I have now started a LibraryThing page for new children’s books added to the library. Titles will be updated every time the new books display in the children’s section on the first floor of the library is changed. After experimenting with separate lists for each category and adding reviews I discovered this was too time-consuming, so have settled for a single list but with categories in the tags column. These categories are picture books, children’s fiction (with rough age guide), teenage fiction and children’s non-fiction. (There will also be a poetry tag but there weren’t any new poetry books this time.) A preview of the covers is below.
Anabel, you're the sexiest librarian in the UK at the moment ;) If we had a Movers and Shakers list this side of the Atlantic you'd definitely be on it.
ReplyDeleteCan people get emails when new books are added to categories (rhetorical question, but parents and teens don't have time/motivation to keep visiting a webpage that may or may not have new books; one of these websites that notify page changes would do it; does LT have RSS feeds on their pages, though people would need educating in using RSS).
Rather bemused by the first part of this comment but thanks anyway! I do have an email list to alert people of updates to our children's literature pages, and they are also posted to Twitter (see the Jordanhill Library feed running down the side of this page)and this blog has an RSS feed on the page.
ReplyDeletePublic libraries raise the culture of a coghmmunity (the 'ideas and activities' of that community). The Internet and the communications technologies we have nowadays enable libraries I think to do this to an order of magnitude more than they have in the past. I don't know why community libraries aren't rushing to set up their own personal blogs and wiki pages maintained by the library's staff serving the needs of the community the library serves in particular. We apply our creativity to new technologies until the possibilities have run out, family reading I think though should be one of the first to benefit. I've just joined CILIP so maybe I'll make my point again and point at the work you're doing as the direction to go in :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the positive comments. I agree entirely - our use of this type of technology is still quite limited, other academic libraires do a lot more, but we have ambitions!
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