Week 15 prompt

I think there are two major arenas when it comes to marketing a fiction collection (or any collection) at the library. You have the physical world and the digital one. And both can be equally important and equally powerful if you use them right.

1) Book displays are the basic, go-to library marketing tool, which is most likely because they work and don't cost much. They are versatile, can be used for anything from children's picture books to complex works of non-fiction and anything in between. But I think these displays could be included in a library's website or blog as well. Pictures of the book covers are easy to come by, and most blogs etc make it pretty easy to turn an image into a link. They click the book and it takes them wherever you want them to go. The library's page for the item. The kirkus review of it. The book trailer. Goodread reviews. A library blog post talking about that specific book with a list of read-alikes. etc etc. While browsing the shelves is easily my favorite thing to do, the truth is, I, and many people, just don't have the time to do it in person. I go to the library to pick up holds and return books. All of my searching is done online and I would definitely make use of a display like that.


2) Utilize book trailers! Whether they are a part of your digital book display or part of a blog post reviewing the book, or just something you post to your facebook wall, a book trailer is a living breathing view of the book, made by the publisher to get people to read it. It's a pretty sweet piece of free media for a given book. I've talked about the book Steelheart several times this semester, so let's try that one.

Add some descriptive words: Revenge, Murder, Super-villains, Non-stop action!
And a link to the library's page: Check it out!
And there you have it. Fast, easy, and eye catching, it's an awesome foot in the door of people's attention spans.

3) Don't just offer RA services, promote them. Host a Reader Advisory day once a month for people to come in and "get their book future told" complete with crystal balls and assorted fun. Or, digitally, "You've heard of Ask a Librarian! Well why not ask a librarian what to read?" Yes, I understand that things can get lost in translation when they aren't face-to-face, but if reference interviews can be done via livechats then RA should have some success at it. Make it boldly obvious that RA is a thing people can do at the library. A lot of people I know were really surprised when I told them about taking this class, because they didn't realize that librarians could help them find fiction books to read.

4) Another idea, if you have a blog where the staff reviews or promotes books, have a Submit box where patrons can anonymously send in comments or reviews of books they've read. Then use the best ones for the blog. Or, collect groups and do a Patron Picks display on  given topic (Oh look, we have 14 romance novel reviews. Let's do that.). Since it's anonymous, and as long as it is in the Rules of Submission, you can even print them out and use them on a real life display in the library.

Week 14 prompt

To start off my discussion of 'specialty fiction' (African American, LGBTQA, short stories, poetry), I will say that at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library, when I worked there, these were treated as separate collections. (Though we didn't have much in the way of LGBTQA anything, fiction or non-fiction.) And my experience with having them all split up like that is mixed. Poetry seemed to be very well received in its own space apart from the fiction. It was fairly well browsed and utilized. Short stories basically sat in their shelves and were ignored. The African American fiction was flat out offensive. Not because giving it its own space was offensive, but because whoever split it off into its own collection didn't include all African American authors. Almost everything in our "African American" display was Street Lit. Any book by an African American author that had any type of "intellectual quality" (what I was actually told when I asked) was put in our regular fiction. So, in short, if it was "trashy urban stuff" (again, I'm quoting,) it was in the African American section.

To sum up, nothing could have possibly turned me off to the idea of making separate sections for racial or orientation reasons than that. On a different note, I've heard horror stories of people peeing on, trashing, stealing materials from, and even setting fire to those collections. These mostly came from a blog I follow about a librarian who lives in a very homophobic area who was trying to build an LGBTQA collection. But the point is that by separating these materials you are making them a target.

More importantly, separating poetry makes sense to me, because poetry is a different art form than prose. Just like I wouldn't file the movies with the novels, I wouldn't file the poetry with the novels either. But an action packed novel by an African American author is still a novel and should be with the rest of the novels. Permanently filing it elsewhere is more an exclusion than anything. If you want it to be easy for patrons to track down things by authors of a certain race or orientation, or materials that include stories or characters of a specific race or orientation then it should be in the metadata so they can be searched for. You can also create reading lists or displays on the topic to help highlight that part of the collection. But to split them into groups like that? No. We do that enough with living people as it is. Let's not do it with the books too.

Week 13

The problem with new forms of literature, be they YA or NA or Graphic Novels or Street Lit etc etc is that they are new and long standing establishments are far slower to change than any single individual, or even a generation of people. Are there library patrons who would be better served if a given library had a solid collection of one or all of these genres? Absolutely. But the idea that there isn’t going to be a fight involved in getting those needs met is just plain silly. 

Libraries are underfunded. I don’t have research on this, but I would be pretty surprised if, at any point in history libraries were fully and abundantly funded. But even if that used to be a thing, it sure isn’t today.  Buying for many collection managers is often more about making a list of the best additions to the library, and then trying to see what they manage to get. By picking book A, they have to choose against book B even if it would be a great item for their library. So, on that front, the idea of putting one, or several, new line items in that budget is going to be met with resistance. 

Then you add in the negative stereotype attached to many of these genres.

YA is for kids.

Street Lit is way too graphic/violent/sexual/etc.

Graphic novels are for kids.

Graphic novels are way too graphic/violent/sexual/etc.

NA is... what? Who’s even heard of NA? Some, sure, but it isn’t entirely mainstream knowledge. I hadn’t even heard the term before this year.

Oh, and manga is just Weird Asian Comic Books.

And, by the way, kids don’t pay for libraries. Grown-ups do. We have to make sure to cater to our money base before we waste money on ‘extras for the kids’.

Additionally, focusing on Manga and Graphic Novels for a second, these are almost always series. Especially if it is big enough, popular enough, to gain mainstream attention. If you start buying a serial, can you afford to keep buying it. Or, if it is a super popular series that has been out forever, can you afford to buy what is already out (or the whole series if it’s complete) ? Do you start buying the new issues that people want and will circulate or do you try to start from the beginning? 

This isn’t as much an issue with the YA, SL, or NA genres, in my opinion, simply because of the age of the genre.  Stories aimed at these genres are far more recent than graphic novels, which in turn is far more recent than manga. Add to that the fact that both manga and graphic novels have their own publishing houses, which makes them more of an entire different form of media than books. Talking about developing a graphic novel collection from scratch at this point would be like telling a library that has no visual media (movies, dvds, etc) to go out and start building one. There is just too much content available. It’s daunting. Just walk into any comic book store and walk around. And then think about the fact that what you are seeing is mostly new content, with some collections of really popular, good selling materials.

Which is why I don’t judge a library when I go in to see if they have a manga series I want to read and I realize that they have volume 1-3, 7, 9-12, and 25. It’s insanity to me, from the inside, because I know what I’m looking for and what I’m looking at. But even the best efforts of a librarian with limited knowledge and limited funds isn’t going to effect change overnight. Getting any kind of comprehensive collection of these types of materials and genres into libraries is just going to take time and a lot of effort.

Week 12 - Reader Advisory Matrix

1. Where is the book on the narrative continuum?

This book is pretty solidly narrative, reading like an engaging physics lecture or TED talk.

2.  What is the subject of the book?

The universe of Star Trek and how it might actually work, if it had to fall within the scientific laws of our universe.

 

3. What type of book is it?  Science

4.  Appeal

                a. Pacing:  The book goes in spurts. It is a quick read during some of the stories and examples, but slows significantly during the explanation parts. It's better off reading in chunks.

                b. Characters:   The only real characters in the book are the narrator and, referenced, the characters from Star Trek: The Original Series.

                c. Feel of the story: Light-weight and hopeful

                d. Intent of the Author:  To build a bridge between the pop culture interest in Star Trek: TOS and the actual physics involved.

                e. Focus of the story: Physics and what could be invented in the future.

                f. Does the language matter? It does. The hard sciences are stereotypically not very accessible and since the whole point of this book is to make them more accessible, the choice of language is extremely important.

               g. Is the setting important and well described? Setting isn't extremely important to this book, though it does play a role. To help make his information more interesting the author frequently has the reader 'imagine you are on the bridge of the Enterprise'. Having that setting in your mind while reading does help get through some of the drier parts.

                h. Are there details and if so, what? The book is filled with details about physics and how it works. That being said, the details are purposefully kept light and surface level. It is a book to throw around ideas and theories about futuristic physics. It is not a textbook to teach you physics.

                i. Charts and other graphic materials: The book contains a few charts and illustrations. It also has a series of black and white photos in the center of the book showing real life awesome achievements in scientific research.

                j. Does the book stress moments of learning, understanding, or experience? This book has a major focus on understanding. It takes all of the random, science-y sounding terminology tossed around in an episode of Star Trek and makes the reader really understand what the character means when they say those things.

5. Why would a reader enjoy this book (rank appeal)?

            1.  The feel of the book - Star Trek is inherently a hopeful future, where mankind has been able to work together to overcome a lot of the issues we now face. And while this book doesn't go into the philosophical aspects of human nature, it makes the science of the series seem almost within our reach.

            2. The language used. I will freely admit, I have a BA in English. I took exactly one science class in college and that class could have been retitled "Chemistry for Dummies". I expected to want to be able to understand and enjoy this book, but I didn't really expect to be able to. I was greatly mistaken. Sure, it wasn't something I could sit down and read in one sitting, but it was comprehensible. Even to me.

            3. The pop culture draw. A lot of the people who like Star Trek have some type curiosity toward the world around them. The whole premise of the show is exploration, not only of the world around us but of us humans as well. This book presents a chance to turn that curiosity on the idea of Star Trek itself.

Week 11 response

The thing I always think about first, when someone mentions e-books or audiobooks, is convenience. It's easier to carry around a kindle etc than a whole bunch of books. It's easier to read a book when you can switch up the formatting to the way you like it best. It's easier to log in and download a new book than going out and buying or borrowing one. It's more convenient to just pop on an audio book and let the story play as you drive or go for a jog or wash the dishes or whatever else requires your hands but not your mind.
In regards to Reader Advisory and recommending books to people there is also something to be said for recommending  book without having to deal with the preconceived notions tied in with cover and book design. Many different genres have distinctive cover styles. Just by glancing at the front of a book I can, fairly accurately, tell whether a book is a romance, a mystery, Scifi, fantasy, a popular suspense title, etc. Even within a given genre there are different tropes for cover art. There are certain fantasy books that I can tell just from the cover that I won't enjoy, because I know X-type stories get X-type of covers. I know I, and plenty of other people, get into reading ruts and it's easy to get boxed in by book cover assumptions. Or page number. Or size and design of the book. By taking away those properties it becomes harder to stay in that exact rut you've been in. It also becomes easier to sell someone on a new book if they don't come at it prejudging because of visual aspects.

That being said, there are some drawbacks to these formats. Books don't have to be charged. You can't corrupt a book file, crack its screen, or accidentally delete a book. Also, when reading a print book your hands and mind are occupied with that activity. Reading electronically, for me at least, always has the temptation to go... check my email, scroll down Tumblr, watch a kitten video, etc. There are too many other options. Listening to audio books are even worse. Not only does it take me a lot longer, to listen to a book that to read one , but without the visual aspect of reading my likelihood of getting distracted from the story is almost a certainty. By switching to a less traditional format I lose the ability to do justice to the story.

Fantasy Annotation

 

Author: Hilari Bell

Title: The Goblin Wood

Genre: Fantasy

Publication Date: 2003

Number of Pages: 371

Plot Summary: When the religious run government turns against the lesser magic workers 12 year old Makenna is forced to watch her mother, a hegewitch, drown at the hands of their fellow villagers. Barely escaping into the woods, she encounters and teams up with the Goblins, becoming their General as they take the war to the humans. Years pass and the government views her as a threat, so they send a war-trained knight to kill her.

 

Subject Headings: 

 Witches

Knights and Knighthood

Goblins

Magic

Persecution

 

Appeal: 

World Building

Intricate Plot

Fast-paced

Suspenseful

 

Similar Authors and Works: 

  

Starcrossed - by: Elizabeth C. Bunce

A Hat Full of Sky - by: Terry Prachett

The Gift - by: James Patterson

Midterm Booktalks

Nothing makes me quite as panicked and anxious as public speaking. Lots of practice has given me some kind of control over it, but I don't go into a presentation without a plan. To that end I needed to know exactly who my audience was and why I was giving this booktalk. So I invented a scenario. Then I designed a script and book descriptions for the people I was talking to. If I was talking to, say, middle schoolers, I would have written something completely different. Because this would have been a more formal talk I would either have memorized my script completely (which I didn't have time for in this instance) or used noted cards. In a more relaxed setting, as long as I was talking about books I had personally (and recently) read I would be more willing to wing it.

Super thanks to my fiance Alex for playing camera man all night. He only laughed at me a little.