Please Write in This Book!

There has been a discussion on the Kan-Lib-L list that fascinates me . A patron mentioned to his local librarian that he had seen at another library a piece of paper glued inside the front cover of book. It invited readers to rate the book. The patron said he liked it because it served two needs -- he found out how his peers liked the book and he could see if he had read it before. (As he got older he sometimes forgot which books he had already read.)

This sounds great. How many of you run through the reader reviews on Amazon or your online book clubs to get a feel for a book before you purchase it? Getting feedback from local readers is even better. In smaller communities you may even know the reviewer. it might prompt an informal book discussion next time you see him or her.

The reminder piece is also valuable. After my home town library automated, the large print readers took to penciling their initials and the year in the upper left corner of the back cover of books. It particularly helped my Mom because she brought home library books for both herself and Dad. She would check for his initials before choosing books for him so she didn't waste her time bringing him books he had already read.

My parents initialed their own books, too. I reread one of Mom's books this weekend. It was The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart, published in 1946. Mom bought it in 1947. I read it once when I was a teenager and picked it up for light reading Sunday. When I closed the last page, I saw Mom's initials inside the back cover and the date. It was two years before she died. Wouldn't it have been great if she had left a comment? What if there had been a sentence from 1947 when she first read it (one year before I was born.) Then another note from when my teenage self read it in the early 1960s. Finally another note from Mom in 1998 and myself again in 2008? What dialog might we have established? Would the discussion pass along to my daughter and granddaughter?

Most libraries don't want folks penciling in comments, or even initials, on the back cover. The Kan-Lib-L discussion knocked around techniques for promoting the discussion. The consensus was a 3x5 slip of paper, perhaps computer generated, that invited comments and provided lines for writing would be the best method. The slips could be rubber cemented into to book much as date due slips were done in pre-automation days. If the idea takes off, some library supply house might even preprint them for us!

Book Publishers Are Supporting Book Reading Groups

Book Reading Groups have always been library staples, but they have become more popular that ever, most likely thanks to Oprah's Book Club. :)

I have seen discussion guides for various books at publishers' booths when I visit conventions. I recently received a catalog from Macmillan Group in the form of a short discussion guide. It's called Reading Group Gold and covers books published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Henry Holt, Picador, St. Martin's Griffin, St. Martin's Press and Tor/Forge.

Each book featured has a brief plot summary, 3-4 discussion questions and information about the author. There is a supporting website at http://www.readinggroupgold.com/ with more information on each of these books. In the back of the catalog is a listing of more titles covered on the website.

If you have a book your discussion group is planning to cover, check the publisher's website (even if it isn't one of the Macmillan Group mentioned above) to see if you can find information there. Many publishers are providing discussion aids because it is a good thing for them and for libraries. It puts more of their books before the public and it provides busy librarians with reliable discussion information. Check the Book Discussion Blog from ALA mentioned in an earlier post. too! Click on the "book.discussion.groups" tag on the left to get to it quickly.

Literature Resource Center

The problem with blogging is everything posts in reverse order -- you are seeing the 3rd set of database notes before the first. For that reason, I'll repeat that this is a reprint (sans screen prints) of Robert Lindsey's handouts on the Kansas State Library databases from a workshop he did last spring.

This database lets you find information about authors, criticisms of their work, bibliographies, timelines and other information related to authors and their works.

Search by Author. These are long biographical and career overviews, between 12 to 30 or more pages, and they include extensive bibliographies of works by and about the author.

The Other Tabs

Literary Criticism, Articles & Work Overviews is the next tab, and it has three sub-tabs in green (see back side of page). For articles about one certain writing of an author, such as Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, look under the Work Overviews sub-tab.

Bibliographies tab mostly takes you back to the bibliographies listed under the Biographies tab.

Additional Resources tab takes you to reviewed websites such as official Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize, scholarly groups, or PBS sites.

Literary-Historical Timeline has nothing to do with your search. It is simply a timeline of events to put authors and books iton historical perspective.

Search for Author by Type from the front page:

• Fill in any one or more fields.
• If you get no results, eliminate fields one-at-a-time until you get results you are satisfied with.

For example, if I only pick Genre: Slave Narratives, I get results. If I pick Genre: Slave Narratives, AND Theme: Black womanhood, I get no results. I need to change one or the other back to *None selected*.

InfoTrac Databases

This is another of Robert Lindsey's handouts that explains using the InfoTrak database.

InfoTrak offers three seach methods.

• The “cross-searchable databases” drops you in at a “Subject Guide” search.
• You can choose to do a “Basic Search” which is more like a keyword search,
  
• or an “Advanced Search” which allows the most control.

In a Subject Guide search for Henry VIII the results will look like this: (don’t overlook the subdivisions)

Henry VIII (England)

see Henry VIII, King of England

Henry VIII (King of England)

see Henry VIII, King of England

Henry VIII, King of England

Henry VIII, of England

see Henry VIII, King of England

Henry VIII, King of England

Subdivisions

For Advanced Search youu would enter your search terms in the boxes labeled “keyword” and select the proper linking term (“and” or “or”):

Advance Search

Select index(es) and enter search term(s)

Keyword

and/or Keyword

and/or Keyword

Search

• Either way, when you get the list of articles, you will see a screen with tabs at the top labeled Magazines, Academic Journals, Reference, etc.

• Select the proper tab for your search.

• Then you will get a list of citations.
  
• The screen will give a box on the right that lists subject headings and a list of citations at the right.
  
• Below each citation are links for: Full text About this Publication How to cite

• Subject Terms on the left,
• If they are Full-Text, Abstract, or Citation only,
• How to Cite in MLA or APA,
• Total number of articles found under this tab,
• Tabs across the top indicate what kind of article they are (Multimedia includes transcripts of National Public Radio, or NPR),

• The “cross-searchable” or all-in-one-search databases are:

Custom Newspapers, Military and Intelligence, Professional Collection, Religion and Philosophy, Business and Company ASAP, Health Reference Center Academic, General Business File ASAP, Computer Database, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center, Expanded Academic ASAP, InfoTrac OneFile, General Reference Center Gold, Informe, Junior Edition, Student Edition, LegalTrac, and Academic OneFile.

• There are other databases that you can use, but are not “cross-searchable” and must be searched individually. They are listed below:

National Newspaper Index 1977 - Current. Index only to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post.

Literature Resource Center - LRC Current. Find biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism and reviews on nearly 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world…

Kids InfoBits 2004 - Current. Kids InfoBits is a database developed especially for Kindergarten through Grade 5. Featuring a developmentally appropriate, visually graphic interface. The curriculum-related, age appropriate, full-text content is from elementary reference sources and magazines. This database covers geography, current events, the arts, science, health, people, government, history, sports and more.

Business and Company Resource Center 1980 – Current. Business and Company Resource Center is a fully integrated resource bringing together company profiles, brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories, chronologies and periodicals. Search this database to find detailed company and industry news and information.

Health and Wellness Resource Center 1980 - Current. Provides instant access to carefully compiled and trusted medical reference materials. Includes nearly 400 health/ medical journals, numerous reference volumes, over 700 health videos from partner Healthology, Inc., hundreds of pamphlets and health-related articles from 2,200 general interest publications in addition to a broad collection of Thomson Gale reference titles. Material contained in this Resource Center is intended for informational purposes only.

Using Heritage Quest

Robert Lindsey, Instruction and Reference Librarian at Pittsburg State University did a Kansas State Library Databases workshop for us last year. His handouts remain popular with folks exploring the databases. He has given me permission to post them here so more people can access them. Unfortunately, his screen prints don't transfer to the blog very well, so I have deleted them.

Heritage Quest

• Searching the Census: 1790 – 1930. 1890 has only 6,160 names from 8 states and DC. 1930 is not finished being transcribed yet. Heritage Quest does not search 1830, 1840, 1850. If you have series, roll & page number, or state, county & township you can get to your person for those years. 1850 is the first year the Census lists every name in the household.

• Searching for names: Always look for various spellings. John, Jno, Jon, J; Robert, Rob’t, R, Bob, Bert; Lindsey, Lindsay, Linsey. Middle names were popularly used as the “common” name so look for that also. Sometimes the handwriting or the photocopy is just plain illegible and transcribers made their best guess.

• Search can be done any number of ways, but must retrieve less than 1000 results.

• Once you have a list, you can sort it by Surname, Given name, State, Age, County, Sex, Race, Birthplace, or Location.

• You can view a census form up to 400% zoom.
  

• Can view a negative for hard to read pages. Some names will be on Subpage B.

Printing a census form:

• Print will print the whole page in miniature but with the citation information.
  

• Download will allow you to select the section of the page you want to print, or print the whole page full-size. Chose PDF File.

• Use the Snapshot tool to highlight the section you want to print.

• When printing be sure Page Scaling says Fit to Printable Area.

• After printing, write the Roll, Series and Page numbers on printout.

Searching Books:

• Search by name and/or place.
• Not very neat or easy.
  
• Searches for words from the same search box that are on the same page. For example: in the name search box if you put William Smith it searches for “William” and “Smith” on the same page.
  
• If you search for Place: Independence, Kansas, it searches for “Independence” and “Kansas” on the same page.
• You can use quote marks, “William Smith” but then you might miss Smith, William, or William and Mary Smith, or William E. Smith.
  

• Place can be a city, county, state or institution such as Kansas State Teachers College.

• Keywords: Civil War, mining, railroad, libraries, Progressivism, Baptist, teacher, etc.

• When your list of books appears, you have a choice to View Hits or View Image.
• View Image takes you to the book,
  

• You want to View Hits.

• Click on the number on the left under Hits to see pages where your search terms appear.

• Use the button to go to the next instance of your search term.

Searching PERSI: Similar to books, but no full-text. Just citations. A lot of information.

Revolutionary War: [Includes an estimated 80,000 pension and bounty-land-warrant application files based on the participation of American military, naval, and marine officers and enlisted men in the Revolutionary War.