RA Tip: Display Idea - 2017 Book and Media Awards

RUSA's Book and Media Awards for 2017 were announced Sunday evening, 01/22/17 during the ALA Midwinter Conference in Atlanta, GA. If you haven't already seen the lists of winners or are looking for a great display idea, here are some links that may be of interest:

2017 Reading List - the best Adult fiction of the year in eight different genre categories, plus a short list of four honor titles for each genre

2017 Listen List - "... highlights extraordinary narrators and listening experiences that merit special attention by a general adult audience and the librarians who advise them." A list of twelve adult audiobooks each with three listen-alikes.

2017 Notable Books - "... an annual best-of list comprised of twenty-six titles written for adult readers and published in the U.S. including literary fiction, nonfiction and poetry."

2017 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction - "... recognize(s) the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year." Information about all of the finalists can be found on the Andrew Carnegie site.

2017 Sophie Brody Medal - "... given to encourage, recognize and commend outstanding achievement in Jewish literature. Works for adults published in the United States in the preceding year are eligible for the award." There is also a list of Honorable mentions.

Winners of other RUSA Book and Media Awards can be found on the RUSA Update - News site. There are links to the press releases for the 2017 Louis Shores and Zora Neale Hurston awards as well as for the Dartmouth Medal, the Outstanding Reference Sources, and the Best of the Best Business Reference Websites among others.

Interested in the awards for children's and teen books? On Monday morning, January 23rd, the 2017 ALA Youth Media Awards were announced. The full list of winners and honor books can be found at the ALA News site.

Awards 2015 Shortlist Announced!

Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction & Nonfiction

Did you vote to help select the shortlist for this years Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction? See March 30 post March Madness for Books!  

Did you pick the titles for the shortlist? Find out below:

Awards Shortlist

Fiction Finalists:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee  

Nonfiction Finalists:

Just Mercy: a Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

The Sixth Extinction: an Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin and Sadat at Camp David by Lawrence Wright

Winners will be announced on Saturday, June 27th during the American Library Association's 2015 Annual Conference in San Francisco, CA

March Madness for Books!

The following text is from an email sent out by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the American Library Association. Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, I will let their excellent words do the work ...

Busted bracket? Try playing March Medals Madness instead!

Help spread the word to your audiences (especially those working in adult services, readers’ advisory, collection development and programming) about the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction!

Vote for six titles from the longlist (three fiction, three nonfiction) that you think will be selected for the 2015 shortlist. The player that matches the most titles will win a $50 cash card and a full set of the 2015 shortlist titles. The drawing will remain open until noon on Sunday, April 5, 2015. The shortlist will be announced on April 6. 

 
Participate here: http://www.ala.org/medals-madness

 

Follow the hashtag #ala_carnegie for updates!

2015 Andrew Carnegie Longlist Announced

The Longlist for the this year's Andrew Carnegie Medals for Fiction and Nonfiction have been announced. The Andrew Carnegie Medals are "a joint initiative of Carnegie Corporation of New York and the American Library Association" with a committee selecting titles from the most recent Booklist Editors' Choice and RUSA Notable Books List. 

This year's Awards Longlist consists of 43 titles which will be narrowed down to three Fiction and three Nonfiction titles to make up a Shortlist to be announced in April. The winning Fiction and Nonfiction titles will be announced on Saturday, June 27 at the American Library Association's (ALA) 2015 Annual Conference in San Francisco, CA.

Start reading now and see if you can 'pick' the shortlist titles! Maybe after all your reading you will be able to anticipate the 2015 medal winners!

RA Tip: "RA as a Technical Service" - a Training Opportunity

On Thursday, October 9th, during the 2014 Missouri Library Association (MLA)  Conference, Kaite Stover (Kansas City Public Library) gave a great program called: Readers' Advisory for a New Age of Readers. The Powerpoint presentation and handout for her program can be accessed online at: http://kaitestover.pbworks.com  Click on Conference Presentations, then Missouri Library Association for 2014.

During her program, Kaite mentioned an upcoming training which will be provided by RUSA-CODES (Reference and User Services Association-Collection Development and Evaluation Section of the American Library Association). The training will be email based and will begin Tuesday morning, Oct 14 and run through Wednesday afternoon/evening, Oct 15th. This CODES conversation is free and open to any library staff with an interest in readers' advisory.

RA as a Technical Service

A new CODES Conversation begins October 14th  and will run through the 15th. 

RA does not just happen in the stacks and at the public service desk. It happens in the catalog, in collection development, and in materials processing. Join a community of over 500 librarians interested in all things RA as we discuss how to make sure that the RA service that happens behind the scenes of public service gets the attention and focus necessary to make all of RA as robust and useful as possible.

Some of the topics we will address include:

• How best to calculate, and what factors to consider in setting, holds ratios?

• Genre Headings: How (if at all) do catalogers/patrons/advisors agree to what constitutes a genre? How many headings do we want/need in an age of genre blends?

• What features of the catalog support and enrich RA?

• How can the collection development staff help the public services staff keep up with new titles and genres?

• What use are stickers on books? How do they work with genre blends?

• Should we interfile or have divided collections?

• How do we ensure the best access to paperbacks? And speaking of paperbacks has the format flipped to some degree to ebooks?

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CODES Conversations are focused electronic conversations on current issues facing collection development and readers’ advisory librarians—or anyone interested in those areas. The free, moderated discussions are open to all - just subscribe to the discussion at http://lists.ala.org/sympa/subscribe/codes-convos, then follow and contribute (or lurk!) as you wish.