New Book

• Answering Consumer Health Questions: The Medical Library Association Guide for Reference Librarians by Michele Spatz

FYI: "Answering Consumer Health Questions: The Medical Library Association Guide for Reference Librarians is designed to help librarians provide health and medical information to their users. It is geared especially toward librarians who do not provide this type of information on a day-to-day basis, although even new and experienced medical librarians will find much here to use in their practice." - from the Preface

New Book - The Third in an Exciting Series of Posts (made you look, I hope)

• Research-Based Readers' Advisory by Jessica Moyer

FYI: "Written in straightforward terms, this one-stop guidebook provides an easily accessible resource for both research and its implications for everyday interactions with readers. Chapters include real-world examples of RA changes based on the results of research, as well suggestions for future study. Moyer offers extensive coverage on a wide range of topics, from book groups to audiovisual readers' advisory to collection development and management." -from back cover

New Books - The Second in an Exciting Series of Posts

• The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges by James LaRue
• Service Learning: Linking Library Education and Practice by Loriene Roy, Kelly Jensen, and Alex Hershey Meyers
• Managing Electronic Government Information in Libraries: Issues and Practices edited by Andrea M. Morrison for the Government Documents Round Table

New Books - The First in an Exciting Series of Posts

• ALA-APA Salary Survey: Librarian-Public and Academic, 2008 by Jenifer Grady and Denise M. Davis, Project Directors
• Implementing for Results: Your Strategic Plan in Action by Sandra Nelson for the Public Library Association
• Developing a Compensation Plan for Your Library (2nd ed.) by Paula M. Singer and Laura L. Francisco
• Transforming Library Service through Information Commons: Case Studies for the Digital Age by D. Russell Bailey and Barbara Gunter Tierney

Customer Service/Hospitality

Our libraries are busier and we are asked to do more with less, but if our service standards continue to rise, we will feel better about ourselves. Poor service does not lessen our burden or make our jobs easier, it makes our jobs harder and our workplace unpleasant. High quality service with good customer service benefits everyone. ALA TechSource posted a very interested article about service called "Plugging in With Kindness." Within the article are two videos that are worth watching.

Danny Meyer at Gel 2007 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

New Books

• Inside, Outside, and Online: Building Your Library Community by Chrystie Hill

FYI: "Inside, Outside, and Online: Building Your Library Community provides practical advice and inspiration for building community with your library. Based on a scan of the community and technology environments within which libraries operate, related literature, and the practical experiences of hundreds of library staff actively building communities through their work, the book provides much needed insights into the essential elements of community building through
-Identifying user needs and designing services to meet those needs
-Engaging communities with service selection, creation, and iteration
-Utilizing practical new technologies..." - from the back cover

• The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction (2nd ed.) by Joyce Saricks

FYI: "This revised edition provides a way of understanding the vast universe of genre fiction in an easy-to-use format. Expert readers' advisor Joyce Saricks offers groundbreaking reconsideration of the connections among genres, providing
-Key authors and themes within fifteen genres
-The elements of fiction most likely to entice readers
-An explanation of how the different genres overlap

Provocative and spirited, The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction, second edition, offers hands-on strategies for librarians who want to become experts at figuring out what their readers are seeking and how to match books with those interests." - from the back cover

Challenged Books

Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books
of 2008
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom has released the list of the Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008. The children’s book, “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, remains at the top of the list for the third year in a row. “Tango” still faces frequent challenges for reasons that include religious viewpoint, homosexuality, and age appropriateness.

The ALA’s Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008 reflect a range of themes, and consist of the following titles:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

2. His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, violence

3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

4. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, violence

5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, violence

6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited to age group

7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

8. Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
Reasons: homosexuality, unsuited to age group

9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper
Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.

-From the PLA Blog