Collecting the Best of the Year
Posted by: Neil Hollands
I’ve begun my annual task of collecting all of the best-of-the-year lists and awards into one sortable spreadsheet. This is my fourth year compiling this massive labor of love-hate, and I almost chose to let it go this year, but once the lists started to come out, I just couldn’t resist. The analytical side of me loves the exercise of comparing the different lists and somewhat quantifying how much love each of the last year’s favorites is receiving. It’s wonderful preparation for my efforts as a readers’ advisory librarian to become familiar with the cases that many different voices are making for which books should be considered the best of the year.
It will be at least a few weeks before I’m far enough along to release data for 2011, but in the meanwhile, you might want to review last year’s list , accessible via my other blogging home, Williamsburg Regional Library’s Blogging for a Good Book. Book groupers might find this especially timely, as most of the top choices from 2010 are now available in paperback and thus more easily championed by thrifty book groups. The 2010 list compiled 175 sources and documents the mentions for almost 2,300 titles first published in the U.S. in that year.
November 19th, 2011 at 9:22 am
I am very interested in having your list. I am a graduate student at the LSU SLIS and will graduate in August of 2012 with a public library track, so your list will help me very much with my transition to the work force from graduate school. Thank you for your help and this is siomething I can see myself doing as well.
November 19th, 2011 at 10:50 am
I’m glad you decided to compile the list once again. I look forward to it each year and have them saved for reference on my computer. Thanks for doing this!