Author Visits

How many libraries have hosted author visits for their communities? An author visit is such an excellent way to get your users engaged in the library and to explore the breadth of an author’s work.

My library recently hosted author Adam Selzer, who is a terrific person to bring in because he’s very prolific and he’s written a wide range of books--from middle grade to adult nonfiction--that have wide appeal. When I booktalked his books to a bunch of fifth graders, the most popular title was actually his nonfiction book about ghostbusting, titled Your Neighborhood Gives Me the Creeps. The kids were really excited to tell me their own ghostly experiences and it generated a great conversation.

A lot of authors will do on site visits with varying costs, and even more authors will do Skype visits for free.

Have you ever brought an author to your library? How did it go?

eBooks: A Guest Post by Toby Greenwalt

This month's post comes from Toby Greenwalt, a digital branch manager and reference librarian in suburban Chicago who is passionate about exploring the intersection of libraries, technology, and community. He blogs at theanalogdivide.com and tweets as @theanalogdivide.

So there I was. Early this morning, working the Reader’s Advisory desk, greeted by what has now become a familiar sight. A frequent patron, voracious reader, with an extensive hold list and very particular tastes. And one of the last people you’d expect to see behind a computer.

“I just got this Kindle,” she said, opening up her purse. “Can I use it to check out eBooks from the library?”

Two months ago, this was an exciting transaction. Today, it’s a harbinger of what’s sure to be a frustrating time for all parties.

Helping a patron discover new reading material should be an easy transaction, right? Locate book, remove from shelf, hand to patron. eBooks have gotten folks excited about reading in a way that hasn’t happened since vampires first discovered glitter. And libraries have been on board from the start. From buying Rocket eReaders over a decade ago, to offering downloadable eBooks via Overdrive around 2004, to providing hands-on training to every Nook, Kindle, and Kobo that comes in through the door, librarians have been laying the groundwork for this eBook revolution for years. Which makes it a shame that the industry is taking a step back in its dealings with us.

Let’s take this patron that I spoke with this morning. I walked her over to a computer and we started browsing our eBook collection.

“I really like J.D. Robb. Do you have her new one, Celebrity in Death?”

Hoo boy. We have nearly every volume of Eve Dallas’ adventures, but not the newest one. Robb publisher Penguin recently chose to stop offering eBooks to libraries, making any future “In Death” titles off-limits to eBook readers. Similarly, other Big 6 publishers (Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan) refuse to sell eBooks to libraries at all. Our patrons certainly don’t keep track of which imprint is responsible for which title, and many of us are now scrambling to come up ways with ways to respond to this newfound wrinkle. It’s made the library role in the discovery process quite difficult, and quite frustrating. Some librarians are even wondering if we should get out of the eBook game entirely.

But I’m convinced the library and publishing industries can find common ground. To reach this point, we’ve got to work together. Libraries continue to play a vital role in helping the public discover new reading material. According to a study commissioned by Library Journal, over 50 percent of all library users go on to purchase titles by authors discovered at the library. A little creativity can help our respective industries develop mutually agreeable solutions. Librarians have been working to develop a solution, as groups like Library Renewal and Gluejar can attest.

There’s plenty of room for libraries to help turn checkouts into sales. But we can’t do it without the circulations themselves.

Tools Librarians Will Love!

Like a lot of librarians I know, I've become deeply smitten with Pinterest, the online bulletin board, where I've collected program ideas, recipes, book suggestions, and, for especially for you this Valentine's Day, some Literary Valentines! I keep myself organized at home and work with physical bulletin boards, so I really liked that I could start doing the same thing digitally. There's a growing number of librarians, authors, and publishers on Pinterest (including BEA!), so there's a lot of things ready to be discovered. Right now Pinterest is invite only, but they are not too hard to get a hold of---I'd bet if you're on twitter and put a call out, someone could send one your way pretty quickly.

There's also a bunch of literary tumblrs, which are more for fun but can also be looked at as interesting marketing tools for libraries. The Millions has a nice round up of literary tumblrs, including one of my favorites, Awesome People Reading. There's also the librarianheygirl tumblr, starring everyone's favorite dude Ryan Gosling, which is very therapeutic to read on the roughest of days.

Do you use Pinterest or Tumblr? Have any great ones to share? Let us know in the comments!