Simon

She is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10,The Lying Game, The Death of Mrs. Westaway, and The Turn of the Key. With, One by One, Ruth Ware returns with another heart-pounding suspenseful thriller

At the start of Pride Month, I wanted to reach out to you about my debut novel, Kept Animals.

Her upcoming novel Magic Lessons is an unforgettable story that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, and unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic.

My novel is a love letter to libraries and librarians, reminding us that in the digital age, our libraries – our third space, our sanctuary, our source of facts in a fake-news world – are more vital than ever. And more than ever, they are under attack. Plus, read an excerpt of the first chapter of The Paris Library now!. Click the link above.

Some time ago, while I was working at a small state university, the library was approached by the English department, asking if we knew of some way of putting their biannual student journal online. This publication had been coming out periodically for approximately 15 years and contained essays, poetry, and short stories written by graduate and undergraduate students. Faculty occasionally assigned articles from it as required reading.

We knew there were problems with our library website at Fitchburg State University (FSU). Users either couldn’t find what they wanted or were unaware of the site’s existence. This was particularly a problem owing to the limited number of librarians available to assist. While there was some consensus among librarians regarding these design problems, there was little agreement as to how these problems could be ­addressed. We decided that usability testing was needed before making changes, but we didn’t have the budget to develop an expensive usability lab with one-way mirrors, sophisticated eye-movement testing devices and the like. Despite this, with a little creativity, we were able to design a solid and reliable usability study with limited resources.