Keeping Up with the Joneses: Average Book Prices 2008

It’s a wonderful thing to be into your fifties and know that you’re more relevant than ever. And no, smart alecks, I’m not talking about myself. I’m talking about School Library Journal.

Our roots lie in helping librarians develop the best possible collections for children and young adults. We’ve done that by taking the knowledge, expertise, and values of the library profession—represented by our scores of volunteer librarian reviewers—and applying them to the many new books that publishers are rolling out.

And we’re still at it—even if the “it,” or what we review, recommend, or just plain discuss in these pages and on our Web site—has exploded in ways that most of us could never have imagined when we entered this profession. (“A column about gaming in SLJ? Get real!”)

Just look at book publishing. Back in 1982, when Trev Jones, our book review editor, joined SLJ, we received 3,200 books and reviewed about 99 percent of them. Today, the fertile state of Minnesota alone produces nearly that many books (for more on the burgeoning Minneapolis/Mankato publishing scene, see “Land of 10,000 Publishers,” pp. 54–57).

It isn’t merely keeping up with the escalating number of books that’s challenging, it’s also tough to keep pace with the rapid changes in format. For example, this is the fourth time in a decade that we’ve run a cover story charting the evolution of graphic novels (and I think we need another one just on graphic nonfiction). For those who doubt whether graphic novels have truly arrived, consider this: H. W. Wilson company has just released Graphic Novels Core Collection (reviewed on p. 93).

Of course, what’s between the covers has also undergone a transformation. From language in books for elementary school readers to incidents of sexuality in books for high schoolers, our readers expect us to alert them to whatever they might consider inappropriate. We regularly receive letters (for example, see “Crappy Language” and “Shocked,” p. 16) chastising us for not forewarning them about any number of situations or even details. We would love to meet everyone’s requests, but as we’ve said before: anticipating what anyone, anywhere, might find objectionable in a book is impossible. Communities vary and our reviewers—while highly competent—aren’t clairvoyant.

At this point, I should probably launch into a discussion of electronic content, like databases, but you already know all about that stuff. What’s less clear, at times, is how important it is to pay attention to the technology itself. Understanding how readers access, use, store, and create content has become an essential part of reviewing online content. That’s why Shonda Brisco devoted an entire Digital Resources column to wiki software and Jeff Hastings recently reviewed the new Amazon Kindle.

Overwhelming? Sometimes, yes. But it’s also exciting and lots of fun. So use the book prices below to create and defend your next year’s budget—then come back to SLJ. We’d love to help you spend it.

bkenney@reedbusiness.com