Vicki L. Gregory with Assistance by Ardis Hanson

Think back to your collection development class in library school. Did it cover the building of electronic resources? And, since that class, how much reading or professional development experiences covering this topic have you had?  Most teacher-librarians have inherited state-funded databases or other large packages from the district, and—suddenly—we must jump in and do digital.

In the last decade, the digital collection has included access to the Internet, and that access has dwarfed our print collections. Gregory and Hanson help us to take a serious look at what we are doing in the digital world—the real world for many of our patrons—and to ask some hard questions in order to sensibly deal with this growing collection. Their chapters cover collection development policies, selection criteria, budgeting and acquisition, organization and access, evaluation and assessment, rights management, preservation, and finally, thinking to the future.  This book is a good selection for a professional learning community of teacher-librarians and as a supplement to a collection development textbook that does not quite cover the digital world in sufficient detail. (Neal-Schuman, 2006 139 pp. $65.00. 1-5557-548-0.)

Bottom line: Highly recommended.  David Loertsher

Kenneth D. Crews

 And

 The Complete Copyright Liability Handbook for Librarians and Educators

Tomas A Lipinski

There are many titles on copyright for librarians, and I have reviewed several in past columns. In these two works, the authors assist teacher-librarians in the creation of policies that balance fair use with copyright infringement. The first book, by Kenneth D. Crews, is an overview of many issues in the field that can be used rather quickly because it provides—at the beginning of each article—a list of summary points. The second book, by Tomas A Lipinski, in contrast, is a much denser read because it explores the various sections of copyright law in detail. Because copyright interpretations affect children and teens every day in the music and Internet world, they present a constant challenge and the need to update our policies frequently. So look at your copyright reference shelf. How old are your reference works? Certainly Carol Simpson’s Copyright for School: A Practical Guide, Fourth Edition (Linworth, 2005) should be represented, and the Crew’s volume makes a separate and needed comparison. The Lipinski volume is for the more advanced person. What happens in the music world and the movie world (e.g., The Da Vinci Code) often affects us in the library, so it does no harm to try to stay current. (American Library Association, 2006. 176 pp. $45.00. 0-8389-0906-X; Neal-Schuman, 2006. 400 pp. $125.00. 1-55570-532-4.)

Bottom line: Both are recommended.    David Loertscher

Carolyn W. Lima and John A. Lima

Students and teachers ask for picture books on the strangest topics and a search of the catalogs is a fruitless one. You think you have read something they want, but it is often a needle in a haystack or a random search at best. A to Zoo: Subject Access to Children’s Picture Books, Seventh Edition, has been a godsend throughout its many editions because it is a detailed subject analysis of picture books. If you cannot find it in this volume, it probably has not been written.  Suitable for large picture book collections—larger than any mind can keep categorized—or at the district level where a special search can be done on occasion, this reliable friend continues to earn its keep on the shelf. (Libraries Unlimited, 2006. 1728 pp. $80.00. 1-59158-232-6.) David Loertscher

            For many years, John T. Gillespie has created and published a huge database of reviews of both children’s and young adult titles in the various periodicals. Now in the eighth edition of this children’s volume, the emphasis is the same: to provide a classified list of books, and some multimedia, reviewed in important selection sources. Historically, this book has been the only game in town—an exhaustive collection of reviewed materials. Now, the various automation vendors provide automated lookup of titles by topic and include full-text reviews in the various review media. So is the list useful? For the building-level selector who “keeps up” each year and has access to the online databases of reviews, probably not. However, for the person who is creating data collections and trying to build topical strengths in more depth than just a few titles per topic, this collection can serve as a guide alongside a computerized selection database.

The print version has both advantages and disadvantages. Advantages are that the print version can be checked off line; it can serve as a crude tool to see what is in print in a topical area; and it can provide the user with a quick guide to thousands of reviews. Disadvantages are that it is not current; it does not reflect what is actually available for purchase because of in-print instability; and it is updated only occasionally. As online tools continue to improve, the need for this type of list decreases, but it might still be useful at the district level and for those who are building new collections. (Libraries Unlimited, 2006. 1,800 pp. $80.00. 1-59158-085-4.)

Bottom line: Recommended for this limited audience. david Loertscher

Sharron Smith and Maureen O’Connor.

This guide, modeled in some ways on Nancy Pearl’s two Now Read This books, is a welcome addition to the Genreflecting advisory series. The book resembles the rest of the series in that it is primarily written to help librarians (in public, academic, and school libraries) to help readers choose interesting, worthwhile books. As such, the recent works of Canada’s internationally acclaimed literary award winners, Margaret Atwood, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Yann Martel, Anne Michaels, Timothy Findley, Mordecai Richler, Carol Shields, and Rohinton Mistry are all featured in the guide. For librarians who want to include other Canadian writers in their collections, Canadian Fiction also serves as a comprehensive collection-development guide for recent Canadian fiction, covering over 650 titles by Canadian authors, published between 1990–2004. Esther Rosenfeld

Canadian Fiction has value as a professional resource in several ways. First, it is a comprehensive selection tool for quality Canadian fiction. Second, it is a valuable reference for secondary English teachers, enabling them to build reading lists for students. Third, it is a useful resource for senior secondary students to assist them in choosing novels by theme/subject for novel and author studies.

This book is organized into several main chapters that list titles according to four “Appeal Characteristics”: “Setting (including Historical Fiction)”; “Story”; “Character”; and “Language”; with each listed title having an annotation and suggestions for further reading. There is also an additional long chapter that covers recent Canadian fiction by genre (Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, Thriller, and Horror), which similarly includes annotated titles and suggested books for further reading.

An interesting aspect of the suggested books for further reading—over 2400 in all—in all of the chapters is that they are not all Canadian titles—as the main entries all are—but are English-language titles from all over the world. Several comprehensive appendices list additional resources and web sites, literary awards, and Canadian publishers. An Author/Title and a Subject index are also included. (Libraries Unlimited, 2005. 448 pp. $60.00. 1-591-58166-4.)

Bottom Line: Highly Recommended. Although not written specifically for school libraries, Canadian Fiction is an essential resource for Canadian secondary school libraries and an important resource for secondary school libraries in the United States, Australia, and other English-speaking countries that want to build an international collection of fiction written in English.

So you are building a new collection for a school library, weeding one, or just keeping the collection up to date. Children’s Catalog has been a standard tool for the selection of books for many many years.  It contains a list of recommended periodicals, and now contains a list of websites for children. This resource will help you build the core collection for a school.  It will not help in the building of in-depth emphasis collections, but it is always a good place to start.  Highly recommended.