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Going to Wisconsin tomorrow to go to a wedding and hang out with the fam. Very excited.

Also, I'm blogging over at Geek Buffet today about the Death of the Author and J. K. Rowling's recent interviews adding more information to the text. (If you access the post from the Geek Buffet page, you will not be spoiled, as I hid them after the break. If you follow the direct link, beware the second half of the post. Everything after the Excuse me?!)

But let's talk about... books for librarians. These aren't books for a general audience, but I think both of them are really good for what they are.

From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children's Books by Kathleen T. Horning

This is a great book if... you need to evaluate and review children's books on a professional level. It might be a bit much for parents who just want a good feel on kidlit for their own children. However, if you are a children's book professional, this is a must have for your bookshelf. She gives a lot of useful advice on what to watch out for, both in terms of text and in general book design. Horning covers pictures books, transitional readers, and older readers with tons of in-depth information about every single aspect (it seems like) of each group.

My one complaint is her dismissal of humorous poetry in favor of "more sophisticated forms of true poetry." I really don't think humorous poetry such as Shel Silverstein of Jack Pretlusky is any lesser than other types of poetry out there, especially when it comes to children's poetry.

Another great book is Managing Archival & Manuscript Repositories (Archival Fundamentals Series) by Michael J. Kurtz

Normally I don't count textbooks that I've read as part of my reading total, because, well, I usually don't read all of them. Rarely is an entire book assigned, and, when it is, I usually miss a chapter or two. Also, they're usually assigned a little out of order and you're reading it over the course of a semester, so you don't get a good sense of what the book is like as an over-arching whole.

This semester I tried something different. I had to read the first four chapters and the book is engaging and well written and really not that long so... I just didn't stop after the first four chapters and just read the whole thing. Plus, now I don't have to worry about reading for the rest of the semester. Woohoo!

Anyway, the book. If you work in information management (by which I don't mean managing information but rather being a manager in an information environment) or an archives, this is a good book to have on your shelf. If you're a manager in an archives, you really need this book.

Covering everything from management theory through the years, HR, budgeting, PR, planning, and project management, Kurtz writes and well-thought out handbook with a lots of information presented in an easy-to-understand way with lots of concrete examples.

And I'm not just saying that because I'm taking management right now with Dr. Kurtz. It's just a good book. You know, if you're a manager.

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