More Book and Media Award Announcements

Sunday evening, January 10th, I monitored Twitter from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM CST while the Book and Media Awards Ceremony was held in Boston as part of the American Library Association's (ALA) Midwinter conference. I followed up by watching for the official press releases to be put online. (See yesterday's post for information about the Louis Shores Award and the List List)

I found there was representation from my library and other systems in the St. Louis area on a number of committees and have listed them with the pertinent award. Perhaps you know some of these folks? :-)

And now ... here are the rest of RUSA's 2016 Book and Media Awards:. :-)

Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction - recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year

• Fiction: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• NonFiction: Hold Still: A Memoir in Photographs by Sally Mann

Reading List - an annual best-of list comprised of eight different fiction genres for adult readers. (I am particularly fond of this award as I had the honor of serving on the inaugural committee in 2007 (and again in 2008). What a great way to expand your genre reading!)

• Adrenaline: Pretty Girls by Karen Slaughter
• Fantasy: Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• Historical Fiction: Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
• Horror: The Fifth House of the Heart by Ben Tripp
• Mystery: The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney
• Romance: Taking the Heat by Victoria Dahl
• Science Fiction: Golden Son by Pierce Brown
• Women's Fiction: Re Jane by Patricia Park

Notable Books - makes available to the nation’s readers a list of 25 very good, very readable, and at times very important fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books for the adult reader (Also share a fondness for this award as served on this committee in 2009. A fabulous way to experience literary fiction and nonfiction reading!)

FICTION: 

• Delicious Foods by James Hannaham
• In the Country: Stories by Mia Alvar
• The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Maara
• The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• The Sellout by Paul Beatty
• Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
• Black River by S.M. Hulse
• Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
• A Little Life by Haanya Yanagihara
• The Prophets of Eternal Fjord by Kim Leine
• This is the Life by Alex Shearer
• The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard

NONFICTION:

• Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard
• The End of Plenty: The Race to Feed a Crowded World by Joel K. Bourne Jr.
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman
• Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
• The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission by Jim Bell
• Give Us the Ballot: THE Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman
• Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon
• The Wright Brothers by David G. McCullough
• The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery
• M Train by Patti Smith
• Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan

POETRY:

• Bastards of the Reagan Era by Reginald Dwayne Betts
• Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems by Joy Harjo

Dartmouth Medal for excellence in reference - honors the creation of a reference source of outstanding quality and significance

[Serving on committee: Patricia Gregory, Saint Louis University]

• Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law

Sophie Brody Medal - given to encourage, recognize and commend outstanding achievement in Jewish literature

• The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard

Zora Neale Hurston Award - honors an ALA member who has demonstrated leadership in promoting African-American literature

[Serving on committee: Sue K Dittmar, St. Charles City-County Library District. Glad to see a co-worker on an award committee I also served on in 2009 and again in 2011.Volunteering for a RUSA committee is fun and a great way to learn more about the association!]

• Dr. Florita Bell Griffin for creation of the Little Flower® literacy project

Other awards announced: 

List of Best Historical Materials

Outstanding Business Reference Sources

Best Free Reference Websites

Best of the Best Business Reference Websites

Outstanding Reference Sources
[Committee chair: Annie Fuller, St. Louis County Library; serving on committee: Kara Krekeler, University City Public Library]

2016 RUSA Book and Media Awards

This past year, I had the honor and joy of serving on two Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) award committees. Both awards are offered under the auspices of the Collection Development and Evaluation Services (CODES) section of RUSA. 

I served as Chair for the Louis Shores Award, an achievement award and as a member of the Listen List, a book/media award award. The winners were decided upon in December 2015, to be revealed in January at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter conference.

The results of the committee deliberations were announced this evening in Boston, MA during the Book and Media Awards Ceremony. I was sworn to secrecy before although now I can now present the winners. :-)

Louis Shores Award - recognizes an individual reviewer, group, editor, review medium or organization for excellence in reviewing materials for libraries. The 2016 recipient is ...

• Multimedia & Technology Reviews offers incisive, objectively written critical reviews for a variety of free multimedia resources and is readily available online. It's a great resource, you should check it out!

The Listen List - highlights extraordinary narrators and listening experiences that merit special attention by a general adult audience and the librarians who advise them. And the audiobooks chosen for 2016 are ...

• All Involved by Ryan Gattis. Narrated by Anthony Rey Perez, Marisol Ramirez, Jim Cooper, Adam Lazarre-White, and James Chen
• All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer. Narrated by Ari Fliakos and Juliana Francis Kelly
• And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander. Narrated by Kate Reading
• Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson. Narrated by Scott Brick
• Dracula by Bram Stoker. Narrated by David Horovitch, Jamie Parker, Joseph Kloska, Alison Pettitt, and cast
• H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. Narrated by Helen MacDonald
• The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen. Narrated by Davina Porter
• The Jaguar’s Children by John Vaillant. Narrated by Ozzie Rodriguez and David H. Lawrence XVII
• The Knockoff: A Novel by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza. Narrated by Katherine Kellgren
• The Strangler Vine by M.J. Carter. Narrated by Alex Wyndham
• Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma. Narrated by Ron Butler and Bahni Turpin
• True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa by Michael Finkel. Narrated by Rich Orlow

Great listening experiences here, folks and wouldn't they make for a great display!  :-)

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.