A Chapter a Day

Although some librarians worry that the Net is turning young adults into nonreaders, e-resources can also be a great way to turn surfers on to the printed page. One of the Web sites that does this best is a Florida–based site called Chapter a Day (www.chapteraday.com). The service, which appeals to many librarians and library users, is one of the few dot-com sites successful in libraries that wasn't created by a traditional library vendor.

The idea behind the site is simple: teen users sign up for Chapter a Day's Teen Book Club. Then each weekday, they receive, via e-mail, a few pages from the beginning of a popular fiction or nonfiction book. Each section takes a typical reader about five minutes to complete. At week's end, teens have received the equivalent of two or three brief chapters, and the following week, they start all over again, receiving short selections from a new book.

Suzanne Beecher, Chapter a Day's president, is proud that more than 2,700 libraries—mostly public libraries, but also a growing number of high school libraries—offer Chapter a Day's book club to their users. Many of the participating libraries are large indeed, like the Calgary Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library. The Brooklyn PL, says Beecher, offered the e-mail club "in a pop-up window on their home page and signed up 250 people in four days."

Chapter a Day originally focused exclusively on mainstream adult readers, offering popular novels and nonfiction—books like Carl Hiaasen's humorous novel Sick Puppy (Knopf, 2000). On the other hand, Chapter a Day's Teen Book Club began because librarians and teachers asked Beecher to create a club for young adults. "[Educators] are very concerned about reaching young readers," Beecher says. Now, she continues, "we have teenagers write the Dear Reader introductions…. One girl wrote so well, I should contact her for the rights to her first book."

Beecher recognizes that selecting titles for the Teen Book Club can be a touchy business. "I think some parents would be shocked if they saw what their teenagers really wanted to read," she says. "We take a middle-of-the-road approach. There are a lot of books that are exciting, yet they won't start an argument between parents and kids." Many of the Teen Book Club titles are older and established works, such as S. E. Hinton's That Was Then, This Is Now (Viking, 1971).

When Chapter a Day first began offering its book clubs to libraries, they were free. But the recent downturn in many dot-coms' financial fortunes have brought about price tags for services that were once free. Chapter a Day now charges libraries a $150 one-time set-up fee, but there is no subscription charge beyond that. Chapter a Day works with more than 40 publishers, including Penguin Putnam, McGraw-Hill, and Random House, and is now featuring an online digital audio book club.

Is the e-mail book club idea working? Elizabeth Lorz, the librarian at Bartlett (IL) High School, says that the online club has worked with her students—but in a round-about way. "The teachers subscribe [to Chapter a Day]," says Lorz, "and it trickles down and eventually the books in the club get read by the kids. I subscribe, and it reminds me of titles I can recommend to them."