After a balmy 70s in NYC today, temperatures are predicted to drop to the 40s over the weekend. So Sunday evening I plan to sip hot chocolate and watch Noah Wyle star as our favorite librarian/action hero in The LIbrarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines, the sequel to TNT’s “inexplicably successful” 2004 TNT movie: The Librarian:  Quest for the Spear. Yes, the first movie was cheesy and silly, and the New York Times critic didn’t like the new one either. Still how often do you get to watch a librarian as a sexy hero, rather than as a repressed, bun-wearing shushing harridan?. (By the way, Wyle in an interview  noted he got gratifying mail from librarians who were pleased “that we’re trying to rewrite the paradigm of what an action hero is supposed to be — that it’s not just might that makes right, that sometimes the biggest brain can win you out in the end.” And to see Bob Newhart, playing the library curator, chastise Wyle for wiping his sweaty face on the Shroud of Turin is worth the two hours of wasted TV watching. 

My old friend Judy Quinn and I have a phrase that we say  whenever we see libraries and librarians portrayed in movies or on television. We call them “Library Journal moments”. The two TNT Librarian movies are ultimate LIbrary Journal moments but some other favorites include David O. Russell’s Spanking the Monkey in which the incestuous mother, who is a librarian, is lying in bed with a broken leg reading LIbrary Journal, and Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan in which one of the WASPY Park Avenue characters quotes a line from a LJ book review. What’s your favorite Library Journal moment?

The end of the year is fast approaching and critics’ Best Books lists are starting to litter the literary landscape. Our sister magazine Publishers Weekly announced its top 100 picks a few weeks ago, and yesterday the New York Times issued its 100 notable books of 2006 (Its 10 Best Books of 2006 will be announced tomorrow on its web site.) And we LJ editors are in the final throes of making our choices, which will be announced online next month and published in our January issue.

While I always enjoy seeing what my fellow critics have chosen, one of my reviewers, Teresa  Jacobsen of Solana County Library, did raise an interesting question about best book lists when she admitted that she had only read one novel on the list (Anne Tyler’s Digging to America)! ” Is this what happens when you love thrillers and genre fiction?”, she emailed. ”Thankfully, the B & T collection development librarian put many of those titles on my ODC list this past year–and I did order them–so perhaps I’ll read a few next year.  I’m curious to see if the folks in Fairfield, CA will want to read them or if they will stick with Robert B. Parker and Nelson DeMille?”

Is this the old case of you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink? For years publishers have debated the impact of literary awards on book sales; many don’t see much difference. Does the same hold true for library circulation? One librarian seems to think so. On his blog ChipK.com, Ohio librarian “Chip” noted  that a “disturbing portion” of books his library purchased largely on the basis of positive reviews in LJ did not circulate at a rate that justified their purchase. His post implied that LJ reviews were a waste of taxpayer money. 

So what is LJ supposed to do? Review only the Stephen Kings, Dean Koontzs, the Nora Roberts,  and other authors whose circulation stats are guaranteed? That would make for a pretty shallow collection. Our young librarian friend also failed to take a good look at our LJ bestsellers column, which identifies the books most borrowed in U.S. libraries. Many of the titles making the cut had received strong or starred reviews in LJ: Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, Kim Edwards’s The Memory Keeper’s Daughter , and Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan  .

While I hope our reviews played an important part in these books’ success, marketing was also key. In the case of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, it only became a bestseller/best-circulator when the paperback edition was picked up by reading groups. No longer can librarians order books, shelve them, and hope that patrons will find them. Librarians have to take a more active role in promoting their collections through creative displays, readers’ advisory, book groups, and author programs. And the time to start is now with our 2006 Best Books List.