Welcome to Check Your Shelf! This is your guide to all things book talk worth knowing to help librarians like you up your game when it comes to doing your job (& rocking it).
Check Your Shelf is sponsored by Libby, the one-tap reading app from your library and OverDrive.
Whether you’re traveling around the world or relaxing on your couch this summer, Libby, the one-tap reading app from OverDrive will make sure you always have a good book with you. Instantly access thousands of eBooks and audiobooks for free from your library in just one-tap. Thanks to Libby and your library no matter what time it is or where you are, you’ll always have instant access to your next great reading adventure.
Libraries & Librarians
- A New York City library card gets holders into awesome city museums. Do you do something similar with your local cultural institutions?
- This partnership between Ohio libraries and LinkedIn is really smart.
- I love this idea of starting a short story club, rather than a full-on book club.
- If you missed seeing Michelle Obama at ALA in New Orleans back in June, here’s the video (skip to about 20 minutes if you want to get right into it).
- Spain’s National Library is sharing videos of vintage recipes. Awesome.
- I love how libraries are incorporating fitness programs. My concern is that some, like yoga or tai chi, being run by librarians who aren’t certified, screams injury potential and also potential lawsuit to me (I’m a certified yoga instructor and have to carry my own personal liability insurance, outside the insurance my studio holds — librarians, if you do these programs, bring in a local expert or pay for your staff to be certified properly to CYA). A walking club is brilliant and easy, without those concerns. Imagine a biweekly noon walking group with local companies and patrons who use part of their lunch hour to get in a little fresh air.
- None of you will be surprised about these things librarians do at work (this would make a great social media post).
- Tips for controlling your library holds list.
- A year after Harvey, a number of Houston libraries are still closed.
- Libraries: where the world’s memories are stored.
- Surely, you read the Forbes piece. Here’s why it disappeared. And here’s why libraries are a lifeline for millions of Americans. You already know this.
Book Adaptations in the News
- Peep some of the first images from PBS’s adaptation of Les Miserables.
- There’s a Weetzie Bat adaptation coming.
- Netflix ordered an adaptation of Midnight’s Children.
- There’s a new Jane Austen adaptation coming.
Books in the News
- Tor changes rules for libraries, making them wait for digital editions of titles. Bad move, Tor.
- Eight MILLION dollars in rare books were stolen from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh.
- Lin-Manuel Miranda announces a GMorning, GNight! book.
By the Numbers
- The Association of American Publishers released sales data from 2017, including the categories of books seeing sales growth. Have you seen similar in your collections?
- Only 1% of books published in the UK for children featured a BAME character. Diversity in the US is not representative, but this is even more disheartening.
- Americans are reading less. Or are they?
Award News
- This year’s RITA awards were announced. Make sure you have these on shelf for your Romance readers. And here’s a bit more about the powerful speech given by one of the winners.
- The Shirley Jackson awards have been named.
- Eisner winners are here, too!
- Details about the Alternate Nobel and the long list.
- Here’s the Man Booker Long List for this year.
All Things Comics
- Black Panther’s Shuri is getting her own comic.
- Y: The Last Man casting news.
- Didn’t make it to San Diego Comic Con? Here are 16 comics to help you feel like you were there anyway.
- Hockey comics!
Audiophilia
- Brilliance Audio is shutting down their storefront.
- Great audiobooks to listen to this summer.
- Funny audiobooks by funny women.
Book Lists, Book Lists, Book Lists
- 20 funny books by female writers.
- Super short, super sad books you can read in a day.
- Here are the books by 45’s staffers already out.
- Books where poetry and politics overlap.
- Great books for beginning a meditation or mindfulness practice.
- 50 must-read recent essay collections — imagine using some of these in a short story style book club.
- A huge preview of the books hitting shelves in the second half of 2018.
- New novels by Indigenous US authors.
- Adventure books!
- Barack Obama shares his favorite African writers.
- Celebrity memoirs hitting shelves this fall.
- A whole bunch of great young adult romance novels.
- Solid reads featuring multiple points of view.
- Need some creative nonfiction reads? Got cha!
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
- These are the most expensive books in the world.
- Why it’s so hard to quit a book you don’t like.
- The best notes found in used books.
- Love cover design? Here’s a peek at the process of drafting the perfect cover.
- Is this the earliest excerpt from The Odyssey?
- The ancient library where books are under lock and key. This video is fabulous.
- Every Shakespeare play summed up in a quote from Parks and Rec.
- Have you noticed this book cover design trend?
Level Up
Do you take part in LibraryReads, the monthly list of best books selected by librarians only? Whether or not you read and nominate titles, we’ll end every newsletter with a few upcoming titles worth reading and sharing (and nominating for LibraryReads, if you so choose!).
This month, I’m directing you to Becky Spratford’s piece that digs into not just the database I’ve created of adult reads eligible each month for LibraryReads, but also the database at EarlyWord by Nora Rawlinson.
I’ve made the decision to make the diverse adult titles database open to all, so feel free to add titles you’re aware of to it. I’ll go through periodically and clean up ineligible titles, duplicates, etc. Click here to access it.
This newsletter goes out after the deadline for September titles, so start keeping an eye on October titles and nominate them before August 20.
This is such a great shirt. $22 and up.
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See you again in two weeks!