Archive for April, 2020

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020

Interview with Tom Holbrook of RiverRun Bookstore

Independent bookstores are struggling right now. We are eager to talk to booksellers about what’s going on, how they are dealing with this ongoing crisis, and ways we can help. We talked with Tom Holbrook of RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, NH.

How has River Run been managing the Coronavirus?

Like all retail in New Hampshire, our sales floor is closed to the public, but we can do curbside pickup. As a result, we are fielding phone calls and emails all day long. In addition to curbside pickup we are delivering books to Portsmouth and Kittery, and mailing books anywhere in the US. It’s a lot of work—a lot!—but at least we have work to do and it is keeping the store in people’s minds.

How can people help you out, or help out their local indie?

Our customers have been amazing, and our online friends have been great as well. Our online ordering site usually gets a few orders a week. Since this started we’ve been getting 10–12 a day. That’s really the best way for people to help us out – buy a book from our website. It’s good for us, and good for them! It’s my hope that we are winning people away from Amazon during this time, and will be able to keep them as loyal customers. We also launched a great t-shirt online to promote reading and social distancing, and hit our goal of 100 shirts in 4 days. Our offer runs through April 30, so it’s not too late to get one!

Tell us about your home library—what’s in it? How is it organized?

At home, I don’t have as many books as people imagine, because I just borrow them from the store (shh!), but I keep them in a yellow room with bookshelves along the wall. One case is full of my favorite books that I want to keep and share, the other 3 cases are full of books I haven’t got to quite yet!

What are you reading now?

Currently I am reading Night Boat to Tangier (RiverRun | LibraryThing) by Kevin Barry, which has definite Joyce overtones in its dialogue and flow. Rereading Once & Future (RiverRun | LibraryThing) by Cori McCarthy and Amy Rose Capetta. Best YA I read last year, and the sequel just dropped so I need a refresher. My 11yo daughter and I are working our way through the Wells and Wong mystery series (RiverRun | LibraryThing), and we both love it.

Thanks to everyone who supports indie bookstores!

See all bookstore interviews hereDo you run an independent bookstore and would like to be featured in our blog? Please reach out.

Labels: bookstores, interview

Tuesday, April 21st, 2020

National Library Week: LT Staff’s Favorite Libraries

“Mechanics
It’s National Library Week in the USA! To celebrate, LibraryThing staff chose our favorite libraries to share with you. The theme this year for National Library Week is “Find Your Place At the Library,” as all of us have done so in our lives. Our list encompasses specific public library branches to our first college circulation assistant jobs—all the way to the reading room in Library of Congress!

Did you know you can add your favorite libraries to your LibraryThing profile through LibraryThing Local? Just log in, search for your library, and you can add it to your favorites list, mark yourself as having visited, or check-in.

Happy National Library Week!

 
 
 
 
 
 
“library

Tim

The Library of Congress – Washington, DC

I love research libraries and lived in them for much of my teens and twenties. When I was at Georgetown this meant the LC, arguably the greatest research library in the world. I owe so much of how I think and who I am to that glorious reading room, and to the efficient staff who deposited pile after pile of books on my table.

 

 

“Mount holyoke College Library

Abby

Mount Holyoke College Library – South Hadley, MA

This library, with its impressive reading room, is one of the reasons I ended up going to library school. I wrote my undergrad thesis in my carrel in the stacks, worked in the archives, and generally lived there for 4 years.

Honorable mention: Cambridge Public Library

 

 

 

“SCL

Kate

St. Louis County Library – Grant’s View Branch – St. Louis, MO

This newly-renovated branch of the SLCL system opened just in time for my kids’ introduction to public libraries. We have visited nearly every weekend since my son could walk (he’s now 5), and we can’t wait to get back after quarantine.

Honorable mention: Austin Public Library – Central Library

“Salt

Chris H

The Salt Lake City – Central Library – Salt Lake City, UT

Beautiful architecture with a soaring atrium greets you as you enter the building. Being in the lively downtown area of SLC, the lower section of the atrium is home to commercial entities like coffee shops and hairdressers, much like a mall. But the children’s area is the place where I spent most of my time. It is a world of wonder with creative reading areas like the treehouse room that lets kids climb and get away to find their own private nook to read and colorful, open-air concept for the main shelf areas. It’s a place where kids feel at home and aren’t intimidated by the idea of a stodgy, quiet library experience.

 

“Pratt

Chris C

Enoch Pratt Free Library – Central Branch – Baltimore, MD

I spent many an hour in the Children’s Section in elementary school and I can still conjure up the distinct smell of the place.

 

“MechanicsKristi

Mechanics’ Hall Library – Portland, ME

I had the pleasure of visiting this gorgeous little library while meeting with Librarian Pat to help set up their LibraryThing catalog. One of the few remaining membership libraries still lending, it lives in the historic Mechanics’ Hall, with over 30k volumes of arts/trades works but also a sizable fiction section.

 

 

“Smith

KJ

Josten Performing Arts Library of Smith College – Northampton, MA

This was my college library job, and I have extremely fond memories of the muted squashy purple carpet of it all, as well as learning to shelf-read ca. 19th-century orchestral scores in Cutter, a former Dewey Decimal System competitor that is still extant at a few libraries and the base for the LoC system.

Honorable Mention: Skidompha Public Library

 

 

“évora

Pedro

Biblioteca Pública de Évora – Largo Conde de Vila Flor, Portugal

Founded in 1805, it’s in a beautiful building with a huge collection.

Labels: national library week

Tuesday, April 14th, 2020

TinyCat Turns Four

Happy Fourth Birthday to TinyCat!

To celebrate our birthday, we’ve brought you new features and improvements, a short feedback survey with a chance to win a free year’s subscription to TinyCat, and a Store sale so you can stock up on library supplies.

New Features and Improvements

It’s our birthday and we want to celebrate! That’s why we have a slew of new features and upgrades for you. However, we want to acknowledge that not everything is cake and balloons right now, and we send well-wishes to our TinyCat members in this time of uncertainty. But it’s still our birthday and we do want to give you presents, so here we go.

LibraryThing developed TinyCat to be the leading professional, easy-to-use online catalog for small libraries that also didn’t break the budget. We’re proud to say that over four years and over 1,300 subscribers later, we’re still committed to providing the best and most affordable service out there for libraries looking to manage their collections and lending online.

We hope you enjoy the latest features and improvements that we’ve added (with Tiny Tutorials coming soon!) as our thanks to you:

Extend all due dates feature

“Extend all due dates” Feature

With the entire world currently in a social distancing state of life and libraries temporarily shuttered, we’ve added the ability for you to extend all due dates within your Active Transactions.

Clear Starred Lists

For visitors and patrons wanting to create multiple Starred Lists within TinyCat, we’ve now added a button to clear each list as needed, rather than waiting for a new browser session to do so.

Learn more about Starred Lists in our Tiny Tutorial here.

ICYMI: Transactions Reports

From the “Reports” page in the TinyCat Admin portal, you can now download automated checkout and patron reports from your lending history. You can filter by start and/or end dates, too, so you can look at a specific time frame when weeding the stacks, preparing reports for the budget, and more.

Patron Email Reminders for Checkouts

When you’re ready to return to your regular operations, you can have TinyCat send up to one checkout reminder email and up to three overdue emails to your patrons, making it easier to keep your collections intact.

Set your preferences from Circulation Settings.

Patron Notifications Expanded

All patrons will now get confirmation emails for every lending Transaction, including when they return an item and when an admin checks a book out to them.

Patron URLs Added to Notifications

Transaction notifications emailed to admins now include a direct link to the patron’s account, so you can quickly access more information for each patron as needed.

TinyCat Library Survey: Win a Free Year of TinyCat!

We want your feedback! So we can continue providing you with the best online catalog for your needs, please take a few minutes to fill out our survey and let us know what you think of TinyCat and how we can improve the service. And yes, we want to know how COVID-19 is affecting your operations, too. We’ll pick one library at random to receive a free year’s subscription to TinyCat as thanks for your time.

Take the survey here: https://forms.gle/Gi7bBwAysiWCZ7QC7.

LibraryThing Store Sale

With TinyCat’s birthday comes our major Store sale, now through the end of May.

Stock up on all CueCat barcode scanners for just $5 apiece and barcode labels—$5 for the first packet and $4 thereafter—for your library.

Head over to the LibraryThing Store: https://www.librarything.com/more/store.


Thanks for another successful year, libraries! Stay safe, stay strong, and read some books.

Labels: birthday, TinyCat

Monday, April 6th, 2020

April Early Reviewers batch is up!

Win free books from the April 2020 batch of Early Reviewer titles! We’ve got 77 books this month, and a grand total of 2,673 copies to give out. Which books are you hoping to snag this month? Come tell us on Talk.

If you haven’t already, sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing/email address and make sure they’re correct.

» Request books here!

The deadline to request a copy is Monday, April 27th at 6PM Eastern.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US, Canada, the UK, Israel, Australia, France, Germany, and more. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

Unsolicited Press William Morrow Kaylie Jones Books
Akashic Books Consortium Book Sales and Distribution Revell
Candlewick Press Petra Books Random House
Black Rose Writing Entrada Publishing TouchPoint Press
CarTech Books University of Nebraska Press Red Adept Publishing
Tiny Fox Press The Marked, LLC Prufrock Press
Gibson House Press Heritage Books HighBridge Audio
Tantor Media Regal House Publishing Plum White Press
Vesuvian Books Henry Holt and Company Hot Tree Publishing
Books by Elle, Inc Odyssey Books Poolbeg Press
Zimbell House Publishing InterCultural Connect Books Book Publicity Services
Meerkat Press Graphic Arts Books ClydeBank Media
City Owl Press Sparkling Books Literary Wanderlust LLC
BHC Press

Labels: early reviewers, LTER