Blog June Post 5 - life is as sweet as a baby's sigh

It is cold. Well not cold by some people's definitions but I hate the cold and being a true Queenslander, anything in single figures may as well be considered freezing. In fact, make that anything under 25'C. So my poor little fingers are freezing as I type this and I have only just realised that I have been a bad librarian and not tagged my other posts.

Yesterday's trip to Grafton went well. We are trying a new way of book selecting where we are provided with the descriptions and order list instead of the physical item. This allows us to purchase more pre-published books then previously. We still do get to look at physical items but the majority of decisions are made going by the descriptions (they do have a picture of the book cover so we do use that when making selection decisions too). Which brings me to ask - how do you judge a book worth selecting for your library? Is it all based on the description? The gap in the collection? The community need? The book cover? Combination of all of these?

Would you be comfortable making selection decisions purely by being emailed lists with blurbs, book jacket and cost? Do you prefer to look and feel the physical item? I suppose with ebooks you do select from blurbs and book jackets - or does your ebook supplier provide you with whatever titles are in the subscription rather than you having to make any decision? How do you feel about the decision being taken from you?

I know that there are a number of libraries (especially public libraries) that have outsourced their purchasing. They provide the book vendors with lists of authors that they believe their community will like, as well as popular genres and subjects. The vendors select and process on their behalf. I'd be interested to hear from anyone working in a library that uses this process and how they feel about it? Does it work? Do you think your community is satisfied with the collection? Do you feel it takes away from the traditional role of the librarian?

Personally, I feel privileged to make selection decisions. I like to think that I know my community well enough to be able to select items that I know they will read and enjoy. While our library service does have a large standing order list, I don't think you are doing your community justice just ordering the popular authors. Sometimes I find a gem of a book come through the selection process. It is usually a debut author that you know someone in your community will enjoy. These are missed in standing orders. But perhaps they are picked up in genre lists??

What about non-fiction? Does anyone work in a library where they have a standing order for non-fiction or the vendor does the selecting for this collection? Our non-fiction use is dropping, as I think most public libraries are finding. Not in all areas. Subject areas such as craft, cooking, travel, sustainability and local studies are still popular. But certainly school children use of the collection for assignments has dropped dramatically.

We get the odd few children coming through looking for books for assignments. Well actually it's mainly the parents coming in for the children. But usually it is only because it has been specified on the assignment that they must use at least a certain number of books. I find this very sad because there are some really good junior non-fiction books out there. Although now because they are not being used in the libraries, we don't purchase them so the production of such books has dropped. When selecting we get to look at maybe 10-12 junior non-fiction titles, of which we may choose 1-2. Just because they don't get used.

I have been slowly going through and weeding my branches where and when possible. It is a hard slog when you are the one person doing it. But we are all short on space and we have some exciting collections coming through so we need the room for them.

I notice when weeding, especially the junior non-fiction that some of these books that are over 10 years old have only ever been loaned once, or worse, they have never been loaned at all. Have others noticed this trend?

I do think it is sad that by the time my daughter reaches the age of doing assignments/projects she will be finding the majority, if not all of her information online. While I know that I will be assisting her and teaching her proper search skills - because I know that the teacher librarian often does not get this opportunity - I feel she will still be missing out on using those wonderful junior non-fiction resources that I used when going through school.

I personally think it is much easier to find a book dealing with a particular subject - let's face it most junior non-fiction were developed to fit the needs of the school curriculum so you were hard pressed if you couldn't find a book that was about your topic - then to troll through cyberspace looking for the same information. While my daughter will be loaded with the skills to do this, not all children will have that opportunity and I worry for them.

Anyway, I had planned that this post be about my love of music and discuss my music tastes etc. But instead I went off tangent. I'll leave the music post for another time.

PS I am off to Grafton again tomorrow to divide up the stack collection - long story that I hope to share tomorrow time permitting.

Library Day in the Life - Post #3

Sorry for the delay in putting this post up but I was a tad exhausted after work and then my daughter took over the computer to play games.

I started the day with an hour and half drive to our library service HQ where one of our book suppliers was coming to visit. The deal is the book supplier brings many many boxes of books and the regional librarian, the coordinator of the other branch libraries and I go through and select which ones we'd like to purchase for our library service.

In a past job, I did book selection for the 900 DDC area. But when I started in this position, book selection was not a part of my role. The HQ staff would select the books for the library service and branch staff would be able to have input via submission of Requests for Purchase. I really missed book selection, and there is nothing like having someone with local knowledge of their branch libraries to know what will and won't be read.

Since our new Regional Librarian started 12 months ago, I have been invited to attend book selection days. There are usually around 2 a month. Of course we use more than 2 book suppliers but these are the only 2 we have organised to visit. It can take us 2-3 hours to do this process depending on how many books we have to go through.

We have a standing order which makes the process a bit easier, and of course, large print and audio books are purchased in a different manner so we don't have to go through those formats. We are now also in the process of building a DVD collection - yes we don't have one. We must be the only library service in Australia that doesn't have a DVD collection. But now we do - albeit small - at this stage. So we will also be selecting DVDs.

The process we go through is the book supplier will show us all the adult fiction, then junior easies, junior fiction, young adult fiction, junior non-fiction and adult fiction. We pick out the ones we think we should have in the collection and other HQ staff check these against the catalogue to ensure we don't already have them.

Once selection was completed, the Regional Librarian, coordinator of other branch libraries and I had a meeting to do final preparation for Library Lovers Day and the launch of National Year of Reading which is happening on 14 February. We then headed to the local pub for our $10 lunch specials - the pub is actually a nice place to eat as we eat on the verandah that overlooks a river.

After lunch I packed up the boxes to take back to my branches, had a look at some draft posters for an activity we are running this year and bid farewell. Back in my main branch library it had been raining fairly steadily all day and the staff had discovered a leak in one of the skylights - unfortunately there were some stock that did not fair well. The leak is something I will have to follow up with facilities staff today as they didn't make it over yesterday. The river is once again up so I was lucky that my relief staff made it as they live on the other side of the river which gets cut off from the main part of town.

It has been raining fairly heavily for most of last night but I have checked river heights and it looks like the bridge has not gone under.

On my way home I got a call from said relief staff who said that the local Steiner school had called and asked if they could use the library study rooms to run their school tomorrow as they are flooded out - i.e. they can't get to their school. So I look forward to approx. 40 odd students in the library tomorrow!!