Sarah the Librarian

I've been meaning to write about the recent news in the libraries lending ebooks debacle, but I'm just now getting around to writing my thoughts out, so apologies if my links are a bit outdated. One of the great things to come out of ALA Midwinter this year was the plan to schedule meetings with the Big Six publishers to discuss the relationship between libraries and publishers when it comes to ebooks. ALA was successful in scheduling meetings with five major publishers, and while all the problems of libraries lending ebooks were not solved at these meetings, I can agree with ALA President Molly Raphael's general assessment that a lot of good information was shared on both sides and that everyone came away with a better understanding of the big picture than they had before and an ongoing dialogue had been opened. One of the main problems identified in the meetings that surprised me (but probably shouldn't have) is that intermediaries like Overdrive have now became ...

I've been reading a lot of teen fiction lately, so the fact that I'm actually reading some adult fiction this week is kind of weird. I was a little intimidated to start Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding . It's so big and with it's simple text cover, it looks so boring compared to all the fun stuff I've been reading lately. But so far I've really enjoyed it & I think there could be a lot of crossover to teen audiences, at least with what I've read so far. The main character is a college baseball player who's obsessed with a book called The Art of Fielding . But the book is more about Henry Skrimshander's life than baseball. It just happens that baseball is a big part of his life. What I'm trying to say is this isn't just a book for baseball fans, but for meaty general fiction fans. I'm not very far, but I can already tell there's a good story here. The other book I've been devoting some time to is Miss Peregrine's ...

For a long time I've been frustrated with the way ebook publishers have been approaching library lending, but my rage has been overruling my sense and I haven't been able to get many coherent thoughts into print. Luckily Bobbi Newman pretty much hit the nail on the head with her " 9 Reasons Why Publishers Should Stop Acting Like Libraries Are the Enemy and Start Thanking Them ". I could go through each of her reasons and expound on why each one makes so much sense and explains a piece of where my frustration is coming from, but I'm going to focus on the points that have been bugging me the most. First from the consumer side, I know I'm not alone in the group of people who don't like to buy books until they're pretty sure they're going to love them. I simply read too much for buying every book I read to make any sort of financial sense. Often that means borrowing the first book in a series or by a new author to see if I want to spend money on th...

200 Recipes for Quick, Delicious, and Nourishing Meals That Are Easy on the Budget and a Snap to Prepare With her website $5 Dinners , Erin Chase has cornered the market on a affordable family cooking. In her first cookbook, she seeks to put some of her most popular recipes into print. Unfortunately I was not in much of a cooking mood while I had this book checked out, so I only got to try a few recipes, but they were all tasty, cheap, and easy to make. I'll admit I'm a little scared by all the extreme couponing going on right now, and Chase's website is heavy with it. Other than some explanations about couponing in the beginning sections, though, there's not much more said about it in the rest of the cookbook, thankfully. I love getting a good deal as much as the next person, but coupons and sales are such fleeting things that I don't want to read a budget cookbook where the only way you can make the meals cheaply is to hit the right sale/coupon window. All...

About a month ago I decided to become an Independent Pampered Chef Consultant, and while that's separate from my library career, I can't help but notice ways that being a librarian can help me share quality kitchen tools with people. For one, I've already talked at length here about my recently discovered love of teaching. Luckily for me, Pampered Chef is more about teaching than selling. The products are so good they sell themselves, so my role as a consultant is to more to guide people to the products that will best meet their needs and facilitate discussions about how to make cooking fast and fun (the only way you can get me in the kitchen). But this really isn't meant to be an entry about how great Pampered Chef is. It's really a way to introduce a series of cookbook reviews I'm going to be starting here. I have no pretensions to being a great chef, but now that I'm going to be getting paid to go into people's homes and demonstrate kitchen produ...

How could I almost forget to blog about Banned Books Week ? After National Library Week, it's probably the biggest holiday in Libraryland. I love Banned Books Week because it gives me a chance to talk about books I love because, let's face  it, some of the best books are the ones that cause controversy. As I used to do on my old book blog, here are the top 10 most challenged books from the last year according to the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom and the two I've actually gotten around to reading are in bold : And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit Crank by Ellen Hopkins Reasons: drugs...

I came across yet another study showing that reading fiction is good for developing empathy , and I love it. First of all, I find it really humorous that the study they talk about was based on readers of Harry Potter and Twilight identifying themselves as wizards and vampires. Maybe not the best way to make your case to the people who need to hear it made, but I can see how you can easily extrapolate the results. If readers can identify with supernatural creatures just by reading a story about them, then it should be easy to identify with all sorts of real social outcasts and minorities by reading fiction. Mostly I love it because I can feel how true this conclusion is in my own life. I've been a voracious fiction reader for as long as I've been able to read. While I occasionally enjoy narrative non-fiction and have found other non-fiction useful to me at various times throughout my life, I'm primarily a fiction reader. And the experiences I've read about in those b...