LibraryTechtonics

I’m on the Libraries@Random newsletter list for Random House, because it’s a nice newsletter. There are freebie drawings (I won one once), interesting roundups of books (all from RH, granted), and book newsy bits (did you know that May is Latino Books Month?). It’s nice.

Today, I was very impressed by their “Collection Development Ideas” section, which focused on their “After Dark” romance, erotica, and self-help books. There’s even a link to join their “Books for After Dark” newsletter, clearly marked as “intended for mature audiences.”

However, I’m not impressed with the fact that, although I *want* to link to the issue of Libraries@Random I received in email so’s you can see it, I can’t. The link at the bottom that I’m s’posed to be able to click on if I can’t read HTML emails, and that should presumably link to the archive copy on the site, doesn’t not go where it says it does. It goes to the Libraries home page on the Random House Biz Solutions site. Interesting and worth viewing, but not really *right*.

This makes me sad. Furthermore, it’s just not terribly usable, and I’m a big fan of usable. I think I sent them email about this in the past, about not being able to access the online HTML copy (or link to it and give them props, for that matter), but I never got a response.

To add further confusion, the link on the main Libraries page to Libraries@Random is apparently to their Grades K-12 edition, which is very different from what I receive in email. It looks very interesting, so if you’re a school or children’s librarian, I’d give it a look. However, it is confusing to have 2 newsletters of the same name with different content, and only link to one on the landing page.

Either way, I just wanted to share that the Libraries@Random newsletter really is a good thing, especially this issue (it’s biweekly). Hopefully they’ll fix their weird archiving issues (if you subscribe, at least you can *see* the issues).

Tags: books
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