This week I’ve been immersed in reviewing the chapters of a forthcoming contributed volume from ALA’s Government Documents Round Table. Ably edited by Andrea Morrison, Managing Electronic Government Information in Libraries: Issues and Practices fully covers the territory, from collection development to cataloging to reference to preservation and many topics in between.

Yesterday I was particularly pleased by the usefulness of the chapter on integrating government resources into information literacy instruction. Chapter authors Barbara Miller and Barbara J. Mann point out that government information, particularly electronic government information, is perfectly suited “to illustrate principles of information literacy such as determining and differentiating between primary/secondary sources, developing critical thinking skills, determining bias, understanding issues of copyright and intellectual property, evaluating Internet sources, and understanding freeware databases versus restricted (or copyrighted) information.” They follow with concrete examples and suggestions for incorporating government information sources into the framework of information literacy standards, as well as tips for promoting awareness of government resources among nonspecialist staff and the public.

It’s here! It’s here! The 3rd edition of BBYA, that is, wearing a lovely cool blue to ward off the dog days of August.

You can bet that any list this comprehensive and complex has a colorful production history, and this is no exception. Thanks to volume editor Holly Koelling, YALSA executive director Beth Yoke, Editions managing editor Christine Schwab, Editions book designer Dianne Rooney, and freelance editors Russell Harper and Kristy Mangel for powering through and giving us a great product!

From the jacket:

The new third edition continues to be the most comprehensive and effective reference for great reading for young adults, including

• Annotated lists of the the YA books extending back to 1966, indexed by author and title
• Background on the history and procedures of the BBYA Committee
• A recap of the current trends in teen literature as reflected in the past decade of BBYA lists
• Twenty-seven themed and annotated reproducible book lists, perfect for readers’ advisory with teens, parents, and teachers or for collection development.

Themed lists include:

FICTION LISTS
Abuse: Physical and Psychological; American Historical Fiction; Challenges: Physical and Psychological; Family in Crisis; Family Redefined; Fantasy: Dark and Light; Friendship; Humor; Identity, Image, and Acceptance; Loss, Grief, and Recovery; Love and Romance; Mystery and Crime; Retellings: Old Stories Made New; Science Fiction; Short Stories; Stories Creatively Told; The Teen Social Experience; World Historical Fiction; The World in Conflict

COMBINATION LISTS
Adventure and Survival; The American Ethnic Experience; Social and Environmental Issues and Activism; Sports and Competition

NONFICTION LISTS
Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir; Exceptional Women; Fascinating True Stories; The World in Conflict: Past and Present

Holly Koelling, editor of the forthcoming third edition of YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults, weighs in on trends in Young Adult Lit at MSN.COM: “Life after ‘Harry Potter’?”

No doubt everyone who’s anyone will have devoured Book 7 long before the summer is over. Readers and parents are certain to ask “Now what?” The new edition of BBYA (due out in August, but available for ordering now) is just the resource you’ll need for post-HP readers’ advisory.
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I really enjoyed reading ALA Editions author John Blyberg’s post Pragmatism vs. Idealism, which is a continuation of a thread (with links for latecomers) discussing collection development practice. He brings in the idea of ensuring the availability of long tail books as he suggests an intermediate position for libraries. Best bit (IMHO):

“Without provisioning for the popular stuff, you get a lifeless, disembodied tail. Without the tail, you get a Borders.”

John is currently writing The 24-Hour Branch: Library Websites That Connect with Customers, available in the coming year from Editions.

I lost a significant amount of work from an MS Word file last week, with hide nor hair of an autosaved temp file to be found afterward. Thanks to a tip from our managing editor, Christine, I was able to find the errant file, masquerading as a temp version of a completely different file in a totally random place on my hard drive. So even after at least 10 years as a Word power user, I’m still occasionally attacked by software gremlins, and I still don’t know (or at the very least, I don’t always remember) every trick for navigating the program’s hiccups and oddities.

Even more notorious than Word for its idiosyncracies is Excel, and the program’s sterile functionality puts off more than a few good librarians. Luckily, Tony Greiner and Bob Cooper are here to help with their new book, Analyzing Library Collection Use with Excel. With expertise and a healthy dose of good humor, they walk readers through the process of using Excel to make quick work of library collection use analysis. Starting with the absolute basics and ending with instruction on how to use Excel charts to make your findings really pop in presentations, this book will unquestionably make your job easier. To quote the authors:

Technology has now solved the problem of the cost of collection analysis. By following the procedures in this book, most libraries will be able to analyze their collection in no more than a few days, and perhaps a good deal less. Every library has an acquisitions budget. A use study will help show you where to put it. If you want more money for your library, change your collecting to meet the demand, watch your circulation rise, and a year or two later go to the funders with the numbers. Funders like success.

But the best aspect of the book is Tony and Bob’s approach to the subject. No jargon or techspeak. Just straightforward instruction accompanied by fifty-eight large, easy-to-read screenshots. Be warned, though. After reading this book, you may need to allocate time for fielding your colleagues’ Excel questions…