Twitter Lands New Author a Book Deal

More odd publishing news: Adam Christopher was discovered by publisher Angry Robot Books via Twitter. While perhaps not the most established publisher, Angry Robot Books does seem to publish books I would be interested in reading based on premises alone.

Reddit Post: Buy a Book from Borders With Coupon, Help a School Library

From Reddit: If you buy a book on March 19 or 20 at Borders (and use this coupon), money goes to help build a school library!

Since we're about to have a big book-centered Secret Santa, I thought it made sense to share this. :)

A nonprofit I volunteer with is doing its 3rd annual book drive, and this year we are doing something special! We're building an entire school library at a new elementary school in Brooklyn, NY. Seriously, the library is currently a big empty room.

Borders has generously teamed up with us and on March 19 and 20, if you use this coupon ONLINE or IN STORE, $ will be donated to get shelving for the library. It does not save you money, but it is a free way to donate to a good cause! And it can be combined with other coupons you might have.
Note: The coupon doesn't work with pre-orders and I'm not sure if Borders stores that are closing will take it.

You can also donate books if you feel so inclined. It's a K-5 school and they need every kind of book a school library needs, including non-fiction and reference books. (They are also learning Latin! So maybe a few easy Latin books would also be awesome.) Used are fine if it is in good shape and not hugely out of date. You can read more on the campaign and find the address here: http://thehpalliance.org/action/campaigns/deathly-hallows/horcrux-5/.

Thank you everyone! And I'm happy to answer any questions. :)

Closed Stacks on Library Dating and Curriculum Suggestions for Library School

Closed Stacks is on an awesome run right now, with a post about a New York Times article about a library-based dating scheme and another with suggested courses for library school curriculum.

I suppose I would bring John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, since it is legitimately my favourite book. On the other hand, maybe I should try to game the system with something like Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow, which would be more along the lines of truth in advertising.

My favourite curriculum suggestions include:

• LIS710 – Introduction to Library Perverts
• LIS738 – Mechanics of Photocopier Machine Repair
• LIS770 – Internship with Passive-Aggressive Note Leavers

If there was a training course for photocopier repair, I would probably take it to make my resume more appealing. Also, I like fixing things.

The CMO's Guide to the Social Media Landscape

Stolen directly from The Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian's Weblog: The CMO's Guide to the Social Media Landscape.

Tumblr's ratio of useful to crud is pretty low in my opinion. I wouldn't get too hopeful about that one.

Book Smelling

So now smelling books and keeping track of what they smell like is art. (The New York Magazine goes into more detail.)

I would like to propose that is not art but rather a hobby. See, it's funny if you consider it a hobby, but it's just annoying if you consider it art.

I was amused by one of the comments on the LISNews post:

this is completely unscientific. she omits all types of metadata that a librarian would include.
how long did she sniff each book?
did she sniff a random page or the inside cover or page 23? and "paper-y" in place of "paper"??? is that like saying a book has "around 200 pages"?

How would you even decide which page to sniff in a scientific manner? Page 23? Halfway through the book plus one page?

Libraries vs. HarperCollins

HarperCollins is making big waves in the library world by limiting ebooks to 26 loans before requiring libraries to buy the ebook again.

Our prior e-book policy for libraries dates back almost 10 years to a time when the number of e-readers was too small to measure. It is projected that the installed base of e-reading devices domestically will reach nearly 40 million this year. We have serious concerns that our previous e-book policy, selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book eco-system, hurt the growing e-book channel, place additional pressure on physical bookstores, and in the end lead to a decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors.

Alright, it is an outdated policy. On the other hand, I'm still in the camp that format and file changes make ebooks less permanent than hardcopy books. (Then again, I haven't actually been at a circulation desk and seen how damaged books get, nor do I know how many loans they go through before they're written off.) Twenty-six times seems pretty low, however. Maybe if they upped the limit a considerable amount?

The article also points out that Macmillan and Simon&Schuster don't yet offer libraries ebook versions of their books at all.

HarperCollins announced it was doing this in late February; it's starting to come into affect now, so it's not exactly new. Maybe people thought they wouldn't go through with it.

Google vs. the Content Farms

Google says it has tweaked the formulas steering its Internet search engine to take the rubbish out of its results. The overhaul is designed to lower the rankings of what Google deems “low-quality” sites. That could be a veiled reference to so-called online “content farms” such as Demand Media's eHow.com.

- Google tweaks search to punish ‘low-quality' sites, Globe and Mail

Google doesn't like content farms. They updated their algorithms. But did it work?