New books: activity books

Children's literature is a large, integral part of the overall resource center collection. To satisfy my curiosity, at the end of last year I spent time analyzing my budget and verified juvenile book orders comprised close to half of the materials budget line. Since the collection supports several children's literature courses, as well as education students, it is money well spent. Consider also, when was the last time a student checked out only one children's book? It does not happen; therefore children's books raise library circulation statistics as well. However, there are other important pieces of the resource center circulating collection that are popular with students. One such segment is the activity book collection.

Activity books, or what we have classified activity books, are teacher resources comprised of activities, lessons, and classroom resources for curriculum areas. The collection currently has 737 books with over 60 different categories. From 100th day activities, art, and bulletin boards, to math, must, and social studies, these books are used on a daily basis. It was with glee I looked at a cart last evening and saw a dozen more recently purchased activity books from Teacher Created Materials had arrived. This particular order focused upon math, language arts, and general teacher resources of indoor games and teacher tips. A quick sample of what arrived and is now awaiting cataloging is JumboBook of Teacher Tips and Timesavers, 101 Lessons: Vocabulary Words in Context, Practice and learn the Alphabet, and Indoor and Outdoor Games. As happy as I am with the purchases made, and as secure in the knowledge as I am knowing they will be well used, I am disappointed somewhat with the publisher.

I perused the catalog, made my selections, totaled the order, and figured applicable shipping charges. Instead of sending a single complete order, the publisher (in this instance Teacher Created Materials) sent books in several different shipments and charged shipping on each one. The end result? Over $50 was added to the final order for shipping alone. The acquisitions librarian called to discuss this matter to no avail. It is very disappointing. While I understand they may be looking at this as a service, making sure we get the titles when they are available, I have placed the order in good faith using the charges printed on their order forms.

I like the product published by Teacher Created Materials. But I will definitely think twice before ordering directly from the publisher. It is possible to use the catalog for resource purposes and order the books from Amazon, hence the title links in this post.

Tags: Collection Development, Curriculum materials centers, Activity books, Academic libraries