SLJ Best Books 2008

After a day devoted to finishing technology related holiday library backlog of email, blog feeds, blog posts, web site updates, course updates, and another focused upon scheduling student workers and preparing the resource center for the upcoming influx better known as the new spring term, this afternoon I have finally had opportunity for professional journals. Only one remains in my "to read" pile, the December 2008 edition of School Library Journal.

Generally I browse the articles, then move straight to the book reviews for collection development. However, this issue will take significantly longer as it includes School Library Journals Best Books of 2008. The list features sixty-seven books that "stood out as having distinctive voices, singular vision, and/or innovative approaches." Included are picture books, fiction, and non-fiction titles reviewed in SLJ during 2008. As with many review-based journals, chances are if you purchased their "starred review" books you will have their best books list. I am not as diligent a purchaser of SLJ stars and was curious to see how my collection fared.

I have already checked the picture books and am able to report that of the nineteen selected, we currently own (ie: have been processed) sixteen and have two back ordered. I was pleased to see Wave, by Suzy Lee, on the list. A stunning wordless picture book, I can't count the number of times I grabbed this book from the shelf wanting to add it to my Mock Caldecott collection (it's not eligible). Another of my favorites, Lincoln Shot: A President's Life Remembered, is one of the non-fiction entries.

I have not been through the YA titles yet, but a quick glance reveals Waiting for Normal, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, and Paper Towns are on the list. To my thoughts, YA book are trickier to select as you never know what aspect of a book will strike a cord with teens. At ALA annual, The Adoration of Jenna Fox was discussed at the Alex Award sessions with much passion (enough so that I read it upon my return).

The Newbery and Caldecott, among other awards, will be presented at the ALA Midwinter meetings in Denver in a few weeks, January 26th I believe. It will be interesting to see how these best books stack up. Regardless, lunch is over.

My current favorite book

I cannot help being book fickle, so honesty compelled me title this post thusly; Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 How-To's: 100 Essential Techniques, by David Karlins, made my week. I know I talked about this book in a previous post, flush with my web success I decided it deserved a second mention.

After spending the last ten days transferring existing resource center pages to the new library template, Thursday afternoon I finished the site and was ready to create the menu include and "put" everything on the review server for a test drive. The new template is library specific, none of the menu options within its header link to resource center pages. Therefore my side menu has to function as a stand-alone feature allowing users to maneuver through both the resource center and library site independently while still co-existing. I narrowed my choice to drop down menus (ungainly for my purpose) or spry menus and determined using a spry menu widget would solve the problem nicely.

Relatively sure the process could be painless, grabbed my Dreamweaver books for a how-to refresher. 100 Essential Techniques had several short chapters on using spry widgets and menus. With the book on my desk and site map nearby for reference, I created a three level menu. Next came the color options - or rather lack of color in this instance. I wanted only the palest of colors for rollover effect and absolutely no color on the menu itself so it would blend with the existing template palette. This was a bit trickier as the book had no specifics regarding individual css commands associated with the menu (there were general instructions). I started at the top of the css menu and assessed each to remove or add color as needed.

It was then time to "put" my pages on the review server and I gleefully sent my folders, images, and spry menu items. Thankfully the review server is immediate and I was able to check my work without the regular two hour delay.

IT WORKED!

Let me say that again.

IT WORKED!

And, even better, it was not hideous. I ignored it for a day and checked all of the menu links with a fresh eye on while working on Saturday (it was my summer weekend schedule). One task down, another equally daunting one awaits me as I continue my quest to get page content from others on the committee. That is a complaint for another day.

Thank-you Opus

I found this entry in the Sunday comics; it features an old favorite Opus, formerly of Bloom County, by Berkeley Breathed. Opus has been given an e-book for Christmas ... "Welcome to literary salvation, pal" ... and is using it for a significant purpose, to light a traditional book while he's curled up in a comfy chair, in front of the fire, munching from a bowl of popcorn.

Excellent.

I saved the comic section and this will be hanging in my office (still not old) as soon as I find a frame.

Two quick notes to this post. First, the title links to The Seattle Times Sunday comics. If the link address is to be believed, it will show the most recent offering from Breathed and this particular strip was published on 12/30/07. Second, there is an official Berkeley Breathed website, but when searching for additional information the results were tagged by Google as "this site may harm your computer." Therefore, I chose not to add it here. (My computer has enough trouble without adding suspicion of malware and sypware.)