A popular post on CAPHIS last year and this year came from librarian K.D. Proffit. The topic? Internet shopping sites. Drawing on the results of her call for the best of the web, Proffit organized an immensely popular class on Internet shopping at the Sutter Resource Library in Sacramento, CA. Said Proffit, “[I]it brought people to the library who had never visited before.”

Another possible tactic to up traffic came to me this morning when I glanced a redhead reading James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans on the subway: the banishment of late fees. By which I don’t mean a patron’s debt should be canceled automatically; I just mean why not make it possible for a friend or relative of that patron to cover the fees as a kind of holiday gift? This would call for some marketing ingenuity, but think of all the people who dodge using libraries because they know they owe, so off to Barnes & Noble they go.

One more suggestion: as we Book Review Editors complete our Best Books 2006 list (check here next week for the winners), I couldn’t help but think how ours and other lists could serve as, well, gift guides for bibliophiles. Much as consumer magazines compile ideas (”For The Insanely Glamorous, a Swarovski crystal–encrusted iPod”), so could libraries by posting these lists or doing a display of winners. Collection development librarians could flex their cerebrums and break the books into categories for thriller fans, romance heads, etc.

I couldn’t help but be captivated by a librarian’s recent call for help on Publib. He wanted to know how to get particularly powerful stenches out of books, especially cigarette smoke (”the evil weed”?). It’s a question I’ve pondered myself, though in a way I like this evidence of a past reader.

In any case, for those offended by odor, here’s what one responder offered up: Shake a mixture of baking soda and baby power in the the bottom on a box. Put an old oven rack over the mixture, put the books on the rack, then seal the box with tape for two weeks. To quote the poster, “It has worked on some really gross items.” Librarians truly rule—besides ordering, cataloging, and recommending books, they even clean them. But riddle me this: how best to extract melted chocolate from a (book) spine?

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.