A Must Read...Neil Gaiman's Inspired Lecture Highlights Libraries

This will just be a short post.  I felt like I had to pass this on. Neil Gaiman delivered a lecture for the Reading Agency on October 14th and the Guardian published it.  It is the most insightful and inspiring thing I have read about libraries in a while.  The link and an excerpt are below:

"Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different...

...They were good librarians. They liked books and they liked the books being read. They taught me how to order books from other libraries on inter-library loans. They had no snobbery about anything I read. They just seemed to like that there was this wide-eyed little boy who loved to read, and would talk to me about the books I was reading, they would find me other books in a series, they would help. They treated me as another reader – nothing less or more – which meant they treated me with respect. I was not used to being treated with respect as an eight-year-old.

But libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information."

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming

You Can't Judge a Book by its Cover...But You Can Pick One by its Cover Art

Everyone knows 'you can't judge a book by its cover.'  And while that remains true (you may find the best book you've ever read has the dullest cover...or in the new days of ebooks, no cover at all), that doesn't mean cover art doesn't matter.

Next time you're at your library, peruse the fiction shelves.  It doesn't matter what section you go to, whether it be adult, children (j/juvenile in library-speak), or teen (ya/young adult in library-speak).  You will find beautiful, color-bursting, detailed artwork adorning whole covers from spine to flap of newly minted novels.  It is designed from the start to catch your eye, make you ponder, and inspire you to pick up its book.  And the artwork so fits the vibes of most of its corresponding pages that you can bet if the cover art strikes your fancy then so will the characters' plights inside the book.

Still have your doubts about picking a book by its cover art? Here's a few examples: New Moon by Stephanie Meyers (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/stephenie-meyer/new-moon.htm), like most other paranormal romance books, has a dark ominous background accented by splashes of color in delicate shapes and patterns.  It immediately evokes a sense of something soft, beautiful, and vulnerable encountering something dark, menacing, and immense.  If you want to compare it to another paranormal romance book, check out the cover art of The Dark Devine by Bree Dispain: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/bree-despain/dark-divine.htm

Another popular example is Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/george-r-r-martin/game-of-thrones.htm).  Like many fantasy books, its three possible covers all feature a basic, uncluttered background with a pointy, menacing object in the middle that appears to have some kind of halo effect on it.  The object often becomes a symbol of the conflict, the 'big bad,' or the savior of its book-sometimes of all three.  If you want to compare it to another fantasy book, check out the cover art of Graceling by Kristin Cashore: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/kristin-cashore/graceling.

I admit some covers can still surprise you, and I find it rather delightful when I pick up a book with a certain flavor of cover art and I am faced with my egregious assumptions about its content.  Mysteries baffle sometimes, since they intersect with so many other genres.  Also puzzling are those books that mix and match elements of their choosing to create what seems like all new twisty genres that defy being pinned down easily and express-ably.

I am glad that these slippery books exist to challenge our perceptions of genres and to keep me in the reader's advisory business, but mostly I am excited to gaze upon the newly expressive cover art as it debuts on my library's shelves and peaks an interest in books that would otherwise be judged uninteresting until proven great.

Information Vigilance

I am sometimes, and more often than I care for, approached by friends, family, and library patrons with a particular question:  "With the internet and everything going digital, aren't you worried that Librarians won't be needed anymore?"

My first response is always surprise because initially the question feels more like "Isn't your job kind of unnecessary right now given all of our technology?"  And then I try to put myself in their shoes.  They probably haven't had to ask a Librarian for help in a while because they either don't use the library very often or were taught (by another Librarian a while ago) how to use a library catalog or other library resources, including digital ones!  Or maybe they are under the impression that libraries are for keeping books (and being quietly shushed by conservative ladies with nerdy glasses) and that only Google is for finding information.

Whatever the reason, I try to show them that we Librarians are more relevant than ever.  Who else can navigate new digital resources ahead of our patrons to help them through rough information searches?  Who else can teach their children how to not only read a picture book for entertainment, but a cereal box for information, and a website for its reliability.  Who else can they chat with in-person, over the phone, online, and through text messages to get information on where to find something or advice on what they might enjoy reading?  And who else is going to show them new and innovative ways to use that new technology that is supposedly making libraries obsolete?

I write this post, not as a complaint so much as a faithful proclamation, that libraries have and always will evolve to suit the needs of their society and that Librarians will always be the keepers of knowledge, teachers of information gathering skills, and advocates for those who still need our professional expertise.

Digital Coexistence

I haven't posted yet about e-books and the new digital wave of media...because I've been taking my time fully exploring it.  I'm nowhere near done exploring everything that's out there, but I've definitely played with enough new technology (including my new Nook Color!) to have a well thought out, however brief, blog-able thought about it.

My initial impression is that the new digital media is as convenient as it can be occasionally frustrating.  Reading an e-book was like having a digital bookmark--always saving my page--with a built in night light (I often find myself reading just before bedtime).  Books and magazines for it cost little and come in vivid digital, finger flip-able colored pages.  It scours the internet at my will and it even came with the highly addictive Angry Birds!

The frustrating part comes in when I, as a librarian, don't want to buy a book I'm only going to read once and it simply isn't available for free from Overdrive.  This may not be a huge issue for many readers with less picky tastes than me, but four years as an English major and two years as a grad student have left my brain a sharp instrument that picks apart any poorly written thing.  I currently have 101 books on my Goodreads to-read list and they are all interesting and sound wonderful, but less than 10 are available from Overdrive (and that's the NYPL catalog).  I am, at least, extremely appreciative that the Nook supports ePub format rather than embedding its content only for its own company to profit (yes Apple and Amazon Kindle I am talking about you).

Yet, I still don't think books will go out of fashion for a long time.  They are relatively cheap and don't require electricity or the purchase of a specific device.  There is something satisfying when you pick them up.  You can feel the weight in your hands, but not the physical weight so much as the mental and creative impact of the characters, plots, and ideas contained within them.  As an information container, we still feel an affinity toward them that we can't exactly match with any technology.

I love my Nook but I also love my book shelf and all the hours of enlightenment and entertainment it holds.  Like most people I want everything--the old and the new--and I won't relinquish either yet.

New Librarian's Oath

As a newly graduated librarian, my goal is to make a long-lasting career of serving libraries and the countless individuals that rely on their resources, support, and unique fusion of ideas.  Among those countless individuals are the children, teens, and peers who I have had the privilege of teaching and learning from over several years of library work and study. 

I carry with me all that I have learned from them and use it everyday to help others find not only what they need but what inspires them. That is the true source of my passion for libraries: not the buildings themselves, but the books, digital content, technology, and people that make such a vast co-mingling of information and ideas possible.  

In my career as a librarian, I hope to bring creativity to the profession in order to discover, organize, and utilize known information, new ideas, and ever-evolving technologies that will not only improve the lives of library patrons but the ways in which we as a society view information and communicate to each other about it.

Reflections on a Web 2.0 Tool: Bubbl.us (www.Bubbl.us)

Bubbl.us is a simple, but effective graphic organizing tool whose effectiveness stems from its ease of use for quickly organizing information and ideas of any kind. It is extremely useful to both educators and students since its very nature is as an organization aid. Think of bits of information or ideas as puzzle pieces that fit together in many different ways. The goal of educators and students is to piece together and present many different factoids and ideas in both an organized and unique fashion—the most important aspect being the connections made between those factoids and ideas. Bubbl.us allows both students and educators to quickly create unique and well thought-out representations of various ideas and information.

Furthermore, those representations can be saved, presented, and shared with others in various formats and ways—giving both educators and students many ways to communicate their creations. They can be saved on the site itself for both individuals and groups to continue working on. They can be turned into images or posted on other web pages. They can be printed and projected easily to share with as many people as needed. Bubbl.us creates valuable opportunities to organize, create, share, and explore ideas, making it a valuable tool for both educators and students.

My experience exploring Bubbl.us has given me a few valuable insights on it and other web 2.0 tools in general. First, the simplicity of Bubbl.us never took away from its practicality; rather, that fact the tool was so easy to use made it more relevant and practical to use for its intended purpose. Thus, simplicity and directness are not detrimental qualities in a web 2.0 tool, but rather positive traits that make one more useful. Second, Bubbl.us is not flashy but still contains the ever-important quality of being a tool that allows for and encourages sharing and communication. Therefore, not all web 2.0 tools have to contain 'all the bells and whistles' and extra special features to be useful technologies for sharing.

Lastly, I explored and examined Bubble.us extensively so that I could use it, write about it, and create directions for it. I am not an expert on all things web 2.0, and neither did I have to be in order to make myself an expert on using a single web 2.0 tool. I will use the above lessons from my experience with Bubbl.us when evaluating, using, and explaining other web 2.0 tools in the future.

Bibliography

Concept Mapping as a Planning Tool. (2009). Online Teaching and Learning Resource Guide. Retrieved from http://www.vcu.edu/cte/resources/OTLRG/02_04_ConceptMapping.html

This article addressed how concept mapping was developed, in addition to explaining aspects of concept mapping and Bubbl.us that create distinct advantages for educators and students alike.

Johnston, Lisa. (2009). From Sticky Notes to Mind Maps: Visual Collaboration Environments. Sci-Tech News, 63(1), 20-22. Retrieved from http://jdc.jefferson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=scitechnews

This article asserts the general practicality of using online organization tools to take notes, record information, and draw connections to information and ideas, including specific advantages and disadvantages of Bubble.us and other similar tools.

Sawchuk, Peter. (2009, August 3). Bubbl.us: A Tool for Mind-Maps. Retrieved from http://assett.colorado.edu/post/570

This short article reflects on the general educational uses and benefits of Bubbl.us, as well as the types of learners that may benefit from the tool.

Reference Service a la Mode: Observations from a Library Reference Desk

In these modern times, library reference services are taking advantage of new technologies to go to patrons rather than vice versa, as before. The term "roving reference" has been applied not only to reference librarians "roving" the aisles looking for patrons in need of their service but also to new modes of service that bring a librarian to you in while you are in your home. The trend is indicative of how much of a service industry library reference really is and how it is keeping up with the faster paced world of information at one's fingertips.

The face of reference is expanding to a digital one with email, chat, and text message services. What is truly interesting, however, is how much the personal of touch of interacting with a human being has not faded or disappeared and may be even more valued because of the new modes available. You may be getting your reference advice from a librarian across the globe in an online chat, but you still want to read "hello" and "is there anything I else I can do for you?" From the librarian's perspective it is still a human exchange, as well.

In reference work, all questions are valid and that includes online ones. It is refreshing to see that this principle continues to be the case no matter what mode the question is posed in and it speaks to the caliber of people who do reference work.