We’re beginning to think about our topic of Superheroes for Year 7 Challenge Day and I had great fun creating Superlibrarian on the Marvel Comic Site Create Your Own Super hero . I happened to post a link on Twitter and was interested, then dismayed, to discover from @lordfolland that Marvel comics already featured a library mutant called Annika

Her Superpower was as a Living Respository of Human Knowledge but oh noes she was DEPOWERED on M-Day.

Is this telling me something I didn’t know I wonder? Is this why my job is to help students navigate the Information Tsunami for themselves? Swimming not drowning!

I feel the Carnegie Award has become a follower and no longer a leader in the magical realm (or rather unreal world) that is children’s books publishing. Back in 1995 Philip Pullman won with Northern Lights, Part 1 of his magnificent Dark Materials trilogy while Patrick Ness had to wait till Monsters of Men Part 3 of his Chaos Walking series to be similarly acknowledged last year. What has happened?

And how about those “sorry we think we missed the boat” titles that have won in the last few years – like Just in Case by Meg Rosoff (2007) because the library community failed to find How I live Now (the Guardian Children’s Prize winner 2004) or Siobhan Dowd who won for Bog Child in 2009 when A Swift Pure Cry (awarded the Branford Boase in 2007) was the one that got away? Or Philip Reeve who was rewarded for Here Lies Arthur(2008) when he clearly should have got it for Mortal Engines (Smarties Prize winner 2002)?

The press release for this years shortlist makes much of the fact there are four first novels on the list – the subtext is clearly that we’ve wised up to the fact we’re no longer cutting edge and are trying to be different. However, on digging a little deeper, it becomes obvious that these titles are hardly “newly discovered” gems but, dare I say it, have been manoeuvred into position by their publishers – three of the four were published first in hardback (a luxury which surely means they were packaged for adult buyers and aimed at the award market). Nina Douglas from Orion has just been shortlisted in the Publicity Campaign of the Year category of The Bookseller Awards for Annabel Pitcher’s My sister lives on the Mantlepiece which is revealing (it costs money to conduct a publicity campaign and few first novelists get that kind of help without an ulterior motive). I am also not surprised to find two of the other authors are high profile in the media (Lissa Evans is A BAFTA award winning TV producer and author of 3 previous adult novels and Ruta Sepetys has her own marketing company). Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying these books aren’t good but I’m pondering whether there might be better titles out there.

So how can CILIP members go about really finding the best book of the year? And whose best book is it anyway?

Surely we need to restructure the way the titles are discovered for the shortlist. Getting young people themselves involved in choosing the longlist might help. And how about making the “shadowing” site the real thing – let children choose the winner!

But in the meantime ..Andy Mulligan who has already hit the media headlines with Trash (which was withdrawn from the Blue Peter Book Awards for containing seriously “bad language”) and, most helpfully, won the the Guardian Children’s Prize last year for another title Return to Ripplestrop is waiting in the wings.

On Tuesday morning, at a breakfast meeting in London, I had the opportunity to hear Overdrive’s CEO Steve Potash talk about future developments for Library Partners in the UK. I have to report it was exciting stuff – and no I’m not getting paid by the company to write this post! There were 2 main things which I learnt that I found particularly encouraging.

Overdrive are in the process of streamlining the customer experience
Soon customers will be able to log which e-reader they regularly use and, when loaning an e-book, they will automatically receive the compatible format without first having to choose epub or pdf or kindle formats .

Using new software, developed by Overdrive, customers will be able to read e-books on a desktop browser as well as their mobile device. This will mean they can use library computers to read digital texts. (I’m thinking that although I signed up to enhance our students leisure reading this will be good for independent research in the school library and might have implications for managing e-textbooks too)

Overdrive are using newly collected data for advocacy work with publishers

I was reminded when Steve started talking about “data” how until I was “enlightened” by @briankelly I used to pronounce this word the American way! But, however you say it (like the song says tomato, tomato-potato, potato), data is the key to getting publishers involved in e-book lending. During March 2012 the company surveyed its US library websites to discover that 146 million pages had been viewed by 5 million unique visitors from over 200 countries around the world. On average customers spent 9.5 minutes browsing with the most popular time being 9pm in the evening. There were also 2.6 million reservations made for books that were already on loan! This kind of exposure of book cover images to people who are readers (and potential buyers of e-books) makes a very compelling reason for publishers to participate in Overdrive’s Library Channel. Steve explained that this message was being used in over 150 meetings with publishers during the London Book Fair this week.

Dancing with Digital Natives: Staying in Step with the Generation That’s Transforming the Way Business Is Done by Heidi Gautschi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve enjoyed dipping into this book. It suggests that “digital natives” (anyone born since 1983) are adapting new technologies created by older generations and using them differently from the way their creators thought they would! We need to understand this and accept the fact that “once our ideas are in their hands, this generation will make of them what they choose”. The development of new technology is a partnership and we can’t control it. The various contributers to the book then go on to discuss how we can best support innovation in the areas of business, marketing, entertainment and education.



Mary Ann Bell contributes the chapter headed “Native Knowledge:knowing what they know-and learning how to teach them the rest”. She suggests young people need guidance in the areas of -respect for intellectual property, internet searching skills, evaluation of internet information and online safety skills.



However I take issue with her survey of what students currently do as she reports the views of teacher-librarians rather than the students themselves. How do we know the anecdotal evidence of the librarians is robust?. She makes the sweeping statement that, when searching the Internet, students “bounce” from one site to another without close examination or reflection of any site. she says that 90% of teacher-librarians taking her survey “agree” this is the case. I have to say I’ve observed much more sophisticated searching and great peer collaboration in enquiry based learning. I think we need to survey students directly to find out more and I intend to do so. I’ll report my findings later in the year!

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