New Playaways - Digital Audio Books to Go!

GHL has added 19 more titles to our Playaway collection.  That brings us to a total of 352 audio books, conveniently placed on deck of cards-sized audio players that you can use with earbuds or in your car or wherever you want to listen to a great book.

The new titles include several New York Times bestselling titles, such as:

• Wonder, R. J. Palacio
• The Casual Vacancy, J. K. Rowling
• Hallucinations, Olive Sacks
• Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel

For a list of the whole 19 (and the other 333), see this search in the MU catalog, which lists the titles in the order we've added them (the newest are listed first).

Oh, and if you have questions about Playaways in general, let us know, or take a look at this page on the Playaway site.

New materials added from November 1 to January 30

The November, December, and January new materials list is now available. We added 179 books, DVDs, and other items over those months, thanks to the impressive efforts of our faculty and staff selectors and the library staff.  The list is sorted by call number, with items grouped roughly by subject area.

It includes 39 new Playaway audio book titles.  For more information on these, please see our blog posts. To browse the list of Playaways (with the newest 39 listed first), please see this search in the catalog.

We’ve added a total of 356 items to the collection in this academic year.  We'll keep posting new item lists through the end of the fiscal year on our blog (this tag will show you all of the prior lists).

Have a suggestion of something to order? Acquisitions money is still available (we’ve spent about 1/3 of the total budget so far), allotted to academic departments and coordinatorships with faculty selectors and units with staff selectors.  We also have some general funds available for anyone to order materials. 

Use our online request form, email one of our staff members, or drop by the library with your request. Our deadline for ordering this year is April 1. 

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

Resource of the Week: Playaway

Looking for a good audio book? Check out our Playaway collection of digital audio books. "Playaway is the easiest way to listen to audio on the go. Simply plug in the earphones and enjoy." No cassettes, CDs or downloads required.

Come on in and take a look at our Playaway collection in its new location by the Current Periodicals shelf.

New Playaways for your audio enjoyment!

Now is the time to see our new list of Playaway digital audio devices! We have added 81 more titles to our collection in January, taking us toward 293 titles in the collection.

Read more on what these devices are and how they work, or take a look at the new list (just click on the titles for a summary of the digital audio book and to request us to hold one for you).

New Playaway Titles Added

Now is the time to see our new list of Playaway digital audio devices! We have added 41 more titles to our collection, taking us toward 212 titles in the collection.

Read more on what these devices are and how they work, or take a look at the new list (just click on the titles for a summary of the digital audio book and to request us to hold one for you).

Playaways update

If you've enjoyed using our Playaway digital books, you're in for a treat. All right, if you haven't used them before, you should be excited, too.

We have just added 22 more titles to the collection (with many thanks to Cathy Bishop Clark for her recommendations - hey, you could suggest titles, too!). You can quickly browse the whole list of 130 titles here (most of the new ones are at the top of the list).

You can also browse them in person right in front of our circulation desk in our new rotating Playaway display stand. We're populating the stand now, but it will be ready for your browsing pleasure shortly.

John

New Playaways; easy listening in your car

We are happy to announce the addition of 23 new titles to our Playaway digital audio device collection. The newbies range from Beowulf, read by Seamus Heaney, to Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants.

We now have a total of 103 Playaways (for more information on them, see this earlier post. Here is a link to an MU Library Catalog search showing all of them.

A new addition to help you enjoy Playaways on the road are 4 new Belkin FM transmitters. These transmitters (plugged into your cigarette lighter -- they also take batteries -- and your Playaway) broadcast your audio enjoyment onto a vacant FM radio station. Enjoy your Playaway near at hand (a half-a-deck-of-cards-sized device and your earbuds) or on the road!

Some call it leisure . . . we call it literacy!

Just when I was planning to promote our revitalized arrangement of new and popular books in the library (and our nifty Playaways), a possible crisis in literacy came to my attention. Zounds! Coincidence? . . . . I think not!

First, the library has long been committed to providing recreational or leisure reading opportunities along with our more scholarly fare. We have formed a new location for you to browse these items right by the blue chairs in our reference area. Since the 1971-72 school year, the library has leased the "McNaughton Collection" of popular fiction and non-fiction books. Ably chosen by Belinda Martindell since 1990 (or thereabouts), the McNaughtons offer over two hundred titles for your reading pleasure. They are inter-shelved with our New Book collection, a selection of titles ordered by faculty and staff members and managed by Diane Miller.

In addition to these books, we have a growing collection of Playaway digital audio devices. We are just about to nearly double the size of this collection by adding 40 new titles. You can browse the Playaways right next to the McNaughton and New Book area. You can also run a keyword search for "playaway" in the catalog. It's mainly popular adult fiction, with some children's fiction and a few non-fiction titles.

All right, now the potential literacy crisis: are college graduates growing less literate? Are they reading less for personal enjoyment? The following articles were suggested as background reading for an upcoming discussion at the American Library Association annual conference next week, entitled "Aren't There Any Good Books Here? (Un)Required Reading and the Academic Library":

• “A First Look at the Literacy of America’s Adults in the 21st Century” (NCES) at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006470

• Dillon, Sam. “Literacy Falls for Graduates from College, Testing Finds,” The New York Times, December 16, 2005 at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/education/16literacy.html

• Elliott, Julie. “Academic Libraries and Extracurricular Reading Promotion,” Reference and User Services Quarterly 46:3 (Spring 2007): 34-43.

• Feller, Ben. “Johnny Still Can’t Read – In College,” The Globe and Mail, January 20, 2006 at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060120.wliter0120/BNStory/International/

• MacAdam, Barbara. “Sustaining the Culture of the Book: The Role of Enrichment Reading and Critical Thinking in the Undergraduate Curriculum,” Library Trends 44:2 (Fall 1995): 237-63.

Is there anything we can do about this? Well, fear not . . . the above resources can help. We all need a little relaxation, stimulation, and satisfaction that can be gained from reading or listening to a good book.

Heard a Good Book Lately? Try a Playaway!

The Library is pleased to announce the addition of 45 Playaway digital audio books to our collection. Playaways are small devices (half the size of a deck of cards) that come preloaded with an audio book. We provide you with the Playaway and a AAA battery, you provide the earbuds, headphones, or speakers, and your listening enjoyment begins.

Want to listen to your Playaway in the car? Then check out an FM transmitter when you choose your Playway title. We can also provide you with earbuds for $1.

Playaways check out for a three week loan and may be renewed (just like our other books). They are located in a red shelving unit in our reference area.

For more information on what Playaways are and how they work, please see the Playaway "How to Play" page. For a list of the titles we have purchased, see these search results from the MU Library Catalog.

If you have any questions, or recommendations of titles to purchase, please let us know.