Bessie’s Books and Other Things
Bessie Sullivan
The For Dummies series is an extensive collection of instructional/reference books which are intended to present non-intimidating guides for readers new to the various topics covered. Despite the title, their publisher has taken great pains to emphasize that the For Dummies books are not literally for dummies. The first book came out in 1991 and was DOS for Dummies. The success of this first book started the series as well as series like it. As of March 2013, over 1,800 For Dummies titles have been published. Of those the Haliburton County Public Library has 153. The series has been a worldwide success with editions in numerous other languages.
Master’s Bookstore in Haliburton recently had a “Dummies” sale so the Haliburton County Public Library decided to take advantage of this and add a few titles to our collection. Dummies books are all over the map in terms of subject matter.
Recent additions of local interest are:
Butchery and Sausage Making for Dummies as well as Building Beehives for Dummies
With warmer weather finally appearing we ordered some new titles explaining the mechanics of and coaching techniques for various summer sports played around the county:
Basketball for Dummies, Tennis for Dummies, and Soccer for Dummies
Cooking is not left out in this series and with food sensitivities becoming more and more prevalent we have added:
Living Gluten-Free for Dummies
The Complete Idiot’s Guide series started publishing a little later than Dummies, but basically does the same thing. Although on a smaller scale with 450 titles available. The Haliburton County Public Library collection has 43 titles from this series.
The publisher claims, “Our readers are savvy and smart, but like most people, they sometimes encounter tasks or topics that make them feel like … well, complete idiots.” The books offer simple steps, clear information, and inside tips.
There has been lots of debate as to which series is better and I have no answer for that. What both publishers are trying to accomplish is a way to reduce the learning curve on a new topic of interest. For that reason there has been some criticism as to whether the topics are covered with enough depth. If that is the case for you, we would hope that you would search out other materials on the same topic using our collection, of course. Between the two series, the Haliburton County Public Library has almost 200 titles, but we have countless more on the subjects of interest.
Library Lowdown 