What’s happening in the library?

NEW AND/OR USED TO BUY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD?

www.bookfinder.com is an all-purpose meta-search site that allows you to search for books to buy, whether new or used. It searches a wide range of booksellers, from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Alibris, Abebooks, etc. and results can be displayed in ascending price order, with or without shipping charges included, in the currency of your choice, etc. The first stop when looking for a particular book.

BASED ON CURRICULUM SUBJECTS AND/OR READING LEVELS?

Titlewave is a (free) database of books suitable for school libraries. Think of it like Amazon.com for teacher-librarians (complete with the bias towards American materials). You can search for books and compile online lists of books you want (without any compulsion to buy from them). We have a school account with a login of “uwcsea”. E-mail me for the password (it’s the same as the school-wide general staff password — if you remember that — or just e-mail me (kda@uwcsea.edu.sg)). You can also register for a free account of your own. NB: even if Titlewave isn’t able to pull up bibliographic information on the book you want, you can still enter in the information as a custom entry — and get it in your list.

WANT BOOKS BASED ON A PARTICULAR READING LEVEL?

There are several systems of identifying books by their reading level. TO BE FINISHED…

PYP-RELATED FOR SCHOOL?

See this list of children’s books relating to the PYP profile, attitudes, and concepts, which I’ve created via LibraryThing (online, free, social cataloging software) and will continue to expand, where each book is tagged with IB student profile attributes, attitudes, and concepts, where appropriate. So if you need a book on “caring” or “risk-takers”, just search the tag fields and glance through the list of books and descriptions to find one that might be suitable (e. g., for an assembly).

AT THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SINGAPORE?

Note the school does have a National Library library card and Kalimah can arrange for books you want to be picked up and delivered to you. They have over 3 million books for children. So if there’s a particular book you want for a lesson, search their online catalog and let Kalimah know if you want her to get it checked out for you.

AT KINOKUNIYA HERE IN SINGAPORE?

Search Kinokuniya’s online database of all the books they theoretically carry in their shop. If you find a book you want, look at the “Stock Information” box. If the word “MAP” appears, then they have it on their shelves.

NEXT IN A SERIES TO READ?

Websites that help you find that next book in your favorite series — or tell you what order to read books in:

• Books in a Series, provided by the Monroe County Public Library (Indiana, USA)
• Juvenile Series and Sequences, provided by the Mid-Continent Public Library (Missouri, USA)
• Children’s Books Sequels — what comes next? (UK)

RECOMMENDED BY TEACHERS, LIBRARIANS, AND VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS?

I collect links to lists of “good books” via my del.icio.us account. Have a look at my list of links to websites that recommend books for children — and let me know which ones you use so I can add them to my collection….

BY SEARCHING INSIDE THEIR TEXT?

Try Google’s Book Search to search inside books for particular phrases or keywords. See the Advanced Search options for even more searching power. This is the (controversial) project of Google’s to digitize all the books in the world — and they’re starting with academic libraries.

TO BUY ONLINE FROM OVERSEAS?

Of course, there are the Amazons: USA, UK, Canada, France, Germany, etc.

In the US, there are several others.

• Powells is a famous bookstore in the northwest which sells both new and used books in their stores.

• Bookcloseouts is a bargain bookseller which often has hardcover editions heavily discounted, especially when the paperback edition has just been published; particularly good for children’s books.

NB: if you have problems getting books shipped to Singapore from the US (whether because the international shipping costs are prohibitive or that some booksellers simply won’t ship overseas), try vPOST USA, a recent initiative of the Singapore Post Office. They provide you with a US mailing address to which you have books shipped, and they then consolidate your order and send it on to you in Singapore. A bit fiddly, but — hey — if you really want the books, it works.

HSBC Singapore is offering a similar service called iDe@ls for its credit card holders — allowing you to shop at US websites like Amazon and get the order shipped more cheaply to Singapore.

In Australia there’s Gleebooks and in New Zealand there’s Dymock’s (though I’d love to hear what others use from those countries). Then there’s the wonderful Austral Ed, which specializes in educational and children’s books related to the PYP and global awareness.

In the UK there is another good specialist bookseller is Letterbox Library, a non-profit workers co-operative dedicated to providing multicultural and non-sexist books for children.

TO ORDER FROM A LOCAL SUPPLIER?

Here are a few of the local booksellers/distributors we use and the discounts they offer us:

• Bookaburra Books — 20% discount — #02-03/04 in The Forum Shopping Mall, Orchard Road — Shop tel: 6235-9232 / Warehouse tel: 6286-1303 — Contact: Lynette Thomas or Cheryle Hum (lynette.thomas@bookaburra.com / cheryle.hum@bookaburra.com)
• Page One Books — 10% discount — 1 Harbourfront Walk #02-41/42, Vivo City — Tel: 6272 0822 — Contact: Felicia Hong, felicia_hong@pageonegroup.com
  
• Borders — 15% — Wheelock Place, Orchard EditRoad — Tel: 6235-7146
• Kinokuniya — 10% — Takishimaya Shopping Centre, Orchard Road — Tel:6737-5021
• Pearson Education Asia — 25% discount
• Penguin Books — 20% discount
• Oxford University Press — 20%
• Pansing Distribution — 15%
• APD Singapore Pte Ltd — 20%

Come and see me if you want more information.