Library Musings

Lorcan Dempsey has a blog post about a new partnership between Penguin Books and Match.com that provides an opportunity for book lovers to meet one another in a singles atmosphere. The primary product is an online setup based on the Match.com model, but some libraries (in England I believe) are arranging speed dating events for book lovers. The speed dating part intrigues me–it might be an interesting event that public libraries could offer.

It brings me to the question of how closely libraries need to stick to their primary goal of offering information to their patrons. Book clubs and reading groups are common both in schools and in public libraries, and I know that our public library has a meeting room where they allow other organizations to meet, but what other services might we consider to raise our profile and draw interest from our communities?

So, my questions to you school librarians are:

1. Do you offer any out-of-the-ordinary events through you library that others might want to try?

2. Do you participate personally in events outside your library that are popular with your students? (I’m probably talking about going to sporting events here, as opposed to showing up at the video arcade, but share what you are doing, even if might seem strange to others. In fact, especially if it might seem strange to others.)

I’ve been grazing through some of the blogs I have on my  Speed Dial and most of them seem to be focused on Library 2.0. I’ve been very into technology at some points in my life, but I’m finding for now that I enjoy books over anything technology seems to offering. Except for blogging, of course. I like blogging.

On the other hand, Meredith Farkas has some fascinating insights into the concept of Library 2.0. She doesn’t see any point to Library 2.0 if all it means is experimenting with new technologies and using them just because they’re there. But she has an alternate description for Library 2.0 that I prefer and that is very thought provoking.

Here are just a few notes from Meredith’s article as she sets out her definition of Library 2.0:

Library 2.0 means “Working to meet changing user needs”

Library 2.0 means “Believing in our users – trusting them, listening to them, giving them a role in helping to define library services for the future”

Library 2.0 means “Getting rid of the culture of perfect – being able and willing to experiment”

And of course, Library 2.0 includes:

• Being aware of emerging technologies and opportunities – looking for partnerships in your community or with other libraries, being aware of library and technology trends, giving staff time to try out new technologies and learn
• Looking outside of the library world for applications, opportunities, inspiration – understanding the culture of the technologies and how they are used by the public, seeing how technologies are implemented in non-profit and for-profit institutions

One discussion group that I’ve decided to follow for inspiration here is the group called YA Lit in School Libraries at TeacherLibrarianNing. They aspire to be “A forum for discussing best practices using and promoting YA lit with teens in a school library setting.” This fits very neatly with what I am into these days.

My questions for you?

1. Will Meredith’s article make a difference in how you run your library in the future?

2. How do you promote YA Lit in your school? Are the ideas at TeacherLibrarianNing helpful to you in seeing how to do this?

Let’s assume for the moment that we’ve found some good ways to encourage students to read fiction–displays, links from one book to another from the same series, same author, or same subject area, and so on. How do we now encourage them to read narrative/creative nonfiction?

One idea that has occurred to me, but seems a bit clunky and old-fashioned is to emulate what one of our English teachers did a number of years back: Require students to read a book from a different section of the library each six-weeks and write a report on it.

I can think of ways to update this for the student of today that might make it more interesting though.

First off, dump the idea of a book review and ask the students to post their thoughts about the book they are reading to a blog.

Next, don’t use the old-fashioned categories. We used to pretty much break it up by DDC division. Some new ideas for categories:

A novel
A collection of short stories / a short story
A collection of essays i.e. short narrative nonfiction / an essay
A narrative nonfiction “novel”
An “idea nonfiction” work (see my previous post)

That’s five categories. The sixth six-weeks could either be students’ choice or a six-weeks off to prep for standardized testing.

That’s about it for my thoughts on this, my 3rd day of the “Post Something Everyday Challenge.”

If you’ve visited my blog at all, you know that I post infrequently and erratically (at best). So, I’m setting a goal that–while humble by external standards–will be large for me. I’m going to post something here EVERY DAY for the next six weeks (42 days). Today is December 2, and this is Day One.

I’m very interested these days in the newly popular genre of narrative nonfiction, also known as creative nonfiction. This past week I purchased In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction . The editor of the book is Lee Gutkind who has apparently been hailed as the “Godfather behind creative nonfiction” by Vanity Fair. I didn’t know that literary genres had godfathers, but who am I to dispute Vanity Fair ? (Not knocking Lee Gutkind here–I just thought the quote was funny.)

Anyway…where was I ? Oh, I was talking about the book. The introduction by Annie Dillard by itself is worth the price of the book, and if you roll in Lee Gutkind’s opening essay, “The Creative Nonfiction Police”, you’ve got a full meal to eat while you read, even before you’ve moved on to the writings that make up the body of the book.

After the intro and opening essay I flipped through the book and then read “Being Brians” by Brian Doyle. It is a delightful read built around an almost nonexistent foundation. I recommend it. In his advice to new writers, Brian includes the dictate to “write something everyday: letter, rant, journal, poem, prayer, whatever.” Which brings us full circle to the beginning of this blog post.

My rough plan for the next few posts is to talk some more about narrative nonfiction: what I’m adding to my library collection; what I’m reading; and so on. And I’ll talk some about other books I’ve purchased recently. And I’ll probably talk about some very random things. So wish me luck with meeting my goal!

I’m having a great time reading and reviewing books for my YALSA class with Teri Lesesne. I’m focusing on books for guys since I’ve found they’re my toughest customers.

The most recent book I’ve read is Firestorm by David Klass. (It’s the first book in The Caretake Trilogy.)

I loved this book. Stayed up all evening to read it from front to back, in fact. The action never stops, and that is why I think this one will be especially appealing to guys. Although the book has a message about ecological concerns, that message never gets in the way of the full-speed throttle of the storyline. Main character, Jack, moves quickly from a typical high school life with football success and a girlfriend into a new and baffling world where he never knows who he can trust or who will betray him. A mangy mutt with telepathic powers and an overblown sense of self-esteem leads him to a locked barn where he is beaten severely and repeatedly by a masked Ninja warrior. But, through his severe trials, Jack becomes the man he needs to be to accomplish his first mission: find Firestorm and set events in motion that will save the world from the destructive path set by ignorant and uncaring humans.

Guys will love the idea of being tested and hammered out into a stronger, faster, better warrior. The small doses of literary quotes and vocabulary building words won’t hurt them a bit either–the action fits the words so that they are melded seamless into the narrative of the book.

My only “complaint” about this book is that the ending is not quite the “firestorm” that I expected, although it is certainly spectacular. I’ll be very interested to see how the storyline continues in the remaining volumes of the trilogy.

I’d give this one five stars for your guys. You can sell it as a fantasy novel or as a novel that takes “boot camp” to the extreme.

In many library forums we have pushed the idea that librarians are teachers, but I’ve begun to think of it differently. As a high school librarian, I can’t speak from the perspective of how librarians live in middle school, intermediate grades and primary grades, but here are my thoughts about high school librarians compared to high school teachers.

Teachers are on a strict schedule and usually have standards and their curriculum imposed on them by regulatory agencies and textbooks. They have a duty-free lunch period, and a much-needed planning period when they can work on their grading and other paperwork.

Librarians have a much more flexible schedule, and while referring to standards at times, are more free to move forward from the standards into a creative forum. Most, if not all, librarians do not get a duty-free lunch. Unless we want to leave the library unmanned or closed we eat at our desks. Librarians don’t really need planning periods. We have time for paperwork as the day goes by.

Librarians serve more as a resource to the students while teachers serve more as … well–instructors.

Sometimes librarians do teach, but it’s usually at intervals throughout the school year.

Librarians have more time to experiment with technology on a hardware level as well as in movements such as Web 2.0 than teachers have.

Do your experiences differ from what I’m describing here? Let me know!