As a patron, I love genrified books.

I tend to read the same type of book over and over again, and it’s easy to just go to that and to find a nice book I’ll like.

But. Yeah. That’s not always going to make for the best library experience. A few years ago I started deliberately moving my way through my public library’s shelves. On each visit, I go to the next section of shelving, and my rule is to pull one book off each shelf.

It’s forced me out of my usual stuff, and I’ve found some authors I didn’t know and some books I’ve really enjoyed that I probably would not otherwise have read. Of course, I’ve also found a few stinkers, and haven’t read everything I’ve brought home. But overall, it’s been really positive to be exposed to new books

(Small note: if you are looking for an easy way to get new book suggestions, each Tuesday we drop a five minute episode of Book Bites! A Guest Host shares a book they have enjoyed, and I’ve found a bunch of books I didn’t know about from these quickie episodes.)

And of course, from a cataloging and shelving perspective separating out books by genre can be pretty tricky. Some libraries do it, and I find it useful and user-friendly; but others don’t and that’s a good choice for them and for their patrons.

So there isn’t a right answer for you and for your library. But it’s worth taking a few minutes to make a conscious choice – not to just shelve books one way Because We’ve Always Done It That Way. (Sigh. The worst reason for doing anything!)

Check out this article excerpt from a school library person who has chosen not to genrify. You can read the whole thing here.

Why I chose not to genrify the fiction section

by Sereena Hamm

Organizing fiction sections by genre in school libraries has, in many ways, moved beyond a trend into the mainstream. And it can make so much sense. Students ask “Where are your mystery books?” and in a fiction section organized by genre, it’s a snap to answer that question. Nonfiction is organized by subject, and genre is the close equivalent for fiction, so it can be a very intuitive system. Creating independent library users matters, and many school librarians find that genrifying is a perfect strategy for doing just that.

So, if genrifying the library is so great, why am I writing about why I decided not to do it?!? After a few years of exploring and running tests on genrification systems to see what might work for us, I ultimately decided that genrification wasn’t best for our library (at least, not right now). I’m sharing a bit of that experience with all of you because you might find, with genrification or another trend, that even though something in our field is becoming common and accepted, it still isn’t right for your program, even if you tried to make it work.

Here’s why I chose not to genrify fiction for the forseeable future.

(Read through the rest of this article here!)

We are always so proud of our members who are out there doing great things. And this is such an impressive honor!!!

We are sharing the press release from St John’s with you here. Click to read the whole thing on their site, or to find more information about the truly impressive work being done in this archive.

If you are not familiar with the work being done in the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, we really encourage you to visit and to check out their website!!! When I tell you that your mind will be blown by the incredible work they do in preserving materials from around the world and across time, I really mean it. I had no idea this treasure existed right here in our area, and when I got the chance to see it I was gobsmacked.

Congratulations to Fr. Steward, to the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, and to St. John’s on this truly impressive achievement.

“The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has named Fr. Columba Stewart, OSB, Executive Director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, as the NEH 2019 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities.

Established by the NEH in 1972, the lectureship is the highest honor bestowed by the federal government for contributions to the humanities. NEH awards this honor annually to an individual whose career exemplifies the utmost level of achievement in American intellectual and cultural life. This is the first time the award has been given to a Minnesotan, a member of the clergy, or a Benedictine monk. Previous Jefferson Lecturers include John Hope Franklin, Toni Morrison, David McCullough, Donald Kagan, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Ken Burns.

The lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 7, at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. The title of the lecture is “Cultural Heritage Present and Future: A Benedictine Monk’s Long View.” The signature event for the NEH, the lecture annually attracts an in-person audience of more than 1,000, often including members of Congress, national cultural and educational leaders, and the public. Tickets to the lecture are free of charge and distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets will be available starting on Sept. 4, at www.neh.gov or (202) 606-8340. The event will be livestreamed and archived by the NEH.

Fr. Columba, a native of Houston, Texas, and a graduate of Harvard, Yale, and Oxford universities, is Professor of Theology at Saint John’s University School of Theology and Seminary. He has published and lectured extensively in his research field of early Christian monasticism. In 2009-10, he was the recipient of a year-long research fellowship from the NEH and a residential fellowship in Byzantine Studies at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library in Washington, D.C. In 2016-17, he was awarded both a residency at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a Guggenheim Fellowship for work on his upcoming book, “Between Earth and Heaven: Interpreting the Origins of Christian Asceticism and Monasticism.” He is also a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for 2019-20, speaking about the work of HMML and his own research at colleges and universities across the United States.

Since becoming HMML’s Executive Director in 2003, Fr. Columba has traveled throughout the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and South Asia, cultivating relationships with communities possessing historic manuscript collections from the early medieval to modern periods. Under his leadership, HMML has digitized over 150,000 manuscripts in many of the world’s most dangerous and inaccessible places, including northern Iraq, Syria, and the libraries of Timbuktu in Mali, covering a range of religious and cultural traditions. These texts and records are made available online through the Virtual HMML platform (vHMML.org).

“A ‘Monument Man’ of our time, Fr. Columba Stewart has dauntlessly rescued centuries’ worth of irreplaceable cultural heritage under threat from around the world,” said NEH Chairman Jon Parrish Peede. “In doing so, he and his colleagues have helped preserve the records of the religion, art, literature, culture, and knowledge of distant eras of human history so that we may celebrate and learn from those that came before us.”

Under Fr. Columba’s leadership, HMML was awarded the 2011 National Medal of Honor from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)—the highest award a library can receive in the United States— and has been supported by the NEH, the IMLS, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, and major multi-year grants from the Arcadia Fund. 

“We are all blessed and proud to have Fr. Columba as an integral part of the Saint John’s community – as a member of the monastery, on faculty in the School of Theology and Seminary, and as Executive Director of HMML,” commented Michael Hemesath, President of Saint John’s University. “His work in early Christian monasticism has made him a recognized expert in this field. Fr. Columba’s international connections and cultural wisdom, along with his vision and leadership, have help preserve the priceless heritage of countless peoples around the world and transformed HMML from a repository of microfilm and digital images, into a vibrant, global manuscript research library and center.”

“We have always known that the preservation and dissemination of manuscripts that HMML does are of worldwide significance and that Fr. Columba is a star,” said Lyndel King, Chair of HMML’s Board of Overseers. “We are thrilled that the NEH is recognizing this, as well, and is giving him a national stage on which to present his story and the story of humanity that is revealed by HMML’s work.”

A professed Benedictine monk of Saint John’s Abbey since 1981, Fr. Columba has become a recognized authority in the monastic and ecumenical worlds, having been appointed to the International Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches in 2009. Since 2018, he has been a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research.

Established in 1965, HMML is a global cultural organization whose mission is to preserve and share the world’s manuscript heritage. It has formed partnerships with over 580 libraries and archives worldwide. HMML has three areas of focus: digital preservation of rare and endangered manuscripts; cataloging and sharing the manuscripts online; and fostering research and education about the cultures that produced them. HMML curates exhibitions and hosts scholars, classes and workshops throughout the year and is the home of an internationally known handwritten and illuminated Bible in modern English, The Saint John’s Bible. HMML’s work is inspired by a 1500-year Benedictine tradition of cultural preservation.

Attention Publishers: Libraries buy books.

A LOT of books, in fact.

So it’s pretty infuriating to see publishers behaving as though libraries are somehow stealing books!

I don’t have research data on this (yet!), but my anecdotal experience suggests that people who would check out e-books from libraries are MORE likely to buy other e-books. Far from being a drain to publishers, libraries likely make it more likely that people will spend money on books themselves.

We’ve talked about this debacle before, and will do so again.

When you think about the need for library advocacy, THIS is the kind of issue you can talk about with legislators and other stakeholders. It’s our responsibility to help other people – legislators, publishers, and others – to understand what we need to be successful. It’s actually pretty rude to assume that everyone automatically understands our needs, and what we could be doing to be better at serving our communities.

So, read through this article excerpt, click to read it all, and get ready to tell your stakeholders how important it is that your library has access to e-books for your community!

Libraries are fighting to preserve your right to borrow e-books

By Jessamyn West

Librarians to publishers: Please take our money. Publishers to librarians: Drop dead.

That’s the upshot of Macmillan publishing’s recent decision which represents yet another insult to libraries. For the first two months after a Macmillan book is published, a library can only buy one copy, at a discount. After eight weeks, they can purchase “expiring” e-book copies which need to be re-purchased after two years or 52 lends. As publishers struggle with the continuing shake-up of their business models, and work to find practical approaches to managing digital content in a marketplace overwhelmingly dominated by Amazon, libraries are being portrayed as a problem, not a solution. Libraries agree there’s a problem — but we know it’s not us.

Public libraries in the United States purchase a lot of e-books, and circulate e-books a lot. According to the Public Library Association, electronic material circulation in libraries has been expanding at a rate of 30% per year; and public libraries offered over 391 million e-books to their patrons in 2017. Those library users also buy books; over 60% of frequent library users have also bought a book written by an author they first discovered in a library, according to Pew. Libraries offer free display space for books in over 16,000 locations nationwide. Even Macmillan admits that “Library reads are currently 45% of our total digital book reads.” But instead of finding a way to work with libraries on an equitable win-win solution, Macmillan implemented a new and confusing model and blamed libraries for being successful at encouraging people to read their books.

Libraries don’t just pay full price for e-books — we pay more than full price. We don’t just buy one book — in most cases, we buy a lot of books, trying to keep hold lists down to reasonable numbers. We accept renewable purchasing agreements and limits on e-book lending, specifically because we understand that publishing is a business, and that there is value in authors and publishers getting paid for their work. At the same time, most of us are constrained by budgeting rules and high levels of reporting transparency about where your money goes. So, we want the terms to be fair, and we’d prefer a system that wasn’t convoluted.

(Read the rest of this article here!)

I love libraries. And I love bikes.

So when I read this blog article about programs different libraries are trying, combining these two great things, I was immediately excited! So many great possibilities are here; if you want to try some new partnerships, you can read this excerpt and dream about some fun possibilities!

Biking through History at the Library

By Noah Lenstra

“Library-led tours can be a highly engaging — and surprising — addition to your programming lineup.

“We surprise people right off the bat, standing in front of this wonderful, family-friendly ice cream shop and saying that it used to be a brothel,” Scott Brouwer, archivist at La Crosse (Wis.) Public Library, told ALA’s “American Libraries” magazine in 2017. The library’s Dark La Crosse Trolley Tour, done in partnership with the local visitors’ bureau, takes residents and tourists on rides through the city’s seedier past.

Chicago’s Newberry Library organized a “Visualizing the 1919 Riots in Today’s Chicago” ride that took bicyclists to sites of the riot’s key events.

But why limit yourself to walking? Building upon surging interest in bicycling, local history and active transportation, librarians at the Newberry Library in Chicago, the McCracken County Public Library in Paducah, Ky.; and the Maine State Library in Augusta have all expanded upon this idea to offer bicycle-based history tours. Here are some tips for starting your own.

Find a partner

First, these programs depend upon partnerships. Do not go out and try to do this by yourself.  For safety reasons, you want to work with groups that have the expertise needed to organize safe, well-organized group rides. It is possible to develop this expertise in-house, but unless you happen to have on your staff someone like Calli Crow, the volunteer coordinator at Michigan’s Kent District Library and a former cycling instructor for the League of American Bicyclists, it’s much quicker, more effective and safer to bring in this expertise by working with partners. 

The best partners are bicycle-oriented organizations, including bike coalitions, bike shops, bike advocacy groups or even just plain old community groups of bicyclists. 

In Paducah, the library teams up with the Chain Reaction Cycling Club for their Pedal in Paducah Program series. In Chicago, the Newberry teamed up with Blackstone Bicycle Works. In Maine, the library teamed up with the Bicycle Coalition of Maine (as well as the Maine State Museum).

Choose a format

You can organize a bike history tour in many different ways. In Paducah, the library led a bike ride to, and then through, a local cemetery as part of its annual Pedal in Paducah program, a “series of laid-back, leisurely-paced, family-friendly rides” offered throughout the summer. Tours start and end in the library parking lot. 

In Chicago, the Newberry received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a program on Visualizing the 1919 Riots in Today’s Chicago. This bike program focused on helping Chicagoans understand the history and legacy of Chicago’s 1919 Race Riots by taking a bike tour of some of its key sites. Reporters from the local NPR station rode along and shared the journey, extending this program’s reach. The library also made the route map available online so people who did not attend could take the ride themselves at their leisure. 

In Maine, the state library and its partners decided to “commemorate the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote and at the same time, learn about the benefits of safe, relaxed bike riding” by hosting a free family event on Saturday, June 22. A bicycle rodeo in the morning was followed by “a relaxed slow ride … along the Kennebec River Rail Trail and back.” What does all this have to do with the history of suffrage? For many women, the bicycle offered independence in the early 20th century. The day celebrated the “importance of bicycling to the movement for women’s right to vote,” and thus communicated how the rise of bicycling has influenced American politics and history in complex ways.”

We all know libraries have all sorts of great materials for patrons. No matter what kind of library you have, adding materials that would be interesting or useful to patrons – especially things that would be challenging for them to obtain themselves.

So it was very cool to read about the collection of musical instruments available to circulate at the Halifax public library!

You can read through this article excerpt below, and read the entire article here.

Library’s instrument borrowing program a hit with Halifax-area musicians

by Aly Thomson

“The Halifax Public Libraries instrument-lending program is hitting a high note with novice and seasoned musicians alike.

The program that allows library card holders to borrow instruments like guitars and banjos started just over one year ago.

Cynthia Gatto, the collection development manager for Halifax Public Libraries, said instruments have been checked out about 2,100 times over the last year.

“The response from the public has been tremendous,” Gatto said in an interview at Alderney Gate Public Library in Dartmouth, where the collection is housed.

“We’ve had lots of feedback from people saying how they’ve really enjoyed having a chance to try something they’ve never tried before, or a chance to try an instrument before they buy it.”

Gatto noted the library has a collection of about 200 donated instruments, which means every instrument has been checked out many times.

“It’s above expectation, although we did expect that people would really respond well to this program,” she said.

“It’s a chance for people to try something creative without any monetary risk … and it’s just novel and kind of interesting.”

Gatto said the program’s clientele includes people young and old, and players of all skill levels.

“I was just reading something today where someone said they were depressed and were advised to try something new,” said Gatto. “They got a violin from the library. They just loved it and it really helped, and were so thankful for that opportunity.”

She said a few professional musicians even recently checked out instruments for a wedding gig.”