Russian Grannies, Orange Prize and Gina - May 21st-May 31st 2012

Huge excitement as we had a Eurovision sweep stake last week, I thought I'll be in with a chance as I got the hotly tipped Russian grannies. Sadly, it was not to be as I got pipped at the post (only by a few hundred points) by the Swedish entry though I can't really see the point of this one being in the contest as it's got to number one in most countries anyway. It's only sour grapes as I didn't make my fortune. Mind you the time I've bought cakes for everyone with my winnings to celebrate, I will be out of pocket. I didn't come bottom either as there was going to be a special prize made by Phillip the Archivist for the loser.

What was happening in the league one play-off final to take all 11 players having to take a penalty. Did neither team want to get promoted? It was left to the goalies to decide the outcome and Huddersfield's goalie who had been having lessons from Bayern Munich's goalkeeper on how to outwit your opposite number in the art of penalty taking to decide the winner. We were all wondering what would have happened if the score had still stayed the same, would the fans then have to line up and have a go?

Talk about hero to zero awards, this must go to Pastor Maldanado. First in the Spanish Grand prix one week and then forgetting he had something called brakes in Monaco and spent most of his time riding into the back of everyone else. And good old Grojean, I was getting abit worried that he hadn't crashed for a while, back to unable to get one full lap in.

As you've probably guessed from my ramblings, nothing much has happened at work. The next batch of customer requests that made it through to the book selection meeting was a curious mix including the latest one by Martin Amis (Lionel Asbo) mixed in with A Tangled Summer by Caroline Kington (country life fiction) and a fantasy trilogy by Tad Williams. There were quite a good selection of general fiction titles requested but unfortunately Oakhill has snapped up a lot of good titles including Ann Patchett's State of Wonder and Allison Pearson's I think I love you. The non-fiction selection is just as varied including Roger Deakins Wildwood, Rafael Nadel's autobiography, Kate Chisholm's recent biography on Samuel Johnson and the Countess of Carnavon's Lady Amina's Real Downtown Abbey.

It was the Peterborough Orange Prize's Reading Groups event last night. Anne Enright was a much better read than we all had anticipated after her gloomfeast The Gathering. Quite honest, insightful and at times funny. I personally liked the rambling style of writing as if the main character is putting her thoughts together. The book is told in the first person - Gina - but we agreed that we couldn't rely on her account of what actually happened nor get an accurate portrayal of the other characters. She was summed up as being delusional, self-centred and basically not a nice person. I gave it 8/10 with 2 other people from the group but a couple of people didn't enjoy the book at all and only gave it 5/10 which led to an average of 7/10. For the first time ever, all the groups enthused about their books and the scoring was high. As usual the Peterborough Reading Group's winner differed to the proper winner with Half Blood Blues being our winner. Madeline Miller actually came second from bottom, our book came bottom! Last year we would have won such was the dislike for all of the books in general.

I'm off camping in the Lake District for a long weekend. The weather looks suitably cold and wet, can't wait.

Not much to say except Drogba is a hero - May 14th-18th

Not much to report workwise except that I spent the week with the phone permanently glued to my ear as there were only 2 of us in for most of the week. It was just a matter of keeping on top of the incoming calls and checking the in-tray for anything that was urgent. It didn’t help that it was our third busiest week of this year. We've had a worrying amount of calls of readers complaining about the slowness of the service and books going missing in the post. Our manager looked into it but both Production and the Peterborough Sorting Office have reported back to say there’s no problems at their end. A complete mystery!

Quite surprised that Chelsea won the Champions League. Not sure how as they were outplayed and offered little as an attacking force but if they have a player like Drogba who’s able to pull something out of the bag and keep their cool anything can happen. Also thought it was nice that after the match while his team mates were celebrating, he was going round consoling the Bayern Munich players whether they liked it or not. Definitely hero of the week. Also congratulations to York City for winning promotion back into the football league after beating Luton 2-1.

Otherwise not alot more to say, my revalidation portfolio has ground to a holt and I haven't sorted out any plans for any form of professional development. I have been given permission to go on a mentor's course in Leicester next month but I'm still in 2 minds whether to go.

The Forgotten Waltz and the underdogs - 7th May-11th May

Not sure if it’s the weather but I spent a lot of last week revamping readers’ lists to “more light reading please”. I’ve done many variations of lists consisting of family saga authors who write like Catherine Cookson, Rosamunde Pilcher and similar, country life fiction, Fred Archer and Gervase Phinn style autobiographies, golden age crime and Mills and Boon romance. It’s surprising how many different combinations you can do for light reading.

It was my turn to attend the monthly book selection meeting which passed by smoothly. There was quite an interesting discussion from our production department who are looking into automating the braille process. We presently conform to the rules set out in The Brailler’s Manual which gives a consistent standard to how a braille book should be transcribed. The obvious advantage would be the speed in getting a book produced into braille. I query the quality of the output though and I think there may be some come back from some of our customers. I think there is a parallel with brailling books to cataloguing in that there are rules and standards to conform to and that you need some manual intervention.

We finally managed to do an overhaul of our noticeboard, this time the focus is on our Reading Group – Bookbabes – to try and drum up some new faces. We managed to attract a couple of new people from a notice on our Intranet but could do with some more people. Good news!, we’ve just found out at short notice that we are going to be taking part in the Orange Prize Event held at Peterborough Central Library again. One of the other reading groups has dropped out last minute. The bad news is that we’ve got to read The Forgotten Waltz – Anne Enright - which we’ve not only got to read but also sell to the audience as a “must read”. We’ve got a 100% record every time we take part so the pressure’s on.

There was an interesting article in the latest CILIP Update about e-readers, particularly the views of the VI pupils. They liked the fact that they were small and easy to carry and more importantly that people couldn’t tell that they were reading a book in alternative format such as a giant print book. It might be something to think about when trying to persuade teenage readers to join the various library services. They don’t want to be seen reading something different or have a special daisy player which will set them apart from their friends. Another useful comment was the dislike of Kindle’s electronic voice. There is one argument for more talking books to be done in synthetic voice in the future as the younger generation would be more used to this and would accept it. The pupils in this survey certainly wasn’t reading the script.

I've been distracted again with the sport with Man City winning the Premier League with almost the last kick of the match and then Pastor Maldanaldo of Williams winning the Spanish Grand Prix. Definitely the weekend of the underdogs.

Denise Mina, Revalidation (again) and Scram! - 23rd April-4th May

I know I’ve missed a week again but to be honest, there hasn’t been a lot to report from work. It’s just been a steady flow of calls mixed with book selection. Again, there’s a good variety of titles selected including Scram, a book about the Falklands War, A Rough Guide to the Middle Ages which looks like a good readable history title, the latest ones from Anne Tyler and Marina Lewycka and an autobiography by the chap who used to read the shipping forecast on Radio 4 in amongst the popular names across the genres.

We had our stock familiarisation meeting last week, this time it was popular crime author that we hadn't read but are always putting them on readers' lists. Authors under the spotlight included Donna Leon, Anne Perry, James Elroy, Denise Mina, Reginald Hill and Graham Hurley. We're trying to conceptualise a ladder from a gentle to a gritty crime read with Anne Perry at the bottom (the reader found it too dull because of the lack of action) to James Elroy at the other extreme. I managed to get through both Denise Mina and Reginald Hill with Denise Mina closer to James Elroy on the scale of grittiness - no shortage of violence, language and a bit of sex thrown in as she depicts well a bleak early 1980's Glasgow's landscape. Reginald Hill falls in the middle with not too much violence but with the odd bit of language and the stereotypical Yorkshire males makes it a treat with care to who you send it out too. Graham Hurley fell between James Elroy and Denise Mina though the violence wasn't gratuitous. Donna Leon was closer to Anne Perry with a bigger emphasis on descriptions of food!

I’ve been concentrating on my Revalidation particularly after my recent meeting with my mentor who suggested that I could reconsider the dates I was using (Nov 2009-Oct 2012) as I had made good progress with my portfolio. As I had been sending my yearly log to the CILIP, I contacted them to see if it was okay to bring the dates forward. I also have at least 3 things I could include from earlier on in 2009 which are worth including. CILIP have given me the okay so I’m now frantically trying to sort out my Revalidation Audit Sheet – what did I learn from the activity and how did I apply it in the workplace. Fortunately I did keep a log of everything with my thoughts but although I’ve done the first part okay, there’s not been enough thought so far on the application side. I’ve been surprised that there are over 40 things to include in my Audit but I’m still concerned about the quality of my professional development.

There have also been quite a few emails flying around the new CD&E (Community, Diversity and Equality) Group. We’ve managed to come to a quick agreement with the Logo. There’s still seems that there are plenty of issues such as the financial side while the bit which I’m involved in – Website and Newsletters – has thrown up a few issues – what to do with the monthly and quarterly newsletters, when do we start to merge the 2 websites and how do we develop this area. I’m slightly worried by the fact that the longer we delay sending out newsletters, people will be less inclined in wanting to pick our group as one of their special interest options when they come to subscribe next year as they may feel that we haven’t anything to offer.

I’ve been distracted this last week with the Blue Square Premier Conference play offs but unfortunately I won’t be going to Wembley after Mansfield lost 1-0 to York after extra time. Oddly enough, the lowest placed teams in the play offs have made it to Wembley instead which doesn’t seem right that you can’t get promotion with 98 points! Poor Wrexham!

The Post Holiday Blues and The Kindest Thing - 16th-20th April 2012

Back to reality, a week back at work and the red squirrels of Galloway Forest seems a dim and distant past. I now could do with another holiday to cope after last week!

It was our Bookclub meeting and the book under scrutiny this time was Cath Staincliff’s The Kindest Thing – a cheery book about the aftermath of a lady’s decision to assist her husband, suffering from motor neurone disease, to commit suicide, and ended up in court for murder after being reported to the police by her 16 year daughter! Although I wanted to complete the book, I found the book lacked depth and gave the impression that it was written with television in mind, similar to the Rosamund Lupton book Sister. There was no surprise to discover that the author wrote a lot of TV dramas in general. I was not alone to complain about the shallowness of the book and the lack of depth to the characters. It was suggested that Jodi Picoult would have done a better job with the subject matter. It led to some interesting debates about whether the law on assisted suicide should be changed, would we have done the same if we were put in her shoes and did we predict the family’s reactions. I gave the book 6 out of 10 while the average was 7 out of 10.

The customer suggestions have gone round for their monthly vote and there are some really good titles in the mix including a book on the Falklands War called Scram, Planet of the Apes, favourites such as Rosamunde Pilcher and Nelson Demille, new titles by Sue Townsend and Anne Tyler and some really autobiographies and biographies such as Gillian Lynne’s A Dancer in Wartime, Peter Jefferson’s And Now The Shipping Forecast, Joan Collins’s new autobiography and biographies on Leonard Cohen and Barry Sheene. There was also a flood of completed new talking books and one week alone resulted in 89 customer requests being ordered.

I spent a couple of evenings catching up with The Booksellers, again more readable than the last couple of editions of The Library Update. It’s depressing to read that a 5th of professional library posts have been cut last year and that Suffolk County Council are handing the running off branch libraries to volunteers. Hopefully, they may find themselves in the same boat as Surrey County Council who have found that their plans to remove paid staff from 10 of the county’s libraries has been deemed illegal. There was also an interesting debate between the Society of Chief Librarians and publishers regarding lending e-books in public libraries. One debate can be found on Bobbi Newman’s blog http://libarianbyday.net/. Questions are raised on whether libraries should stop buying e-books until issues over provision settles down and whether libraries should be lending out e-books at all and that they shouldn’t be offered as a core service as libraries are community spaces. A contentious argument from Surrey County Council is that libraries are not just there to serve the needs of the poor and they have to follow where customers are going. They argue that 1 in 10 people have an e-reader and that 7 out of 10 people use mobile devices to read books. I would like to see these stats in more detail! Also, they are running a pilot scheme involving Koboes as they have closed their mobile library and see this as an alternative. I like to see how some of the mobile library users ie the elderly, physically disabled or a visually impaired person get on with this! I’m hoping that the library lends out the Kobo and doesn’t expect someone to buy one out of their pension unless everyone in Surrey is wealthy and expert in technology regardless of who they are! I can’t get my head round this scheme!

Easter Eggs, Galloway Forest and One Direct Stadium - April 2nd - 6th 2012

Not so much to blog about today as the week was mainly concentrating in getting caught up before my holiday next week. I'm off to stay in a cottage in Galloway Forest for a week and looking forward to a break. I've practically packed (plenty of warm clothing and rather optimistically a sundress and sandals) and the cat and hens have all been shipped off to their respective "hotels".

The phones have been extra busy as we've been one down in personnel and Customer Services have also been short of staff which has had a knock-on effect on us and have consequently picked up extra work as they've had to pass through calls they would normally do themselves. The rush has mainly been readers ringing making sure they've got plenty of books over Easter. I've also been checking with each caller that they've got plenty of books, if not would they like extra and if so, what do they fancy reading. It adds a few minutes on to the calls but a bit of customer care goes a long way.

Huge excitement with my son as he has told me that he has bought me a surprise - an Easter egg. He is desperate to show me now and has hinted that it is a big one! Hope it's still a big whole one by Sunday.

Football is hotting up, particularly in the Blue Square Conference. My team - Mansfield Town - are third and looking pretty good for the play offs with the Teams around them dropping points. I'm not sure about the stadium name change to One Direct Stadium though, that will take some getting used to.

East Midlands Members Day, Lisa Scottoline and AC/DC - March 26th - 30th

I must resolve not to start each blog with “Another busy week has passed”, it gets very tedious! The highlight of the week was the East Midlands Branch Members Day, held again at the Quad in Derby. It was the third one I’ve been to and probably the best one in terms of the speakers – Jonathan Douglas from the National Literacy Trust and Phil Bradley who whizzed through a host of social networking tools. I need to write up my notes and have a go at some of the resources mentioned. For anyone who is interested, notes from this talk can be found at:-

http://www.slideshare.net/Philbradley/social-media2012andsearch

Going back to Jonathan Douglas’s talk, the central theme running through was the idea that there was a link between poverty and low literacy levels and how public libraries could help bridge this gap. Marketing was looked at, particularly the idea of targeting the audience and taking reading to these groups such as working with the tabloid newspapers, football clubs, Lloyds Pharmacy and Iceland Supermarket. Perhaps the public library could work with their local McDonalds or Pizza Hut and have a lending shelf where customers could browse on the shelf and read while drinking their coffee. One finding of the research which interested us was the idea that the middle classes saw reading as a creative thing while the working classes saw reading in more practical terms ie you need to be able to read to get a job. For more details the website is:-

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/.

Another highlight of last week was our team’s book selection meeting. The library service as a whole is now only selecting every 2 months but our team thought it would be best to still meet monthly and pick some titles to save some time. We only get an hour off each Wednesday and we can just about do a monthly pick in that time. We’ve managed to do the collection development – this time it’s engineering, science and technology biographies and legal crime fiction. We get fed up of keep being asked for books similar to John Grisham! As expected, ISIS has nabbed the best authors but we’ve managed to find a few – early Scott Turow and Lisa Scottoline. We were struggling to find British legal crime fiction authors so if anyone could recommend any good authors – particularly none ISIS authors – feel free to drop down some ideas in the comments.

We found some notable gaps in the engineering and science biographies including James Watt and Isaac Newton so we should be able to resolve this problem. The customers have as usual thrown us a varied bag to choose from. Where else would you find a title from Danielle Steel’s back catalogue, AC/DC’s lead singer’s autobiography, the first one in Stella Rimington’s Liz Carlyle’s series and Sylvia Nasar’s A Grand Pursuit: a Story of Economic Genius.