grossman, Long, [...]

Wyatt’s World: Quilting Collecting—Basics and Inspiration

By

Quilting may be the next big craft movement, and even if not, the art and craft of quilting is a core subject. Make sure you own Quilter’s Complete Guide by Marianne Fons and Liz Porter (and track it down if not), That Perfect Stitch: The Secrets of Fine Hand Quilting (2d. edition) by Dierdra McElroy, [...]

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Readers’ Advisory

Wyatt’s World: RUSA’s Outstanding Books of the Year

By

The Collection Development and Evaluation Section (a part of the Reference and User Services Association, or RUSA) has announced its selections of the most outstanding works of 2012 (though the winners and contenders were largely published in 2011). These awards are unique in the pantheon of best lists, representing as they do the judgments of [...]

Wonder from Down Under: Australian Fiction |The Reader’s Shelf, January 2012

By

Mark Twain wrote of Australia in More Tramps Abroad, “It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies; and all of a fresh new sort, no mouldy old stale ones. It is full of surprises and adventures, the incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened.” Twain’s [...]

RA Crossroads: What To Watch (and Read) After Downton Abbey

By

As Lewis Carroll’s Alice so aptly points out, “What is the use of a book…without pictures or conversations?” Welcome to RA Crossroads, where books, movies, music, and other media converge, and whole-collection reader’s advisory service goes where it may. In this column, the drama of Downton Abbey leads me down a winding path. Begin: Downton [...]

Wyatt’s World: Reading Around the Hidden Kingdom—Literature About North Korea

By

A steady buzz is building over Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son (Random), but it is not the only well-reviewed title concerning North Korea. Consider also these works to create a minicollection for interested patrons: James Church’s Inspector O novels (Minotaur), A Corpse in the Koryo, Hidden Moon, Bamboo and Blood, and The Man with [...]

Wyatt’s World: Quilting Collecting—Basics and Inspiration

By

Quilting may be the next big craft movement, and even if not, the art and craft of quilting is a core subject. Make sure you own Quilter’s Complete Guide by Marianne Fons and Liz Porter (and track it down if not), That Perfect Stitch: The Secrets of Fine Hand Quilting (2d. edition) by Dierdra McElroy, [...]

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