Your Last Three Books challenges:

These programs are based on the success of the Biblioracle project, which was overwhelmed with demand. Perhaps the simplicity of the question achieves two things: 1) using Facebook makes it very easy for people to quickly dash off their three titles, and 2) offering the service actually makes readers aware that libraries can do this.

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By Cindy Orr

An excellent and very useful article appeared in the latest RUSQ, the quarterly magazine of the Reference and User Services Division of the American Library Association. The article is called “A Selection of Core Resources for Readers’ Advisory Service,” and it’s edited by Neal Wyatt, who is a collection development and readers’ advisory librarian from Virginia. She wrote The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Nonfiction (ALA Editions, 2007), is the editor of Library Journal’s “Reader’s Shelf” column, author of Booksmack!’s “RA Crossroads” column, and compiles LJ’s weekly “Wyatt’s World Lists.”

Wyatt recruited about 15 other contributors to help with the project, and this article is something that all RAs should read. (As we mentioned earlier, both Sarah Statz Cords, this blog’s assistant editor, and I contributed to the article, though none of the contributors were allowed to recommend anything they were associated with.)

The article lists books, key articles, blogs, websites, and databases. One of the criticisms of readers’ advisory service providers is that research has shown that often librarians did not use RA tools, thinking apparently that we should be able to answer RA questions off the top of our heads. There are great tools out there, though, and here’s the question:

*Do you have any favorites that were left off the list? If you have a useful source that was missed (in fairness, contributors were largely limited to suggesting one source), we’d like to know what it is.

I’ll start…I love Fantastic Fiction.

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By Sarah Statz Cords

Although I am too lazy to use many social software programs to manage my reading and book lists (I prefer the old-fashioned method of strewing actual books around my house in completely disorganized TBR piles), I must admit that one of my favorite ways to use Library Thing is to plug titles into their Unsuggester.

This is a tool that “analyzes the forty million books LibraryThing members have recorded as owned or read, and comes back with books least likely to share a library with the book you suggest”–and it’s a total load of fun for book cranks like me who take almost as much joy in hating certain books as they do in loving others.

Once you know I’m a self-appointed “Book Crank,” it should come as no surprise (particularly this month, when his new and eagerly awaited novel hit bookshelves after years of anticipation) that I’m not a particular fan of Dan Brown, although I did read—and yes, I’ll admit it, enjoyed, in parts—The Da Vinci Code.*

So what are the books that owners of The Da Vinci Code are the LEAST likely to own? Well, it turns, out, a lot of knitting books. Hmm. What does that mean I wonder?

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*I was mainly tickled that any book, and particularly a novel, had the power to stir up so many controversies and commentaries. Viva reading!

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Here’s another fun site to try if you want to get a look at book covers in a more efficient way than paging down one title at a time. It’s called oSkope. Try this:

Go to oSkope.com

Choose amazon from the drop down window Select a Service

In the drop down window marked Choose, select Books

In the next drop down window marked Choose, select Literature and Fiction (you can continue refining if you’d like)

In the box on the second line, enter Chick Lit

Your page should fill up with covers of Chick Lit books

How could you use this? Maybe you’d like to do a display of Chick Lit books with covers that are similar. Doing this search allows you to see that there are several books with legs or feet or shoes on the cover, for instance. The slider on the right side of the screen makes the covers larger if you need to do that. When you see a cover you’d like to save, just drag and drop it into the folder at the bottom.

We’d love it if you’d play around with oSkope and share your ideas for other ways to use it.

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Google is experimenting with a new feature they’re calling the Wonder Wheel.

Here’s a search to try:

*Go to Google and type in Mary Higgins Clark readalikes

*Hit Enter

*Click Show Options on the top left

*Click Wonder Wheel on the bottom left

Now do the same thing using the words if you like Mary Higgins Clark.

What do you think? Let us know if you find some other cool uses for this tool.

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By Sarah Statz Cords

There’s always a constant low hum of controversy surrounding blogs: Do they signal the end of civilization as we know it? (For this argument, please see Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur.) Are they a new dawn for journalism, the poster children for a new information environment where everything is miscellaneous but at least freely available? (If this theory appeals to you, check out David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous.)

It seems silly to say this as I am currently writing on a blog, but I try to stay pretty neutral on the whole situation. If forced to pick a side, though, I’d probably land somewhere pro-blog (or, more specifically, pro-LitBlog). I feel this way for many reasons; I think blogs bring a lot of non-mainstream titles to readers’ attentions. I also think blogs offer more personal and interesting perspectives on books. Whether a blogger loves or hates a book, I’d always rather pick up a book that someone, anyone, felt passionate about, for whatever reason.

So there’s any number or reasons I read Litblogs. Most of them you’ve heard before. But one of the nicest things about Litblogs isn’t often discussed: how some of them bring a refreshing air of regional pride to the business. Take a blog like BookNinja, for instance: Anything I want to know about the state of Canadian publishing, which is emphatically not a hot topic here in the States, I can pick up at BookNinja. For a reader with an allegiance to Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, or Jane Urquhart (guilty here, on all counts), BookNinja’s a valuable resource for new titles and authors.

The Bookslut blog gives off a whiff of Chicago; the Elegant Variation is absolutely steeped in Los Angeles. MaggieReads gives me a feeling for the South; Maud Newton, of course, makes me feel like I could step outside of my door directly onto the sidewalks of New York City. And that’s without even considering the more obviously rooted in place blogs, such as the Ann Arbor District Library blog, touting Michigan library programs and news.

So what’s your region? And your region’s litblog?

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This neat little widget from Shelfari.com allows you in a couple of seconds to find the books you’re reading right now (if you aren’t seeing an image above, you need to install the free Adobe Flash Player), save them in Shelfari and then copy the code into your blog so that people can see what you’re reading. Okay, here’s what I’ve got lined up next.

Tres cool!

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Need a look at what titles professional reviewers are covering? Want a summary of their views? Take a look at Metacritic to get a quick overview.

Metacritic compiles reviews from respected critics and publications not only for books, but also DVDs, film, music, television and games.

Metacritic scores show the critical consensus at a glance by taking a weighted average of critics’ grades. You can take a look at new fiction and nonfiction by title to see the scores, or you can sort by score and see which books got the most positive reviews.

The best reviewed book of 2006? Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise.

Very cool and useful.

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