TUESDAY BRINGS TROUBLE

The new library model?

In yesterday's Ottawa Citizen newspaper, there was a column by Roger Collier entitled, A few bad ideas for promoting the library. What he meant by 'bad ideas' is the amount of email spam that libraries are sending out as a method to attract more readers.

I've not been spammed by my local library in fact, the only email I receive from the Ottawa Public Library are notices that either a book I have reserved is now in, or that the book(s) I have checked out will be due in a few days time. I find that highly efficient and am pleased they haven't resorted to spam.

He was also lamenting the fact that the printed word has too much competition these days. Nothing new there. What did give me pause, were the numerous methods used by some libraries in other countries, to expand the number of visits to through their doors. If you didn't read it, imagine this: your public library now offers "oil changes, financial planning and MRI scans", all in the name of one-stop shopping for today's busy readers. Just imagine, the library could become the Shopper's Drug Mart or the Canadian Tire of your area!

The fact that "Sweden requires all it librarians to also be certified personal trainers" got me wondering if a gym was attached to each branch.

My favourite is in Oslo, Norway where "deep-tissue massage and an international buffet with more than 200 dishes" are offered. I could spend many happy hours reading in that library.

What about it? Is Canada ready for this revolution in one stop shopping? Would these ideas truly increase the number of people reading? What about hooking the kids? They're hot-wired to their computers and they certainly don't need oil changes. That's where the future of the library lies. But maybe there's a way to hook them, too...computers, anyone? Oh, right...we all ready offer them. So what's next?

Here's the link to the column: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/search/search.html?q=Roger%20collier&sort=date

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime
www.erikachase.com

MAYHEM ON MONDAYS

What to do if you love a book

You may ask, why do anything at all? After all, does any book need a boost from you? Ah. Allow me to climb up on my soapbox. You should do something because that book most likely needs your friendly assistance. These days there are fewer and fewer physical bookstores and consequently not nearly enough places where you can walk in and see an array of books in front of you. We are increasingly using online sources to find books. But first we need to know something about that book in order to find it: the title, the author’s name, some category or key word. It’s not quite the same as checking out shelves and tables in a bookstore.

The books that will automatically flash in front of your face are either the ones that have sold the most or those where the publisher has invested in site advertising.

Even in the larger ‘real’; bookstore, the endcaps and special displays are funded as advertising by publishers. That’s a business decision in a free country.
However, so many other books are shy flowers with three months to be purchased or stripped, cover returned to the publisher and the body of the book in the dumpster. If they happen to be on a bottom shelf because of the vagaries of shelving and number, they may be more like weeds to be trampled. Top shelf isn’t much better from my viewpoint, but of course, I am five feet tall. The whole scenario is enough to make a reader or author feel faint.

Then there’s the fact that print review sources are shrinking. That means more attention for the ‘big books’ that you can’t miss anyway, less for the others. Look for full page reviews of the megasellers and no page reviews for most of the midlist. Too bad, so sad.

Even libraries, long the treasured location for creative and serendipitous browsing, are not immune to this. Many of us, including grouchy little me, use the online catalogue to select titles and dash in to pick up my selection without checking to see what else is available. Of course, they are titles or authors that I already know about.

Plus more and more books don’t even have a physical manifestation: they’re e-books or they’re downloadable audio books. How do you find out about them?

So that’s my point: if you love a book that is not an international bestseller or a major frontlist baby for a huge publisher, then tell people about it. It will feel the love! Here are some things you could consider. They’re all free and most only take a minute!

Tell your reading friends.
Tell your local librarians.
Tell a bookstore owner.
Tell your book club.
Tell strangers on a bus.
Be seen with the book! Read it in the doctor’s waiting room, on a plane, in a slow grocery line. Someone’s bound to ask. But feel free to volunteer the information.


Don’t get out much? No problem!
Tell your Facebook buddies.
Tell your Twitter followers.
Link to a nice review.
Comment on the author’s blog or Facebook page.
Every one of these takes almost no time. A minute. Or a quick flap of the tongue. But in this networked world any one can make a difference.

Have a few more minutes? Write a quick review online or rate the book on an online site or online bookseller. You won’t just be dishing out stars. You’ll be one!

Lastly: Tell the author. Most authors have a website with a contact email. It’s a lonely old world out there and it could get lonelier with all these invisible books, bookstores closing and shrinking book review sections. So give an author a boost! Every author writes with the reader in mind. Without the reader, the story doesn’t matter. If you’re a happy reader, let the person know that their book touched you in some way.



Mary Jane Maffini rides herd on three (soon to be three and a half) mystery series and a couple of dozen short stories. Her thirteenth mystery novel, The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder, which hit the bookshelves last week, is brimming with names, no two the same.

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

Dead Horses

I know I've blogged about the importance of libraries before in this space but at the risk of seeming to flog a dead horse, I'm going to say more. Doug Ford, councillor for Etobicoke, may have given up for the moment his quest to close Toronto libraries but in my experience, dead horses have a bad habit of raising their scabrous heads and coming back to life. Governments and corporations have more money than the rest of us and a lot more staying power. They can outwait the best of us so that just when we slough off our boxing gloves and sink into our rocking chairs they joyfully dig the idea up and present it as something brand new to a now younger population.

In Ottawa we thought we'd scotched a bad plan for the rejuvenation of Lansdowne Park, the largest public park in the downtown core. But money and power won in the end and we now have a plan that includes umpteen acres of big box and other stores as well as condos, a football field and a bit of playground and green space nestled into the concrete.

Libraries are simply too tempting a target for politicians looking for spending cuts. They've tried before and they'll try again. When Ottawa City Council threatened to close the Sunnyside Branch of the OPL several years ago, my neighbours and I gathered for the protest not sure what to expect but I have rarely heard such impassioned and moving speeches. Ed Broadbent talked of the huge impact his local library had on him, a kid from an Oshawa auto worker's family for whom books and education held little importance. Jeffrey Simpson, of the Globe and Mail, told how his own youthful attention was caught by the books suggested by his local librarian.

We're just back from a two-week trip around Newfoundland where we visited The Rooms, St. John's spectacular museum, art gallery and archives. An exhibit called Logotopia: The Library in Art, Architecture and the Imagination, inspired me to scribble down these words from the exhibit:

"The need for collective experience and social interaction will never go away. Furthermore, the unique role of the library as the human institutional bridge between analogue and digital cultures provides the library patron with more opportunities and points of access than ever before. This is why new libraries continue to be built and why existing libraries expand to meet the ever growing demand. Besides, the sensorial experience of reading a book holds too great an allure."

Fine words indeed. But watch out for dead horses. They can rise to kick again.



Sue Pike has published a couple of dozen stories and won several awards including an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story. Her latest, Where the Snow Lay Dinted appeared in the January issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Sue and her husband and an opinionated Australian Shepherd named Cooper spend the winter months in Ottawa and the rest of the time at a mysterious cottage on the Rideau Lakes.

TUESDAY BRINGS TROUBLE

Checking out the libraries debate

It's still in full swing...the debate about whether or not to close libraries. The gauntlet was taken up again on The Current this a.m. on CBC Radio One, with the chief librarian from Hamilton Public Library and a Toronto Councillor carrying the 'Pro' banner. If only all those on the Toronto Council were so wise. Especially, those ridiculous Ford brothers.

By the way, there are NOT more library branches than Tim Hortons in Toronto -- we all knew that. The number is 3 Tim Hortons to 1 library. I actually thought it would be more like 30 to 1.

Everyone can understand the need for a city to raise money and cut spending these days. And, since libraries are not allowed to charge fees (only overdue fines), they can be seen as dead weight -- by all those wearing blinders. Those fines and some monies earned from space rentals are admittedly, not large amounts. But there's no way to attach a price tag to the services offered by a library.

Even in these days of the Internet, e-books, and everything that goes with the new media...libraries are right in there providing citizens with free access to these items. There will always be a need for paper books, especially for those who cannot afford to keep buying books in any format. The library has the books, the Internet, the programming, the classes, the gathering space that keep a community vibrant and alive.

I'm always amazed that no matter what time of day or evening I visit my local branch, it's always busy. And it's populated by people of all ages and ethnicities. And, everyone is friendly.

There's often an economy of space that forward-thinking municipalities incorporate when deciding on multi-purpose buildings, such as my local community centre/library branch. Shared structure, shared heat and cooling systems, shared clientele. We could also add a community health centre to that plan and/or a community police centre. The main ingredient being 'community'.

There has always been a library in my memory. Although I can't remember at what age

I started visiting it, I do know it was in a regal, old Carnegie building. When the ultra-modern main branch was built (many, many decades ago), I was a user from day one. During high school, it was close to the bus I'd take home, so often I'd stop in and do my homework, or at least the research aspect, before catching the bus. My first paying job was as a 'Page' at that locale; my future husband asked me out on our first date between those stacks.

Everyone has a library memory, I'm certain. As readers, it's the keeper of our written legacy; as writers, it's a place that connects readers to our books. In this day and age of diminishing numbers of bookstores, we need to keep our libraries alive and flourishing.

That just makes good sense...and cents!


Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

A Harebrained idea

On Tuesday Rick Blechta wrote a blog for Type M for Murder http://typem4murder.blogspot.com/ about the City of Toronto's harebrained idea to privatize their public libraries. Councillor Doug Ford, the mayor's brother, said in his defense of the scheme, “I’ve got more libraries in my area than I have Tim Horton’s.” Um . . . and this is a bad thing?

It's a complete fabrication, of course. There are three times as many Timmy's in Etobicoke, Doug Ford's ward, than libraries and that doesn't begin to take into account all the other coffee shops that have sprouted like weeds in our urban communities. Apples and oranges can't describe this ludicrous argument. It's more like apples and warthogs. But before I get too personal about the delectable Ford brothers, let me tell you about my favourite library and why I think public libraries are such an important part of our communities.

The Elgin Branch of the Rideau Lakes Public Library in Eastern Ontario is my idea of a tiny perfect place. What is it about this little library? I conducted an informal survey of patrons and I got a number of enthusiastic and varied responses. Most people wanted to talk about the social aspect of the place. "It's a bit like the old general store without the potbellied stove. People feel welcome to sit around and chew the fat," said one patron.

A few years ago, Sue Warren, the CEO of Rideau Lakes Public Library came across my sister and me whispering in the General Fiction section. She put a hand on both our shoulders and in the nicest way possible said, "You don't have to whisper here. This is a community space." I looked around at that point and realized she was absolutely right. There was a spirited discussion going on in one alcove among six members of one of the library's five book clubs. Kids were crowded into the Children's Room shouting out answers to questions about a story that had just been read to them. All of the computers were in use and one man was having a conversation, sotto voce, on Skype. In the midst of this some people were reading and others visited in easy chairs.

Sue Warren explains the popularity of rural libraries this way: "Librarians have to be a bit like bartenders. Our staff members live in the area and are well-connected to the community. We know if someone is going through a bad time and we take the time to listen. Our libraries used to close between Christmas and New Years but we realized what a bleak and lonely time this could be for some folks, so now we stay open."

Many rural libraries offer courses in Computer skills and provide adult and youth literacy programs. Elgin has a Dyslexia Support Group, Summer Reading Clubs, Resume Writing assistance and they proctor examinations for people who can't get to exam venues.

I can't even begin to enumerate all the services this little library and most rural libraries provide, free of charge, for their communities but it doesn't take too much imagination to see how a private, for-profit library corporation would differ and how it would fail these same communities.


Sue Pike has published a couple of dozen stories and won several awards including an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story. Her latest, Where the Snow Lay Dinted appeared in the January issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

Sue and her husband and an opinionated Australian Shepherd named Cooper spend the winter months in Ottawa and the rest of the time at a mysterious cottage on the Rideau Lakes.

MAYHEM ON MONDAY

What to do if you love a book

You may ask, why do anything at all? After all, does any book need a boost from you? Ah. Allow me to climb up on my soapbox. You should do something because that book most likely needs your friendly assistance. These days there are fewer and fewer physical bookstores and consequently not nearly enough places where you can walk in and see an array of books in front of you. We are increasingly using online sources to find books. But first we need to know something about that book in order to find it: the title, the author’s name, some category or key word. It’s not quite the same as checking out shelves and tables in a bookstore.

The books that will automatically flash in front of your face are either the ones that have sold the most or those where the publisher has invested in site advertising.

Even in the larger ‘real’; bookstore, the endcaps and special displays are funded as advertising by publishers. That’s a business decision in a free country.
However, so many other books are shy flowers with three months to be purchased or stripped, cover returned to the publisher and the body of the book in the dumpster. If they happen to be on a bottom shelf because of the vagaries of shelving and number, they may be more like weeds to be trampled. Top shelf isn’t much better from my viewpoint, but of course, I am five feet tall. The whole scenario is enough to make a reader or author feel faint.

Then there’s the fact that print review sources are shrinking. That means more attention for the ‘big books’ that you can’t miss anyway, less for the others. Look for full page reviews of the megasellers and no page reviews for most of the midlist. Too bad, so sad.

Even libraries, long the treasured location for creative and serendipitous browsing, are not immune to this. Many of us, including grouchy little me, use the online catalogue to select titles and dash in to pick up my selection without checking to see what else is available. Of course, they are titles or authors that I already know about.

Plus more and more books don’t even have a physical manifestation: they’re e-books or they’re downloadable audio books. How do you find out about them?

So that’s my point: if you love a book that is not an international bestseller or a major frontlist baby for a huge publisher, then tell people about it. It will feel the love! Here are some things you could consider. They’re all free and most only take a minute!

Tell your reading friends.
Tell your local librarians.
Tell a bookstore owner.
Tell your book club.
Tell strangers on a bus.
Be seen with the book! Read it in the doctor’s waiting room, on a plane, in a slow grocery line. Someone’s bound to ask. But feel free to volunteer the information.


Don’t get out much? No problem!
Tell your Facebook buddies.
Tell your Twitter followers.
Link to a nice review.
Comment on the author’s blog or Facebook page.
Every one of these takes almost no time. A minute. Or a quick flap of the tongue. But in this networked world any one can make a difference.

Have a few more minutes? Write a quick review online or rate the book on an online site or online bookseller. You won’t just be dishing out stars. You’ll be one!

Lastly: Tell the author. Most authors have a website with a contact email. It’s a lonely old world out there and it could get lonelier with all these invisible books, bookstores closing and shrinking book review sections. So give an author a boost! Every author writes with the reader in mind. Without the reader, the story doesn’t matter. If you’re a happy reader, let the person know that their book touched you in some way.

I know that’s true. My latest book hit the shelves this week (last week I was chewing my nails about it!) and I have been grateful for every positive comment since.

This month I’m looking forward to some forthcoming books: Vicki Delany’s Among the Departed and D.J. McIntosh’s The Witch of Babylon. I’ve already given them an advance shout out!


Mary Jane Maffini rides herd on three (soon to be three and a half) mystery series and a couple of dozen short stories. Her thirteenth mystery novel, The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder, which hit the bookshelves last week, is brimming with names, no two the same.

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

One of the minor irritations in my life is the Ottawa Public Library's policy of segregating out genre fiction. First because they don't do a very good job of it (I've found Minette Walters and Jonathan Kellerman in the "everything that isn't crime, western, speculative, or romance" section), second because cross-genre novels such as Robert Sawyer's Golden Fleece can't be in both SF and Crime at the same time, and third because it cheats readers of the opportunity to find really good books they wouldn't have read had they not stumbled upon them while browsing integrated stacks.

When it comes to fiction, I consider myself a small-L liberal. There are types of fiction I don't normally read, but I don't relegate that fiction--or its readers--to any particular spot at the back of the stacks.

Time was, stories were stories. Shakespeare didn’t discriminate against
romance (Much Ado About Nothing), fantasy (A Midsummer Night's Dream), horror (Macbeth) or crime (Hamlet). Neither did his audience. Then someone got the bright idea of labelling them, and all of a sudden some stories had to be kept apart, as if they'd contaminate the others (or maybe the readers). It may be convenient if you’re looking to read crime not to have to browse the entire fiction collection, but if you don’t know what you want to read, if you like (as I do) to take a "tempt me" approach when scanning the shelves, then ploughing through nothing but crime (or SF, or whatever) wears you down.

The library used to label books--literally. They put little stickers on
the spine to show you whether the thing was romance, historical, or fantasy. Of course, most Arthurian stories are all three, and Storyteller published an Arthurian crime series by Vicki Cameron. But the library likes to label fiction as one thing, to the exclusion of anything else. Are its patrons that narrow-minded?

The trouble with labels, adhesive or verbal, is that they stick. People
make assumptions based on the label, rather than what’s inside. Take,
for instance, the novel Zulu, by Caryl Férey. I don't use words like magnificent lightly, but I use it to talk about Zulu. That's not just my opinion. It's won several awards.

I recommended it to my writing class (something else I don't do lightly)
and one student read it. She agreed on the calibre of the writing which,
she said, one doesn't usually find in "novels like this"--i.e., crime fiction.

Aargh!

The fact is, one rarely finds writing of the calibre of Zulu in any fiction. And when one does, it's usually at the expense of story. (All style and no substance is a frequent knock against the literary genre. And, BTW, the OPL does not segregate out literary fiction as a genre--but that’s another blog.)

There's a misconception among non-crime readers that it's all like
Agatha Christie or Anthony Boucher: lots of puzzle, very little meat.
But crime fiction has evolved. There's now a subspecies I've heard
referred to as "classic mystery" but even in the "classic" days some
crime writers were digging deep to explore the human condition; Raymond
Chandler comes to mind.

Besides writing to die for, Zulu has an exotic setting (South Africa), political background, and intensely real characters. There’s also a love interest. So it’s got a lot to offer people who don’t normally read crime, but they’ll never find it because it’s been consigned to the Crime section. I found it on the New Books shelf (which is integregated), picked it up because of the title, and took it home because of the setting. The genre was a bonus, but I wouldn’t have put it back had the jacket blurb mentioned a vampire. Am I the only one who chooses books this way?

I miss the days when one never knew what the next book along the shelf
would be. Browsing the stacks was more of an adventure, and even when
beelining toward a particular author, I'd make serendipitous discoveries
along the way. But librarians, after all, are paid to put books into
fixed categories. I just hope, for their sakes, they don’t live their
whole lives that way.



Melanie Fogel is the former editor of Storyteller, Canada’s Short Story Magazine. An occasional writer herself, she teaches creative writing for the Ottawa School Board’s Continuing Education program, and has presented workshops at the Surrey and Bloody Words writers' conferences, as well as most of the writers’ organizations in Ottawa. She has a WiP website at http://tinyurl.com/bitcheditor.

CRIME ON MY MIND

Libraries and me!

I stopped into my local branch of the Ottawa Public Library last night to pick up some books I'd reserved - research for my novel. And, being a recent convert to opera, I've been borrowing one opera DVD a week...so had to get my next fix. It's going to take me a long time to work through them but I think my library is up to the challenge.

What amazed me, and most pleasantly, was how crowded the library seemed on a Thursday evening. The parking lot was full, for starters, so I had to park in back (it was raining). And, there seemed to be people standing in front of all the shelves I went to, all the computers were in use, and everywhere I looked, people of all ages.

This is wonderful news for writers! Sure, a lot were kids doing homework, but they're in the library, researching and reading...right?

My relationship with libraries goes back many, many years. My first library experience was the wonderful & typical Carnegie building in my hometown. It was right out of a book and a place of awe to someone so young. It still stands but has had many name changes over the years.

When I was a high school lass, just a few years ago, I had a part-time job as a 'page' in the New Westminster Public Library. I used to love Friday night shifts because I was usually assigned to the reference department and it was never busy at that time, so I could sit and read the New York Times. My Saturday shifts kept me hopping though. And, we didn't have branches, even though the city was large enough to support them. I thoroughly enjoyed the job, shelving the books, helping process the new acquisitions for circulation, working at the circulation desk (no automated processes in those days), and when the librarian on duty was busy, helping a patron or two.

As a bookseller, I looked on libraries as partners in selling. Many readers cannot afford to buy their own copies of a new title, if they're unsure of enjoying the read. But, they can borrow the book and, if it's a hit, go on to buy subsequent books in the series. Many libraries also host book clubs and are happy to invite authors to participate in meetings.

We all want the same thing -- readers reading our books. So, back to last night. I'd bet some of them were sitting in those comfy chairs reading a mystery. Or checking a mystery title out.

Let's hear it for libraries, librarians, and even pages (if that's what they're still called). And yes, let's get a newer, state-of-the-art (books) main branch built in this city.

What's happening with your local library?


Linda Wiken/Erika Chase