A roundup of this week’s news for readers:

I love these tips for cultivating a lifetime book habit. Two of their suggestions have worked very well for me: keeping a log of books I’ve read and always carrying a book. On the other hand, they recommend setting lofty reading goals and keeping track of books on your blog, and, um, those have not been totally successful in my camp.

13 book hacks for the library crowd intrigued me! I’ve played around with two of the hacks, BibMe and BookBurro, but I am curious about the others. Anyone tried these hacks? What can you report?

And finally, as a bookend to our earlier discussion of children’s summer reading, a lovely list of children’s books with awesome opening lines. Nancy Pearl chose the books and I love her list, but she did not include my favorite opening line, so I’ll add it here. From Holes by Louis Sachar, “There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.”

Now I want to go back and re-read the whole book! What are your favorite opening lines?

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe was awarded the 2007 Man Booker International Prize for fiction. (free NYT log-in required for the above link.*) I read Achebe’s most famous book, Things Fall Apart, as an undergraduate and it became one of my all-time favorites. Looking for a summer reading suggestion? Check out Achebe’s work from the University Libraries collections.

*Don’t forget that your UW email account is your ticket to free NYT TimesSelect access. Sign up here!

Good news! The Library Annex (former Science Library) will reopen to the public on August 27, 2007.

Right now the stacks remain closed as we complete installation of compact shelving and the transfer of bound periodicals from Coe Library to the Annex. All materials from the Library Annex are available via request. Journal articles will be copied and sent via email, books will be delivered to Coe within 2 hours for checkout.

(Update: to be clear, the 2 hour window for book delivery is during library hours.  When the libraries are closed, there are no wee gnomes pulling books from the shelves and delivering them under darkness of night to Coe.  Late night requests will be filled the following morning.)

Please let us know if you have questions, and we look forward to opening the Library Annex to you in August!

This week the editors of the American Heritage dictionaries released a list of 100 words they think every high school graduate should know. According to the press release:

“The words we suggest,” says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, “are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language.”

The full list of 100 follows. I came close to 100%, but missed a few. Let’s just say that “moiety” seems like a made up word to me. Of course, as a librarian, I’m delighted to see “taxonomy” on the list!

[via stephen's lighthouse]

The major news outlets are putting together their lists of summer reads. I can ‘t believe it is that time of year already — I still haven ‘t finished my winter reads!

The New York Times asks authors “read any good books lately?”

NPR presents their Summer Books series. I am completely intrigued by the recommended books for “recess rebels”, especially the new collection of stories from Miranda July which she’s promoting on the coolest web site I’ve seen in a long time.

What are you planning to read this summer?

When the UW Libraries outfitted the Library Annex (formerly Science Library) with fancy new compact shelving, we stockpiled quite a surplus of old-school shelving. Librarian Helen Knudson at the Wind River Tribal College worked with us to take the recycled shelving to her library and put it to good use. Knudson is building her library from scratch and knows how to repurpose expensive materials.

12 shelving ranges were donated which will provide a total of 2,520 linear feet of shelving space for approximately 16,800 books. That’s a lot of shelves and a lot of math!

Starting this year, the UW Libraries are reviewing, scanning and digitizing our collection of masters theses and doctoral dissertations dating from 1897 to 2006. We expect the project to be completed by December 2007, making over 9,000 theses and dissertations available to the UW academic community through the UW Libraries Catalog (and available to non-UW affiliated researchers for a nominal fee).

The Libraries will keep one bound copy of theses and dissertations prior to 2006 in the collection, but all new theses and dissertations will be submitted digitally. Storing the record of research at UW electronically offers not only convenience but protection from water, fire, and other damage.

If you have questions about the digitization process or if you have trouble locating a thesis, please don’t hesitate to ask us for assistance!

Above: Travis Bursik (ProQuest) and Janet Woods (UW Libraries) review theses and dissertations for processing.

Starting this year, the UW Libraries are reviewing, scanning and digitizing our collection of masters theses and doctoral dissertations dating from 1897 to 2006. We expect the project to be completed by December 2007, making over 9,000 theses and dissertations available to the UW academic community through the UW Libraries Catalog (and available to non-UW affiliated researchers for a nominal fee).

The Libraries will keep one bound copy of theses and dissertations prior to 2006 in the collection, but all new theses and dissertations will be submitted digitally. Storing the record of research at UW electronically offers not only convenience but protection from water, fire, and other damage.

If you have questions about the digitization process or if you have trouble locating a thesis, please don’t hesitate to ask us for assistance!

Above: Travis Bursik (ProQuest) and Janet Woods (UW Libraries) review theses and dissertations for processing.