BREAKING NEWS: NoveList’s NextReads recognized with RUSA’s Louis Shores Award for excellence in book reviewing

SEATTLE–The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) has selected the team behind Next Reads, an e-newsletter tool for libraries from EBSCO’s NoveList, as the recipients of the 2013 Louis Shores Award for book reviewing.

For the past seven years, the NextReads team has produced over 1,800 individual newsletter issues reviews that have helped to shape the professional readers’ advisory community and communities of readers across the country. By offering readers a thoughtful mix of reviews of new and selected older materials, the NextReads team supports libraries as they build a community of readers. NextReads, as noted by the letters of support to the nomination, serves as an important readers’ advisory tool for both staff and library users, as a source for substantive reviews, as a tool to improve library circulation of older as well as newer titles, and as “an important review source for … materials selection staff.” The librarians on the NextReads time have a strong sense of how to write reviews that capture the appeal factors that draw a reader into a book, and their ability to communicate appeal to both librarians and to readers makes NextReads a valuable review source in the library community.

NextReads will be officially presented with their award at the RUSA Achievement Awards Ceremony at the 2013 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

The Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, represents librarians and library staff in the fields of reference, specialized reference, collection development, readers’ advisory and resource sharing. RUSA is the foremost organization of reference and information professionals who make the connections between people and the information sources, services, and collection materials they need. Not a member, but interested in being part of a member community and enjoying discounted registration rates on conference, preconferences and other events? Join, renew or add RUSA to your ALA membership at www.ala.org/membership. Learn more about the association at www.ala.org/rusa.