March Madness, Sci-fi Edition

[Amy]

The makers of my favorite tshirt (a deeply stellar print of an old Pride and Prejudice edition) are taking March Madness to a whole new level. They have a bracket of great Sci-Fi books and are challenging you to find the winner. I'm not a huge Science fiction or Fantasy person, and had so much fun filling this out (the division names alone are super fun). AND it created some wrenching decisions for my husband, who reads more sic fi than I do.

Check it out: http://outofprintclothing.com/2013/03...

I have Harry Potter taking the win. My husband favored the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. What did you get?

[Jill]

This was so much fun! I think it would be great to do something similar for our patrons (maybe for next March), if we could make it user-friendly enough.

I have The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to win, but my close runner-up is Fahrenheit 451.

I do read quite a bit of fantasy, and some of these decisions were heart-breaking!

[Amy]

Jill. I was thinking that this would be super fun to do at the library, too.

I thought that we could develop a bracket for kid's books -- Willems, Seuss, Berenstain, Klassen, Wiesner, etc. then let let circs decide winners.

We could do another bracket for Adult books, I think mystery authors would be particularly popular.

I think patrons would have a blast with it.

[Dedra]

You know what might be fun is to have a contest among branches. Each branch picks titles in their bracket in a genre and let the patrons pick from among the teams (books). I know there are only 4 brackets but maybe the smaller branches could go in together.

[Jill]

I think both of those ideas sound like fun! I think the children (and parents) would really get into the kids' bracket. A competition between branches would be a neat way of uniting the whole district, and might get patrons excited about visiting another branch, just for fun.

[Amy]

Dedra -- so there would be a PA, CR, HI, and combo Rox, Cap, LT bracket? Would we be picking from the same genre? titles or authors?

I like the idea but have this concern that there would be a fight to the death over Mo Willems. . . . and I would totally win that fight by the bye. . . .

[Amy]

I seriously think we should do this. If you are in, let me know and maybe we can get together to discuss it.

A

[Jill]

I'm in! I think it would be great to get together and toss ideas around the table. Even people who don't follow basketball much (like me!) really enjoy doing all kinds of spin-off brackets this time of year. If we get started soon, I think we could organize something really worthwhile for next year.

Just another idea I was toying with--maybe we could incorporate some brand-new books or e-books into the brackets. What if we had a "division" of new releases, up against local authors and classics, or something like that? Or maybe a division of books that we only own in e-format? It could help us promote areas of the collection that people may not have discovered yet.

Then again, maybe no one would participate, because it would require more reading. We would probably get more patron involvement if the titles are highly recognizable.

[Allison]

I like the idea too. It sounds like a lot of fun. I'm not a big sci/fi reader but I enjoyed looking at these brackets. I think it would be great to get together to discuss the idea.

[Amy]

Jill, Dedra, Allison

I will contact you this week to set up a meeting. There has got to be a way!

I'm really excited by this, by the bye!

[Jill]

Me too! I've mentioned it to my supervisor, and she thinks it's a great idea. I can't wait to see what we come up with!

[[deleted user]]

Sign me up. I think Tacky the Penguin Rules.