Posts on librarianship

School is ending, which means it's summer reading club time at the library! Traditionally, an important feature of our library's club is "the booth," a little tri-fold hut where kids talk to teen volunteers about the books they've been reading.

This summer, it was once again my pleasure to decorate the booth in accordance with our theme, "Make a Splash: Read!" I don't really draw or paint much (okay, at all) these days, so the prospect of working on the booth was a mixture of thrill and stressor. Once I figured out my design, though, I had a lot of fun following through!

This weekend, the custodians will assemble the booth in time for our first book reports on Monday. In the meantime, here's my painting in triptych form.

How much do I love it that my job (and especially my boss) give me all sorts of opportunities to use my different skills—even the ones you don't necessarily associate with books and libraries? Librarianship rocks.

(Here's a link to my photos of last year's booth!)

My friend Rie pointed me to this adorable video of University of Washington MLIS students performing Lady Gaga's "Poker Face"—reinvented with library-centric lyrics. Prepare to be ear-wormed! ("Can use my, can use my, yeah, you can use my catalog...")

Joe saw this ad while laid over at the Las Vegas airport. Say what you will about Sin City, the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District sure makes going to the library look like a lot of fun!

(Okay, it also looks like... other things. But still... fun?)

Wednesday my local SCBWI group had the pleasure of hearing Robert McDonald, children’s book buyer for The Book Stall, talk about his selection practices. This was particularly interesting for me as a librarian. I’ve posted previously about how I choose library materials, and I was curious to compare and contrast methodology.

As I’ve said, my department purchases new trade books based almost exclusively on reviews. Our information is second-hand. We depend on fellow librarians to review books fairly and accurately so we can judge their worth to our patrons. We don’t see the books for ourselves until they arrive at our library.

In contrast, Robert told us publishers send him folded and gathered proofs (F & Gs) of picture books and advance reading copies (ARCs) of middle grade and YA fiction. The former he generally reads in their entirety, but he doesn’t have time to read the ARCs. Instead he depends on catalog copy and the opinions of sales reps, with whom he meets several times a year, depending on the publisher. He told us that even though sales reps’ job is to sell books, they will be honest if they think a particular book is weak; that’s how they build trust with their clients.

Now, occasionally my library’s selection method results in a purchase I regret once the book is hand—if, for instance, I realize it won’t circulate well, or if I’ve ordered an expensive, easily damaged pop-up book by mistake! Since we’re a public library, though, we go with the idea that there’s a place for just about everything on our shelves, as long as space and budget permits. In most cases, someone will want it someday, though it may be months or even years from now.

In contrast, of course, a book seller wants stock that will sell. Robert reminded us adults are the primary buyer of children’s books, though children do start choosing their own books around the time they start to read. He emphasized that he is not always looking for “the best books” for the store; there is plenty of room for popular topics such as vampires and dinosaurs, which are often good choices for reluctant readers.

These are some of the other issues Robert considers when deciding what to buy / what will sell.

• Does the book belong to a marketable category—e.g., board book, easy reader, YA fantasy? Books that are harder to categorize tend to be harder sells, with occasional exceptions such as Shaun Tan’s popular The Arrival (AALB, 2007).

Picture Books

• Picture books are purchased mainly for bedtime reading.
• Is the book a “parent book” (lighter on text, for adults who will be reading a lot) or a “grandma book” (more text-heavy, for adults giving the books as gifts or have more leisure time)?
• Are the illustrations interesting, beautiful, quirky, “non-Walmarty”? Do the illustrations add content rather than simply backing up the text?
• Would the book make a good read-aloud? If it rhymes, are the rhymes well-executed?
• Will it appeal to adults, too (e.g., two levels of humor), so they can stand to read it repeatedly? Is the message understated instead of didactic?
• Can readers immediately enter the world of the story?

Middle Grade and YA Fiction

• Is the story plot-driven, and does it begin quickly?
• Is it following, setting, or subverting a trend? Can it be recommended to fans of X? If it’s following a trend, does it put a new spin on it?
• Is it an “issue novel,” dealing with, for example, anorexia, homelessness, AIDS? If so, do enough people care about the issue? Will it appeal even to readers who can’t personally relate to the issue? Is there a believable story, character, and world beyond the issue?
• If it’s a YA novel, how much adult content—sex, drugs, etc.—does it contain? Parents will ask.
• Has it been dubbed YA only because it has young characters?

Nonfiction

• Almost any topic can be sold if the book is well-executed.
• Does it focus on something new—e.g., a biography of a lesser-known person?
• “Can I sell this to a teacher?”

Robert closed with some tips for authors interested in approaching their independent book stores. He told us not to send promotional post cards; most likely, they will be recycled. Instead, find out the name and email address of the store’s book buyer, and contact them directly. Introduce yourself and inquire whether the buyer has seen your new book. Provide a web link to more information about your book.

In light of the raging health care debate over public options and the recent Philadelphia Free Library scare, this piece from the San Francisco Chronicle hits home in the best possible way.

Yet, do these libertines of literature let you choose any book you want, anytime you want it? No. Have you ever tried to get the latest best-seller at a public library? They put you on a waiting list for that, my friend. And if you do ask these government apparatchiks a question about a book, they start talking your ear off, and pretty soon they're telling you what to read.
—The Menace of the Public Option

Meanwhile, it's National Library Card Sign-Up Month for five more days. If you've recently moved to a new city, get your rear to your local library for a new card; some good books, music, and movies; and, with any luck, some fun schwag!

(Thanks, M., for the editorial link!)

When in the course of human events one has a lousy customer service experience, one must, of course, blog about it.

A little role reversal is a valuable thing. When doctors become patients, teachers become students, customer service representatives become disgruntled customers, and librarians become patrons, we suddenly see the world from the other side of the desk—and sometimes, we find, we don't like what we see.

This morning, I stepped into the role of patron at my hometown library. (I work in the next town over.) I've had a poor customer service experience there previously, in the circulation department, but I thought I'd give Reader's Assistance a try. I'd looked in the mystery section for Charlie Huston's vampire detective series, to no avail, so I went up to the desk.

Two librarians were sitting behind it talking. They looked up at me as I approached and continued to talk for several seconds. Finally, one of them said, "Yes?"

"Hi!" I said. "I'm wondering if you can tell me what the most recent book in Charlie Huston's vampire detective series is."

The librarian began clicking and tapping away at her computer. Finally, she said, "The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death."

I waited a moment. The title didn't sound right (the other books in this series have very catchy, hard-boiled names), but I thought I'd at least take a look. When the librarian said nothing more, I said, "Okay. Can you tell me if it's checked in?"

"That's what I'm checking. It should be over in the fiction section." She pointed a vague finger.

"Okay, great. I was looking in the mysteries before. That must have been my problem."

I went to the fiction section and found Charlie Huston's books. The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death, of course, is not a vampire detective book. But some earlier books in the series were there. I took one back to the reference desk with me.

The librarian did not look happy to see my return. I smiled. "I found the book you told me, but it wasn't in the right series. This is the series I'm interested in." I opened the book to the publications list. "The Joe Pitt Casefiles. I didn't remember the name."

The librarian somehow completely misunderstood me. "Well, it doesn't say it's new, but it might be in the new book section."

We walked over, and I said, "Is this the vampire book we're looking for?"

"We're looking for the one I told you about before."

"I found that book. It was by the same author, but it wasn't in the series I wanted."

"Well, then, I don't understand what you're asking me." By now the librarian had gone from seeming mildly put-out to downright hostile.

I patiently opened the book to the publications lists again. "This author writes several series. This is the one I'm interested in: the Joe Pitt Casefiles. This one was published in 2007. I want to know if there's a more recent one."

Resignedly, the librarian spent several more minutes at the computer without talking to me. Meanwhile, I began to feel sick with anger and anxiety. I wished I could grab her computer and look up the information myself, or at least say, "Are you searching all libraries? Have you considered googling the series to get a full listing?" But I hate outsiders telling me how to do my job, so I kept my mouth shut.

Finally she said, "I think this is the one: My Dead Body. 2009."

"Okay. Do you have it?"

"One library has it on order." She didn't offer to reserve it for me.

"Okay. Well, thanks a lot!" I said brightly.

"All right." I left the library and bought a burrito (clearly my only course of action at that point).

Storytime is over; let the rant begin. My problem with this whole "customer service transaction" is not that I walked away empty-handed. My problem is that everything about the librarian's speech and body language, from beginning to end, screamed, "Get out of my face, you stupid patron."

Let's take a look:

• "Yes?" is not a greeting or an offer of assistance. It's something you say when someone's interrupted you.
• She didn't smile. She barely made eye contact.
• She either didn't listen to my question or didn't compare what she saw on her screen with what I'd asked. (The book she directed me to had nothing to do with vampires.)
• She didn't listen to what I said when I returned to the desk.
• She got angry with me for, apparently, not communicating what I wanted.
• When someone says "thank you," the appropriate response is "you're welcome."

Oh, and another thing? There's a Joe Pitt novel that came out in 2008 and, while that library does not own it, other libraries in the consortium do. She easily could have ordered it for me... if she'd been remotely interested in actually answering my question.

The experience brought home for me how important friendly faces and can-do attitudes are at the library reference desk. I think my library (the one where I work) does very well, on the whole. At least we do in my department. When people approach the desk, we say, "Hi! May I help you!" We say, "You're welcome." We listen carefully to our patrons' questions. We do our best to answer them accurately, using not just the catalog as a resource but also our coworkers, the Internet, and other reference materials as necessary.

That's the way it should be. The fact that it's not that way everywhere makes me sick. These are the librarians who give us all a bad name. The ones who embody the stereotype of the antisocial shusher. The ones who make patrons of all ages afraid to approach the reference desk with their questions. The ones whose "best" is somehow worse than my "worst."

They're also the ones who remind me, when I return to my place behind the desk, how to do my job right. And for that, Ms. Crabbycakes Librarian, I thank you.

If the name Munro Leaf rings a bell to you, it's probably thanks to that charming classic he penned and Robert Lawson illustrated: The Story of Ferdinand, about a bull who would rather sit and smell the flowers than fight in the ring. Apparently the book, first published in 1936, was banned in several countries for its pacifist, apparently lefty ways. Although it won no awards that I know of, it's inspired political change and works of art and remains a favorite more than 70 years later.

So, in a weeding discovery even more amazing than Isaac Asimov's little-known fascination with vitamins, I was shocked and awed to find this lesser known but still... um... great?... book not only written, but also illustrated, by Munro Leaf: Safety Can Be Fun, first published by Lippincott in 1936. This revised and expanded edition (in its sixth printing!) was published in 1961.

Were you wondering how safety could, possibly, be fun? Let me entice you with a few samples. From the introduction:

And now, a few of my favorite Nit-Wits. I dare you not to fall in love.

Amazing what a little spot color can do.

That's right. "When it eats and drinks the pills, powders, lighter fluid, soaps and medicine it has piled up for a party—it is going to be badly poisoned. Too bad!"

No, your eyes do not deceive you. "Then it played with knives, razors, scissors and an axe until it had cut off the end of its necktie, chopped its shoe and taken a nick out of its ear. So they had to tie its hands up."

And, yes, then there's the baby holding a stick of dynamite and pointing a rifle at its face. "So it will be a race to see which blows him out first."

So it goes, for 63 pages!

Okay. Let's just pause a minute and remember that this is the guy who wrote that sweet little story about a flower-sniffing bull calf—a story that has stood the test of time.

Something tells me that today's parents, even (and perhaps especially) those reading Ferdinand to their little tykes, are not going to dig Safety Can Be Fun.

Munro Leaf had a whole series of "Can Be Fun" books on everything from manners to grammar to geography. He also wrote a book called How to Behave and Why which, unfortunately, my library does not own. I'm not sure whether all these books took the "Nit-Wit" angle or not.

I've been feeling torn about whether to keep the book in our collection. It's such a perverse little gem. But you can see from the images that it's in pretty grody condition. And then there's the whole babies-eating-poison-and-holding-guns things. Oh, how times change. It may be time to say goodbye.

But you know that "Lippincott Life Binding" advertised on the cover? It's no lie. These pages may be yellowed, torn, and covered with gook, but they're firmly attached to the spine!

10. There are no clocks in McCormick Place. Anywhere. In a convention center where people are expected to hike, like, two miles to get from session to session, you'd think there would be a clock somewhere. But you'd be wrong.

9. The ALA conference is technically international, as a friendly young librarian from New Brunswick may prove to you on the escalator with his New Brunswickian business card.

8. The exhibition hall embodies everything that is horrible about shopping malls, including poor lighting, crowds of people not looking where they're going, and general overstimulation. However, your willingness to forgive will grow with each ARC and half-price book you add to your tote bag.

7. The Unshelved comic strip guys have the nicest people working at their booth—including themselves!

6. The best meal deal at the convention center is the salad bar. You can serve yourself a huge portion of salad, pasta, soup, and rolls and feel as if you are getting something approximating your money's worth.

5. Jacqueline Woodson is tall and gorgeous and happy to tell you where the elusive paper towels are in the Chicago Sheraton washroom.

4. Book cart drill team is the most beautiful, dorky, undercelebrated sport in the world. Every library should have one.

3. Susan Kusel is incredibly persistent, patient, and polite when it comes to meeting famous Newbery Award-winning authors. Fortunately, if you tag along with Susan, you will be rewarded by also meeting said author.

2. Meeting people face-to-face whom you've previously known only online is a great thing, especially if those people are librarian and lunch blogger Emily, Flux editor Brian Farrey, poet and 15-words-or-less-poetry host Laura Salas, and uber-librarian KT Horning.

1. You will need at least a week to sleep off the conference.

Andrew Karre points to this obnoxious article in School Library Journal: "Tough Love: An Open Letter to Kids' Book Publishers," by Diantha McBride.

McBride does begin by saying these are her suggestions of things she wishes publishers would do differently; fair enough. But I wish she'd taken a more straight-forward approach. Some of her suggestions are ones I think most librarians would get behind. Others are just her own pet peeves, but the article's snarky, know-it-all tone gives the impression that they are universal truths recognized by librarians everywhere. And that puts me off. Because that just ain't so. Quite the contrary.

First, though, two points I strongly agree with.

"1. Bulk up those bindings." Yes—especially for books expected to sell big. If they sell big, they'll circulate big. Of course, the cheap glue of graphic novels is the worst. A library that can afford to replace those copies will, of course. But so many don't have the budget.

"3. Give that cover a makeover." Aside from books that are simply old and worn, the books that circulate least are the ones with unappealing covers, especially those using dark or drab colors, "ugly" people (I'm not getting all Seventeen here, I mean paintings that make ordinary characters look strange), and quiet landscapes that don't feature people or animals.

Okay, now the major disagrees.

"2. Better editing." This is the one Andrew addresses so eloquently, so I won't rehash it. Suffice it to say: I agree with him. I've read plenty of books that I thought were overlong (*cough* The Sweet Far Thing *cough* Breaking Dawn *cough* The Amber Spyglass *cough*), but I've also read plenty of long books that were just as long as they needed to be.

Sure, we want well-edited books, but how exactly is page length the measure of good editing? Some readers, young and old, love to be absorbed in epic tales that go on for hundreds or thousands of pages, across dozens of volumes. The equation of "good" with "short" only works when you're a struggling reader or you've got a book report due the next morning. Neither is a universal truth.

Subset of item 3: "Please, no more stupid titles." IMNSHO, stupid titles are the ones that misrepresent a book's contents. Good titles are the ones that, in combination with an intriguing cover, make the potential reader want to know more. How, then, is How Could You Do It, Diane? a "stupid title"? Do what? I'd love to know! Judging by her examples, McBride seems to think that "stupid titles" are long titles. But based on her opinion of long books, I suppose that's no surprise.

"5. More boy books." There are so many problems with McBride's argument here. First, the erroneous implication that there's a shortage of children's books with male main characters. Seriously, librarians, booksellers? Back me up: when's the last time you had trouble coming up with a boy-centered novel to sell a reader? Second, the implication that these "boy books" must be novels, when studies have repeatedly shown many male readers' preference for nonfiction and alternative media.

But what really boils my blood is that McBride's argument is slavishly patriarchal. We live in a society, in a world, where men (especially white men; especially Christian white men; etc.) are given the greatest privilege. Is the reason boys won't read about girls, but girls will read about boys (a common, but in my opinion fallacious, argument) because of cootie-phobia? No. It's because our culture values boys more than girls, just as our culture values white people more than black people. (And my library's disproportionately poor circulation of books with African-American characters shows it.) And librarians, teachers, and parents reinforce that preference over and over and over with sexist reader's advisory.

Thank goodness we have Diantha McBride to advise us. She tells us, "I've noticed that lots of books with female characters aren't really about being female," and offers examples of novels with strong female characters that could have had male protagonists instead. Hey, listen up writers and editors! Any book that doesn't specifically deal with breasts and periods and pretty, pretty princesses should be about boys. Because boys don't see themselves reflected in literature, film, politics, science, or sports nearly enough. Because boys are the default. Because we're lazy slaves to the patriarchy.

Excuse me while I barf.

Look, I appreciate McBride's plea for more books geared toward reluctant readers—assuming that's what she's really getting at with her comments on page length and "boy books." (I strongly suspect it is.) But that's it's own issue, a subset of what children's publishing really needs. We need more well-edited books, whatever their length. We need short page-turners, long thought-provokers, and everything in between. We need more books about strong boys and strong girls, whether or not they're about "being male" or "being female"—likewise, books starring ethnic minorities, sexual minorities. We need books packed with action; we need books examining character and identity. We need fiction and nonfiction. We need it all.

Basically, children's publishers? Please keep responding to the broad and varied needs of today's diverse young readers. That's it. That's all I ask.

ETA, 7/1/09:
After this knicker-twisting experience, my final patron brought my evening to a most satisfying conclusion. This seventh grade boy, avid fantasy reader, walked away with The Hero and the Crown and The Will of the Empress—books by two foremost women writers of fantasies starring kick-ass women—and didn't betray a single misgiving about the protagonists being female. Booyah.

This post from the always-amusing blog (The Customer Is) Not Always Right amused me: An Offering to the Literary Gods.

You know, I could do with a nice, crusty loaf of bread right about now. Patrons? Hello?

But skip the flowers. My allergies are driving me crazy as is.