LibraryTechtonics

As seen in Random House’s Libraries@Random Newsletter:

Dungeons & Dragons Worldwide Game Day – June 7th: Following the release of D&D 4th Edition, players everywhere can celebrate in the biggest D&D day of the year! Your library can participate too! Please visit this Wizards of the Coast webpage and click How to Host a D&D Adventure Afternoon in Your Library at the bottom of the page.

Also, if you take this survey, you can be entered to win one of the following craft books:

• Mason-Dixon Knitting
• Kaffe Knits Again
• Bend-the-Rules Sewing
• Twinkle’s Weekend Knits
• Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook

And I lurves me some free craft books, so I thought I’d share.  One caveat: you need to get to the end of the survey to get the email address where you enter to win the book.  I’m sure that’ll cull out many entrants, and I think it’s a wicked sneaky way to do it, so I almost didn’t enter.  However, I see entering as bucking the system, so there.

I recently the February edition of the Libraries@Random Newsletter, which features an interesting section of Oscar nominees inspired by Random House books, and a section of fantasy titles to help you escape the toils of February inspired S.A.D.

I’d show you if, as I’ve said before, the newsletter was actually viewable online. The one downside of an otherwise useful email newsletter that’s worth the email subscription because it’s a quick and happy read.

However, the most interesting bit was their announcement that Random House will feature a Reading Guide of the Month. The page shows the featured guide at the top, along with a list of other guides offered by other Random House group publishers. You can also subscribe to their Reading Groups@Random Newsletter, which I think is new, offering information on book group ideas, discussion guides, information on author chats, and more. I wish there was a link from the Reading Group page to subscribe to the newsletter, since that would be super smart. I think I’ll send them an email about that… done.

I’ve subscribed to the newsletter, so we’ll see if it’s just as interesting and useful. Usually book group books are current and popular, so it’ll be a good way to find books to recommend. It’s like a backsolving method for improving my reader recommendation (readers’ advisory) skills. ;D

I received an email today from Stephanie Gerding announcing that her book The Accidental Technology Trainer is now available for purchase.  I wrote some snippets for her a while back about the Geek Out, Don’t Freak Out classes and the Netguides program, and I can see from the table of contents that the Netguides program definitely made it in as a whole sidebar (w00t!).  I won’t know about the rest of the content until I get my hands on a copy.   Congratulations, Stephanie!

I like writing snippets for books, because I can help the author and contribute to the content of the work, without having to write an entire book.  While I always enjoy a good challenge, finding myself in the middle of NaNoWriMo and sinfully behind in my word count is a sobering reminder of why writing a whole book (on my own, anyway) just isn’t on my list, and puts me in awe of those who can actually do it successfully.

I received this through the MLA listserv today:

What is the Walden Media Book Club?
Starting in October 2007, one night each month from 5:00-7:00 p.m., Walden Media will host a group of 10-15 fourth through eighth-grade teachers, school librarians and children’s librarians, to discuss a book that is newly-released or in “galley” form (not published yet). Each meeting will focus on a new work of young adult literature published by Walden Media, including:

• Mike Lupica’s The Comeback Kid Kids: Two-Minute Drill
• Ingrid Law’s Savvy
• Lauren St. John’s The White Giraffe and Dolphin Song
• Michael Reisman’s Simon Bloom, The Gravity Keeper

The books are FREE, as are dinner and parking, and you can even earn PDPs (Professional Development Points).

Join the book club with real FREE benefits! To find out all the details, including the schedule of nights, and what’s new with Walden Media, visit http://www.walden.com/walden/walden/book-club.php.

Free food, free books (some of them sneak peeks!), free parking (which, in downtown Boston, is a *huge* score), PDPs, and networking with librarians in/near Boston. I’m not even a YA librarian, and I’m tempted to go.

If you happen to attend the upcoming inaugural book club meeting on October 18, leave me a comment with your thoughts, I’d love to hear how it goes.

This was in the most recent edition of the getsugar email newsletter. More info and the schedule are on the event’s web site, but here’s the skinny picture:

Join us Saturday, September 15 in Copley Square for a day filled with readings by children’s authors and illustrators, book signings, musical entertainment, appearances by costumed characters, giveaways and much more.
Admission is FREE!

More than 20 local and national authors and performers will be on hand for the event, which will be held rain or shine.

Mitali Perkins (who has visited Reading a few times) will be there, as well as impressive roster of other authors. If you go, pop back and let me know if you had fun!