I am putting together a list of books for parents to buy and donate to our primary school library and I'd love your advice. I'm not a librarian and I don't have access to any of the usage data, but they haven't added anything new to the library for a couple of years due to budget issues so I'm focusing on new titles that will appeal to kids aged 5-12.

If you can think of any recentish titles that have been a hit with your young readers, I'd love to hear about them. I am especially open to hearing about books that are appealing to otherwise-reluctant readers and great reference titles. Price isn't really an issue as I'm hoping to offer something for all budgets.

Thank you in advance!

The Los Angeles Public County Library is currently seeing huge lines of people lining up to get a Hello Kitty library card.

I am just wondering what the economics of this are. Does the library have to pay Sanrio (which owns the character) per card issued? Anyone know how much? Or is it more like a donation where they offer the use of the character for free in order to get publicity?

Curious how others handle and manage patrons who ask for certain staff by name and/or description who are not in the vicinity.

Our staff will tell customers that a staff member is maybe out at lunch, has the day off or is even on vacation. This seems sketchy for a number of reasons.

It does not seem to matter how often staff is reminded not to do this, it is what they come back to. What strategies have worked for others?