Awful Library Books

  • Masculine Men

    Masculine Men

    The American Male: A Penetrating Look at the Masculinity Crisis. Brenton 1966 Submitter: Well Boohoo! Men being oppressed. Let me get a tissue. 1966? I can understand this book being in an academic library. A public library? Patrons need updated info on topics like this. Holly: Here is a link…

  • Be a Budget Foodie

    Be a Budget Foodie

    The Low-Cost Cookbook Favorite Recipes 1971 Straight from a library shelf to your kitchen! You will love recipes like chicken cacciatore with prunes or a molded apple blue cheese salad. I am sure your mouth is watering from all of these wonderful foods. As a child of the 1960s, I can say…

  • Shelf Reading and Shifting ALB

    Shelf Reading and Shifting ALB

    Like any collection, monitoring, shifting and keeping it fresh is the job of the librarian. Awful Library Books is no exception. ALB began as a platform to preach about the perils of ignoring a collection. Since we are still here almost five years later, we decided to expand our mission…

  • Collection Policy vs. Guidelines

    My library has a Materials Selection Policy that is roughly a page and a half long.  We also have a separate, five page “Collection Management Guidelines” document for staff.  Here’s the difference: Materials Selection Policy The word policy means it’s official.  It has been blessed by the Library Board and…

  • Another Baby Step in Collection Analysis

    As we discussed in my post Using Excel in Collection Analysis, go slow and work a small data set into the ground until you feel comfortable. While you are in “learning mode”, use enough data to fit comfortably on the screen, so you can “see” everything at once. For this example, I…

  • Using Excel with Collection Development

    Holly and I are in the process of writing a new edition of Making a Collection Count. As we go through the chapters and start really re-thinking the content and updating this book, I really wanted to make the idea of using statistics more palatable to those folks who avoid…