Shelf Notes

Many have asked if there could be a podcast specifically for private lending librarians. Something designed to encourage current librarians while also helping prospective librarians discern whether, if, when, and how they may be called to this special work. Beginning next week on Wednesday, September 20th, long-time librarians Sherry Early and Kristi Stansfield sit down with new librarians Diane Pendergraft and Sara Masarik each month to talk about what is happening in our libraries that month.

While the monthly discussions will be like Our Reading Life (with Tanya Arnold and Sarah Kim of Biblioguides) and will probably be around an hour long, we are also recording short discussions about specific technical questions to be paired with the Ask The Librarian Section of The Card Catalog. Our first installment is a short conversation about the difference between "Collections" and "Tags" in LibraryThing and TinyCat.

Librarian Kathy Twitchell writes about her experience of both borrowing and lending books by mail in the northeastern state of Maine.

"We live in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I have owned more books than the tiny local public library for at least two decades. We rapidly outgrew their collection before the oldest of our six children turned ten. Because our town’s library service was so limited for so many years, we qualified for the state library’s Books by Mail program, as did the majority of smaller towns in the state. We have borrowed many hundreds of books this way. Because the Maine State Library is taxpayer funded, there was no fee for this service IF your town met the qualifications. If the town was not on the list, the service was not available at all."

Read more about Kathy's experience with and plans for books by mail.

Another librarian who loans books by mail is Emma Filbrun of Lots of Helpers Library in New Zealand. You can read her story at The Card Catalog: Librarian Notices.

One of the things that seems to scare parents most when they are thinking of homeschooling young children is the prospect of teaching their children to read. “Experts” have conditioned us to believe that teaching reading is a delicate process best not attempted by the uninitiated.

When it comes to choosing books for young readers, sifting through hundreds or thousands of titles can be overwhelming. How can we, as librarians and mentors, help parents sort through the noise and flash of publisher marketing?

We know that the value of a book has nothing to do with how much it costs. What is it that makes a book the right book?

At Plumfield and Paideia we are curating a list of some of the best Early Readers we know of. Besides experience teaching children to read, we keep the following criteria in mind:

Timelessness

Age-appropriate Situations

High Moral Standards

Good Taste

Behavioral Consequences

Worthy Illustration

Content Concerns

If you have early readers in your library that we should add to our list, please let us know on Mighty Networks or in an email to thecardcataloglibrarians@gmail.com.

As fellow librarians, we love to know which small publishers are reprinting the best books that we all love! We have had some lovely conversations with Jill Morgan of Purple House Press and Anthony Coafield of Living Book Press, as well as Jody Skinner of Smidgen Press. But one of our favorite things was when we had Jill and Anthony together last fall for the Small Press Roundtable. Hold on to your pocketbooks . . . you are going to want to place orders for your libraries when you are done listening to these! Who else would you like to hear us interview?

Did you know that Biblioguides has curated book lists for holidays throughout the year? For autumn Biblioguides has the following curated book lists:

Best Picture Books for Autumn

Best Books to Read With Your Kids on Halloween

Books to Commemorate All Saints Day

Best Books for Election Day

Best Books to Read With Your Kids to Celebrate Veteran's Day

Best Books to Celebrate Thanksgiving

You'll want to check these book lists ahead of time to see how many you have to offer your patrons. Many of these books may be in print and available from the public library, too, or from Internet Archive!

Author and Charlotte Mason educator Cindy Rollins recorded a conversation with librarians Sherry Early and Jeannette Tulis at The New Mason Jar in September, all about book love and library building. You will find the episode here at Cindy's podcast website, The New Mason Jar.

The Sheila Jean Living Books Library, located in Petoskey, MI is open for lending. Kathy Brower is the librarian. The library is named for Kathy's cousin, a school teacher who taught in public schools in areas of extreme poverty in NC for many years. She collected living books to create her own classroom library with enough copies that every student could read along with her. She sadly passed away from breast cancer at the young age of 42. When she died, she had collected 200,000 living books. Some of those books are a part of the Sheila Jean Living Books Library.

The Book Barn Library in Grand Bay, Alabama, currently a book room, but dreaming of a book barn, is set to hold their first open house on October 1st. Karen Laughlin is the librarian.

As of now there are 76 libraries from all over the world listed in the Private Lending Libraries Directory at Biblioguides. If your library is not listed, please take a minute to add it to the growing list so that families everywhere can find a library full of rich and enduring treasure books that will feed young minds with truth and beauty. Thanks to Biblioguides for graciously agreeing to host a directory for private lending libraries at the Biblioguides website.

We would love to hear from you about the questions, answers, and resources you would like to see available in The Card Catalog. To peruse previous issues of Shelf Notes, go to our Shelf Notes page.

Would you like to tell your library story at The Card Catalog? We would be honored to share the story of your library journey on our website. Please take some time to answer some questions for us, and we will be happy to work with you to publish your story: Library Story Submission Form.

Email: thecardcataloglibrarians@gmail.com
Website: plumfieldandpaideia.com/the-card-catalog/
Facebook: facebook.com/groups/221535058512623