Shelf Space
Booksellers and Librarians talk about what's in their reading room and what's on the horizon.
 Friday, October 03, 2008
We Were Robbed
As the founding editor of Fine Books & Collections magazine, a publication for book collectors, I’ve discovered that writing about book theft is the one sure way to get our readers riled up. In fact, one blogger—Travis McDade—writes exclusively on the subject and another, Philobiblos, covers cases and sentences most every week.

Most thieves strike libraries, purloining valuable books, slicing rare maps from atlases, and slipping signed letters and documents from large archives. E. Forbes Smiley, the high-end map dealer whose name sounded as Upper East Side as the address of the office he kept for a time on Madison Avenue near 75th Street in New York, is probably the most notorious recent thief. You may remember that Smiley was caught at Yale’s Beinecke Library when he dropped an X-acto blade on the floor, and he went to prison for stealing something like 100 rare maps from libraries.

I’ve always understood that libraries walk a fine line between access and security: The more access a library grants, the easier it is to steal from it. That point was hammered home this week when four antique logging photographs were stolen from the bookstore I own. I paid roughly $400 for the pictures, which for us is a significant loss.

I went next door to the jewelry store that is owned by a retired Navy Seal who has an extensive surveillance system that catches the front entrance of my shop. I watched his video of the thief walking in bookstore early in the afternoon and dashing out 24 minutes later. The thief arrived during the lunch hour, when our regular weekday employee was out, and I was covering the store alone. The thief struck me as odd, and I was trying to keep an eye on him. I turned my back at one point and immediately heard a rustling sound. I turned to see him walking out of the building. I crossed the floor to where he had been standing and realized what had happened. By the time I reached the door, he had vanished. The surveillance footage showed the shoplifter dashing outside and into a nearby store. No wonder I couldn’t see him when I went outside to look.

I felt awful for the rest of the day. Telling and retelling the story to the police and the owners of nearby antiques stores, didn’t help. I started to understand how so many merchants end up bitter and suspicious. One nearby shopkeeper told me he lost $15,000 in merchandise during one particularly bad year. Another said he budgeted 8 percent for theft. A third planned 10 percent.

I woke up at 5 a.m. the next morning with a clear head. I have never liked bookstores with locked “rare” book rooms or locked glass cases. They make me feel like I’m distrusted from the moment I walk in. But now I understand the logic behind them, but I don’t agree with it. Something like 10,000 people have walked into my store this year, and only one has stolen anything of note. Does it make sense to spend all my effort deterring the one in 10,000 or serving the 9,999 honest customers?

Libraries face the same question. Like many shopkeepers, a lot of librarians feel under pressure to improve security. But I think we have to be cognizant that many efforts to deter theft also deter legitimate visitors. The safest store or library is one that allows no one inside.

I resolved to stay focused on the honest folks, while keeping in mind that there are people who will steal me blind if given the chance. A stock phrase from twenty-five years ago suddenly had more relevance—Ronald Reagan’s old saw, “Trust but verify.” I never really understood that comment. It always seemed like a contradiction in terms. Now I see that it has everything to do with intentions. I can keep an eye on customers and engage them in conversation because I’m interested in them and what they do in my store. If that allows me to observe or prevent theft, great—as long as I don’t think of them as thieves.

Posted by: Scott Brown

Book Stores | Libraries

posted on Friday, October 03, 2008 10:52:13 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [2]
 Monday, September 29, 2008
Pop Culture Memoir
Is it possible to critique (and disparage) the production and consumption of contemporary youth pop culture without sounding like a crank, a grandfatherly gadfly, a curmudgeon, a technophobe dandy fop contenting herself with a blank room and a Victrola, who speaks only from a perspective of just-not-getting-it and the power of a certain age and class? Does it matter—does my crankiness distort my meaning and message? There are sharp distinctions among the owners, the creators, and the consumers. Many teens create their own media and meanings, which are sometimes owned by corporations. I think there is more of a perception of democratic production than a reality. Throughout, my voice will be lamenting, rambling, nostalgic, self-righteous, aged, I know. I come to this as a not-quite-recovered teenager and someone who spends my workday with young people. The dangers of “those kids today” conversations are well documented. Every generation distrusts and despises the one after it, they say; either we are on a treacherous path of cultural deterioration or we are unable to lucidly view youth culture from the distance of our old age. Is there cultural superiority of my—or anyone’s— youth? Does my ownership of time and experience invest the past with unearned personal meaning?

However, my disdain is well-worn attire, not a new pose. I had disdain for ‘90s mainstream culture as a teen, and craved weird subcultural corners. This seemed to me a rebellion against conformist oppressive middle class status. I didn’t realize at the time the oppressions by punks, radicals, indie rockers—that culture jamming was enacted by the sons and daughters of the system, the recipients of all kinds of privilege. Counterculture teens weren’t interested in ending the game—they just wanted to upend it and assert their dominance and superiority of the underclasses. I place myself here, hidden by a black wing and not being smart enough to end the hierarchy but to win the subcultural version.

Through the passage of time, even mainstream culture in its obsolescence adopts a patina of cool (see the obsession with “old school” and “vintage” everything). There’s the shambling clutch of cassette tapes and pay phones and water fountains—these things that have been taken from us. I recently saw Liz Phair play her “Exile in Guyville” show, an objective failure that was really meaningful to me because of how her music sparked feelings of feminism and pale defiance of nose thumbing (no rock in a cop’s face) in my high school years. Is this narcissism? “Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence”? http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html.

Listening to “Exile in Guyville,” reading eBayed Sassy Magazines, watching My So-Called Life—even as I now realize their poor little white girl failings—still resonates adolescently with my eternal internal outsiderness, unrealized ambitions and my ineffable hopefulness about the future. Megan judged people’s worthiness by their shoes and we all judged people by their music taste. Growing up among mostly white middle class suburban Christians, we separated out by stylistic minutiae. Where it wasn’t always safe to proclaim your political beliefs, we asserted them with hair color and safety pins, which carried their own risks. Remember, this was in the late 1990s when students wearing trench coats (the former uniform of the 1950s white collar worker) were suspended for their subversive murderous dress.

I’ve killed my TV and home Internet access and I listen to music mostly on a blue Hello Kitty walkman or record player (hoping this doesn’t sound annoying even though it’s true...) and therefore have a tenuous grasp of what mainstream teens like. It’s weird to be personally uninterested in mainstream culture and yet work a job that requires this knowledge. Countercultural aesthetics that once signified ideals, values, identities, and affiliations have been commodified. We live in shallow vagueness and shadows. How to know what people really mean when irony and gossip rules? David Foster Wallace wrote precisely about the problem with irony: "Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy the cage. This is because irony, entertaining as it is, serves an almost exclusively negative function. It’s critical and destructive, a ground-clearing.”

Earnestness, enthusiasm, reverence, and seriousness are obscured by irony, gossip, and the pose of rebellion. I remember in the '90s people took selling out a look more seriously. The Internet has further commodified countercultures. Finding information on Riot Grrrl and buying green nail polish were challenging. Zines were traded like samizdat (perhaps a risky hyperbole) and while the underground was lively, it wasn’t as accessible as it is now, in its weakened state. The democratization of the underground opens up subcultural expression to disadvantaged socioeconomic classes but also to poseurs.

Intersections among politics, interests, affiliations, identities, and aesthetics have faded until they simply reinforce social hierarchy and class superiority. Fashion does not offer many points of resistance in the US. While I fondly remember late ‘80s and early ‘90s music and fashion, this era represents the beginning of the end, when youth counterculture for the first time was sold simultaneous with its production, where the hype became mediated by products and not substance, as Naomi Klein points out. Our postures and styles are now substitutes for meaningful action. We can’t wear our activism or correctly identify our politics with our aesthetics. Everything has been sold.

Posted by: Kati Nolfi

Technology

posted on Monday, September 29, 2008 2:33:57 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [0]
 Monday, September 22, 2008
Where is the Library?
It’s election time—time to pretend to care about children and education! Young people are the largest disempowered class in our country and their rights are systematically violated and neglected. Youth issues are feminized and minimized, since women do most of the work caring for and about children. Women’s work is frivolous and sweet and children are cute and certainly none of this is radical or tough or important. “Oh, what about the children?!” cry the folks who really don’t care, who don’t work to end homelessness, hunger, poverty, illiteracy, and the prison industrial complex.

While listening to NPR’s Fresh Air I learned of Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone and started getting irritated. Terry Gross talked of how “good” teachers and schools are insufficient; at the end of the day kids are returning to violent communities that “don’t value education.” How does she know what “they” value and what does it look like to value education? From what I caught of the conversation, there was no discussion of community activism and organizing, of the structural and institutional disadvantages faced by poor people of color, of the historical tragedy of separating children from their families and communities in the interest of uplift and success building—away from the community. The blame and burden are placed on disadvantaged communities, not on a racist and classist capitalist society. And as always there was no discussion of the library’s role in the community and education.

Public library staff know that public libraries are de facto after school programs.
Libraries are hidden. Libraries are inessential. Library budgets are slashed with ease. And yet libraries function as free childcare for many caregivers and a seemingly safe place for kids to go after school. We are the silent babysitters. After school programs are mentioned in education plans with never a nod to the work that libraries are doing already, to the void we must fill because the system fails so many.

People I meet tell me my job sounds “nice and quiet.” They seem to have archaic notions of early 1900s libraries with long tables, dusty tomes, and austere silence. But the truth is that libraries have a loudly beating heart. Library patrons come to us for their divorce papers, swim trunks, tax forms, free satchels (?), fax machine, restroom, batteries, condoms, voter registration, childcare, Safeway application, money, phone calls, help getting their really bad manuscript published, candy, lunch, bus passes, a marriage proposal, resume help, and yes, books and internet access. Some of these are obvious and wonderful and some are ridiculous but it is what it is.

I have a feeling that libraries had a more clear identity in the early days. Now we are a shelter, a recreation and community center, a day care, a coffee shop, a Claire’s Accessories, or a sacred piece of book heaven. We are everywhere and nowhere. Maybe this is because library patrons are not the media creators and our role in culture is therefore vague and undefined, invisible. Doing library work can be a meta mind swirl. You know there are people who need your services. You feel like “library” is a third place and a public good, an integral part of a functioning democracy, an essential institution like a bank or a grocery store. They have money and food. We have ideas. However libraries often appear only in library publications. I think that’s why the Sarah Palin librarian kerfuffle was important to a lot of library workers. For once we were in the news!

Andrew Carnegie—the scamp—believed libraries were an important part of education, that they were a unique place for people to “share cultural opportunities on a basis of equality." Libraries need to be part of the conversation on education. What can we do and why are we here?


"Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries." —Henry David Thoreau

Posted by: Kati Nolfi

Education | Libraries

posted on Monday, September 22, 2008 8:59:07 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Friday, September 12, 2008
Gossip Girls and Ghetto Girls
Why are so many librarians—advocates of the uncensored right to read anything on all points of view—panic-stricken over teens reading street lit? As Amy Patee wrote in the July 2008 issue of School Library Journal, “There’s no getting around it: urban fiction forces many of us out of our comfort zones—and some librarians worry that by simply offering street lit, they’re endorsing its unsavory actions.” I don’t quite understand this. As librarians we are never endorsing anything that is on our shelves. We are providing free access to myriad ideas through information. Why would street lit be any different?

The moral panic over street lit/urban fiction reminds me of the panic over gangsta rap in the 1990s. Sure, there are critiques and analyses to be made about the harmfulness, context, and value of these media but most commentary seems to come from the perspective of the inherent aspirational goodness of whites and the inherent moral flaws in the black community. And definitely not all, but a lot of the hand wringing and pearl clutching comes from whites ignorant of the black community, white people who are not qualified to moralize on the reading habits of teens. There are also sensible critiques from inside the black community about street fiction being damaging in its literary merit and its moral messages. I can speak only as a (white) young adult librarian who serves a population composed mostly of black teens. We need to select the books they want to read, the books that speak to them and reflect their stories.  

Perhaps there is a fear that the messages in art and commerce created by black people will infiltrate white children, as there is a long history of cultural appropriation by whites. With street fiction, young readers are experiencing their lives on the page—which some libraries fail to offer all segments of the population—or they are escaping through literature, reading about experiences they don’t have (don’t we all—street fiction and non-street fiction readers alike—do this? Wasn’t I doing this when I was reading the Beats as a teen?  William Burroughs didn’t turn me into a junkie.) Libraries must legitimize and validate all of our patrons’ reading interests and their place in the community with titles they crave.

Why aren’t librarians and parents reacting the same way to white books like Twilight, Gossip Girl, The Clique, The Au Pairs, Pretty Little Liars, and The A-List as they are to street fiction (of course I use the words “white” and “black” very crudely; readers of all genders, races, ethnicities, cultures, sexual expressions, backgrounds, etc. read all kinds of materials—not just the ones marketed to them, the ones with their faces on the cover. And the terms “white” and “black” can refer to the creators and the characters and desired readers of the material.) While there have been criticisms of these books, they are not framed in moral panic terms. Critics minimize the racism, sexism, violence, cruelty, homophobia, materialism, and narcissism in white teen books and indict the black community for urban fiction’s isms and brutality, extrapolating from a genre to generalize about all black people. As if books for white teens aren’t execrable, injurious, and offensive. As if oppressions haven’t been created, sold, reinforced, and expressed by whites. As if black readers lacked critical thinking skills that whites are magically endowed with.

Street lit doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It can be seen as social commentary, strands of hip-hop, 1970s pulp fiction, and gangster and blaxploitation movies, and indie capitalism—many street fiction titles are self published, sold on the street or on the Internet. It is cruel to criticize these books without realizing they are partly a response to the social and economic issues created by white people.

Not only does street lit speak to teens, but it fills the near-void of teen lit with black protagonists. Sure we have Coe Booth, Angela Johnson, Sharon Draper, Sharon Flake, Walter Dean Myers, Jacqueline Woodson, and others writing great non-street fiction with black characters for young people. But most of these authors have been at it for a long time and they are outnumbered by white authors. Young people need to see themselves reflected, especially if we want them to read.

I recommend Megan Honig’s article “Takin’ It to the Street: Teens and Street Lit” 
and Margaret Hartmann’s article “Word on the “Street”

This piece was inspired by Latoya Peterson’s wonderful article “Feminism, Race, and Sexist Dating Guides”

“Ghetto Girls” in the title is a reference to the books of the same name by Anthony Whyte.

Posted by: Kati Nolfi

Libraries | Street Lit | Young Adult Books

posted on Friday, September 12, 2008 12:20:35 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [3]
 Friday, September 05, 2008
It's Like, Totally Radical!

On a recent trip to my friendly neighborhood anarchist bookstore I bought three books for young people and found a topic to write about. The intersection between my favorite subject areas-radical thought and literature for children and teens-is my rare joy so I was happy to see these three relatively new titles:  A Young People's History of the United States adapted by Rebecca Stefoff from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States; As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Stay in Denial by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan; and Hey, Kidz! Buy This Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Governmental Propaganda and Artistic Activism for Short People by Anne Elizabeth Moore and Megan Kelso.

I am interested in independent booksellers' selections for kids and teens, especially when libraries are clearing away dusty old dandelions in favor of plastic roses. Public library collections may still have some out of print and weird old volumes but they more and more tend to exclude radical and esoteric titles in favor of middling bestsellers. While indie booksellers' selection of politically leftist titles may be better than most public libraries, the titles tend to be more sneakily subversive or liberal than brazenly revolutionary, such as the quite good books on this list:
http://radicalseeksenlightenment.blogspot.com/2008/06/radical-childrens-books-reference-list.html

And why are there so few radical books for young people? And what does it mean that booksellers provide more materials on marginalized topics than the supposed repository of free information on "all points of view on current and historical issues" (according to the Library Bill of Rights)?

So much literature for young people is didactic and moralistic to inculcate values in our malleable and pigtailed- to grow them up right. Depending on our politics we can construe a particular pedagogy as refreshing or poisonous. So even if the reader agrees with the agenda it must be gracefully delivered without being cringeworthy and heavy handed. In one of his earlier books, Herbert Kohl wrote about his students' resistance to attempts to radicalize them. For me, anarchism's inherent anti-authoritarianism is about acknowledging the agency of everyone to come to radicalism without paternalist teachings. Becoming a radical activist or developing any political feeling happens when life experience and education coalesce, usually around young adulthood. In this spirit, I wonder if subtly progressive books like Where the Wild Things Are or Mole Music are more effective than more overt titles like The Little Squatters' Handbook. While I am desperate for more radical titles, I sometimes find that children's literature that instructs counter to the dominant culture is in danger of sermonizing or congratulating, either by scolding hopeful converts or offering secret handshakes.

I wonder if the current political climate is breeding titles for a young progressive and activist readership. There are graphic novels: Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman; Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History; and A People's History of American Empire and there are books on animals, the environment, and peace:  Tin Lizzie, Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion, Wild Animals in Captivity, and Why War is Never a Good Idea.

Do these books collectively herald the uselessness of adults to solve these problems and the concomitant burden on young folks?

Of the three radical books I bought, As the World Burns may be the most accessible as it looks like a Powerpuff Girls' presentation of Anarchism 101 (with a healthy dose of primitivism). While the illustrations have been criticized for their, um, primitiveness, I love Stephanie McMillan's twee but still fierce style-reminiscent of Hope for the Flowers- with a multitude of animals and identifiable villains. The text is sometimes repetitive and sloppy and too many words are used when pictures would suffice. I found this title to be life changing for me, but it is problematic, seductive, glamorous and simplistic; our questions are left unsatisfied. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if life were this simple, the problems we face so easily solvable? Every cell in my body wants for recycling to save the day, wants for shorter showers to save enough water for the rivers to run free…we will go quietly, meekly, to the end of the world, if only you allow us to believe that buying low energy light bulbs will save us," laments Jensen. These are significant thoughts.

The end of the book is messy and the animal uprising is more than a little ridiculous.  There is also no serious race/class/able-bodied privilege analysis.  How will folks without privilege fight the revolution with their bunny pals? This is however an apt satire of books like Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming and the kid's version of An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming which cheers kids to "save the world" (really…all of it?) by bullying their parents into recycling and changing their lightbulbs. As the World Burns untidily unravels the liberal truths of lifestylism and pacifism and refocuses on the guilt of industry and corporations.

I confess that I bought Hey, Kidz! Buy This Book because of the glorious Megan Kelso. The pictures here are illustrative of the book's theme and are also darn cute but there are only a few and the book generally sags from too much text and too many appendices and useless cluttered sidebars. Moore's tone can sometimes be too pandering and snarky. But! The message of media literacy and critical thinking is a crucial one for young folks navigating through the sea of logos and brands and advertising. Moore writes of kids' vulnerability and manipulation by big media. Her analysis of the harmful influence of ads (they "flatter, confuse, emulate and research" kids) and marketing and the suffocation of indie and DIY media is spot on.

While the "Try This At Home" sections are awesome, her methods for solving the problem of intrusive media are mostly ineffective. This is always the failure with this kind of book. Voting, consumer choices, and writing letters to congress people won't get the job done, I'm afraid. But she does cover the many means of activism from graffiti to pirate radio to street theater and zines. And she also does not feel shy about advocating semi-illegal acts.

A Young People's History of the United States is an attractive little volume and a good choice for adults (ahem) who had difficulty getting through Zinn's original inspiration for the adaptation. The images are in an unfortunate sepia color and there are not many of them. Unavoidably perhaps the text is dry and I cannot imagine many teens reading this if it is not assigned. It would be a great alternative to high school history texts. Zinn's message of history, community, racism, heroism and anti-colonialism is so important for people of all ages-especially young people-to learn and relearn.

Our next step is to purchase these flawed but necessary additions to radical kid lit for our library collections!

Works Cited

Burns, Loree Griffin. Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam and the Science of Ocean Motion
Cordelia and Ziggy. The Little Squatters' Handbook
David, Laurie and Cambria Gordon. Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming
Drummond, Allan. Tin Lizzie
Jensen, Derrick and Stephanie McMillan. As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can
Do To Stay in Denial
Laidlaw, Rob. Wild Animals in Captivity
McPhail, David. Mole Music
Moore, Anne Elizabeth and Megan Kelso. Hey, Kidz! Buy This Book: A Radical Primer on Corporate and Governmental Propaganda and Artistic Activism for Short People
Paulus, Trina. Hope for the Flowers
Pekar, Harvey and Gary Dumm. Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History
Rudahl, Sharon. Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman
Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are
Walker, Alice and Stefano Vitale. Why War is Never a Good Idea
Zinn, Howard and Mike Konopacki. The People's History of American Empire
Zinn, Howard and Rebecca Stefoff. A Young People's History of the United States

Posted by: Kati Nolfi

Children's Books | Librarianship | Young Adult Books

posted on Friday, September 05, 2008 10:53:14 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Friday, August 29, 2008
Technically, I Read It: In Praise of Skimming
We've probably all been cornered by someone enthusiastically waving a new book in our face, excitedly asking, "Have you read this?!" Our gut tells us we should just nod and lie, but instead we hand over the truth about the poorly written, uninspired, yet strangely popular book. With a shrug of our shoulders, we mumble, "Eh . . . I skimmed it." Inevitably, we get the "you skimmed it?" look. The look that lets us know we have violated an unwritten rule of reading—readers read; they don't skim.

We may be guilty of the violation, but should we feel guilty?

My answer, as a proud and unabashed skimmer, is a resounding, no.

In How to Read a Book, Mortimer J. Adler outlined skimming as a method of reading through which we quickly and superficially glance over a text in order to glean important information. We then use that information to decide if we should continue with the text and move into more advanced, deeper levels of reading.

In today's technological environment of news feeds, blog feeds, feed readers, email updates, listservs, forums, message boards, life casting, twittering, and micro-blogging (to name just a few), this method of information screening through skimming has become invaluable. We often find ourselves inundated with information we could never realistically wholly digest, and much we probably needn't even taste. Skimming has given us a method through which we can quickly assess the mountain of information that makes its way into our various inboxes.

The most skilled skimmers can simply read a title/subject line, glance over the body of the text, read a few select lines, and make a solid judgment call as to whether the post/article/message warrants further reading. Without the well-developed skill of skimming, we would find ourselves unable to parcel out quality information and would instead be limited to what information arrived first, and how much of it we could actually read in a day. It is skimming that allows us to process the wide world of information and select the really important bits to read, assimilate, and conceptualize.

Now . . . lets get down to the nitty-gritty of skimming. After all, it isn't our skimming of blog posts and news articles that gets us the look; it's when we decide to give the skim treatment to an actual book . . . and worse yet, a popular or revered one. Skimming, for most of us, is a utilitarian tool; we use it when we need it, not as a practice. The fact is, we're busy people, and sometimes we just don't have the time to give a book the love and attention it deserves. Perhaps truer still, the new book du jour just doesn't interest us enough for a full reading. So rather than ditching the book altogether, we get a feel for it. We get the gist. We get the bare bones. We skim. Because . . . well . . . we like talking around the water cooler too.

On a professional note, a colleague of mine once had a wall hanging that read "Librarians who don't read should be sued for malpractice." I believe this. As a public librarian, it's my professional obligation to be well-read in in a wide range of genres and subjects. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time to read all the books I should in order to become and stay proficient. It is in my attempts to read through the influx of new and core titles that I turn to skimming. Skimming the descriptions and reading the dialog in fiction, and reading the table of contents and select chapters in nonfiction is the only way I'm able to read through the massive pile of books I should be reading in order to be an effective public librarian. Skimming gives me a way to quickly read books I should be reading and more time to read the books I want to read.

I'm not suggesting you should skim the 75 page training manual you have to give a presentation on next week or the newest book by an author you love. On the contrary, there are certainly some texts which will always warrant deep reading, but there is also a ton of text out there we just need to give a good solid taste; 'cause sometimes it's apple pie, and sometimes it's mud pie and it's nice to know which before we take a big ol' bite.

I hope you've enjoyed this post. Though chances are, you just skimmed it.

Posted by: Sarah Lovato

Reading

posted on Friday, August 29, 2008 9:39:02 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [2]
 Friday, August 22, 2008
The Reader's Advisory Secret Weapon: The Read-Alike
Oh reader's advisory...reader's advisory...reader's advisory, why must you torture me so?

I'm not alone though in my torture, for many librarians working a public service desk, especially in a children's or teen department, there is no reference question with the potential to cause as much frustration as a simple reader's advisory inquiry. Why is this true in a world where in a day a librarian may be asked to find the obituary for "this guy who is totally haunting my house...his name is Phil or Bill or Jill...I can't really tell...he mumbles"? Well because at least the ghost-whisperer at the desk has some idea of what he needs. The 11-year old who just wants "a good book," on the other hand, usually has no real concept of what he wants and in worse case scenarios, he just needs something for the book report due tomorrow.

Those of us trained in the art of the reference interview, dig eagerly in, asking a series of questions in order to gage the reading interests, or in some cases, general interests of the patron. Sometimes though, in the case of children and teens, the reference interview will fall flat. The young patron is never really able to articulate any useful information that may be used to recommend appropriate books. At its worst, a reference interview will conclude with the child having answered all the librarian's pointed questions with, "I dunno."

It's at this point that we pull out the standard "what was the last book you read that you liked?" If we're lucky, and if the reader's advisory Gods are smiling down on us, the answer will be a book with enough prominence to generate read-alike lists.

Read-alikes are a of group books that share enough common literary characteristics that someone who enjoys one book from the group may also enjoy other books from the same read a-like group. Usually read a-likes are structured along the lines of "If you like 'Book A,' you might also enjoy 'Book B,''' or "If you like 'Author A,' you might also like 'Author B.'"

Read a-like lists are extremely helpful for young patrons who may have a difficult time explaining what elements they might enjoy in a book. It's much easier for a child to simply realize they "want something like Harry Potter" rather than analyze what they liked about the books. After a book from the past is identified, the truly skilled reference interviewer will continue the questions, trying to narrow down specific elements of the novel the child enjoyed. Though not the end-all for reader's advisory, read a-likes are a quick and easy way to narrow down possible recommendations to a manageable list of books.

Getting back into the spirit of The Bunless Librarian, below are links to popular children's and teen read a-like lists.

Captain Underpants Series by Dav Pilkey
Annapolis Valley Regional Libraries
St.Charles Public Library
Dakota County Libraries
Weber County Library

Gary Paulsen
Charles County Public Library
Jervis Public Library
St. Charles Public Library
Stanly County Library

Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
American Library Association
Kansas City Public Library
Madison Public Library
Weber County Library

Junie B. Jones Series by Barbara Park
Ames Public Library
Bibliotheque Publique
Rockford Public Library
Weber County Library

Magic Tree House Series by Mary Pope Osborne
Barrington Area Library
Charles County Public Library
Montgomery County

Redwall Series by Brian Jacques
Burlington Public Library
Derry Public Library
Edmonton Public Library
Finger Lakes Public Library

Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
Allen County Public Library
Strathcona County Library
Wayland Free Public Library
Weber County Library

Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer
Arapahoe Public Library
Farmingdale Public Library
Liverpool Public Library
Santa Clara County Library

I wouldn't want to give adults the shaft when it comes to the read-alike bounty so visit the Waterboro Public Library for a huge list of adult resources.

—Happy Reading

Posted by: Sarah Lovato

Children's Books | Libraries | Reading

posted on Friday, August 22, 2008 9:11:24 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [1]
 Friday, August 15, 2008
Librarianship and the Loss of Sanctuary
Like many librarians, I grew up with an affinity for books. I won't go revisionist and claim to have been a bookworm; I wasn't. I was, what we in the biz' call, a "reluctant reader;" few and far between were books that drew me in and kept my attention until the final page. Despite this, in my young adulthood, I was drawn to libraries as a place of retreat. Often, I would visit my school or public library just to stand and move among the books, my fingers reaching out to touch the spines as I tilted my head to read their titles. As I browsed, I was humbled by the the knowledge and passion reflected in each book's pages and in awe of the dedication and talent it took to write them. I would pull titles from the shelves and flip through them slowly, the familiar scent of book wafting to my eager nose. There was great visceral comfort and pleasure in sitting among the stacks, surrounded by a universe of intellectualism and literary art.

As I entered adulthood, an unexpected aptitude for literary criticism, and a resulting education in literature studies turned me into a bona fide reader. I then started visiting libraries in search of specific titles, my trips becoming more utilitarian. Still, the physical space of libraries held an alluring power over me. I often found myself ending a long day of errands with an unplanned trip to the library. I subconsciously sought the rejuvenating peace I still found wandering through crammed stacks.

When I decided to become a librarian, my deep-rooted connection to libraries as a place and my newfound love of literature where driving forces behind my decision. Though I had no way to know or anticipate it at the time, my choice to build my career among my beloved stacks would result in an unexpected loss of a sanctuary. No longer do I wander aimlessly among library shelves, content to meander and browse. I now walk with purpose, with a clipboard, with a spreadsheet, assessing, evaluating, and weeding. My retreat now transformed into a place of work, study, and to-do lists.

Early on in my career, I attempted to recapture those lost moments of solace by visiting my own local library. Surely there, among books I had no professional obligation to select, buy, and, maintain, I would find my way back to that lost feeling of instinctual harmony. Each trip, I entered the library hopeful. I walked to a Dewey range of interest and nostalgically tilted my head to read the titles. Still though, I only noticed torn dust jackets, weak bindings, and soiled pages. My tongue actually clucked as I stumbled onto holes in subject coverage. The overall grandeur of the stacks had been replaced by a wall of professionalism that drove me to evaluate, not enjoy. I had utterly lost the ability to lose myself in library patronage and instead found myself ever the sweater-vest-wearing librarian of my work days.

Bookstores too had held a certain attraction in my young adulthood, though not on the scale of libraries; the taint of commerce muddying the nobility of the purveyance literature and knowledge. This space of retreat too has been lost to me. My trips to both local and large chain bookstores have now become exercises in frustration. Too often, I am faced with new or obscure titles I long to read, but refuse to pay for. I'm a librarian after all and spend my days surrounded by free books; to pay seems a betrayal of my trade. So I leave, frustrated, empty-handed, though hopeful a local library will own the coveted $7.00 paperback. Still though, something has been lost.

It's at this point in the post, I should segue into a solution to my quandary or in the tradition The Bunless Librarian, provide a list of links to solutions. Unfortunately, this loss of sanctuary is a drawback of librarianship I still struggle with. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade in my profession to get back my moments of contented browsing, but I long to find a balance between the fulfillment of librarianship and the simple serenity of patronage.

So the question remains:

How does this librarian leave her profession at the door and allow herself to reconnect with the uncomplicated, joyful refuge of the stacks?

Posted by: Sarah Lovato

Librarianship | Libraries | Reading

posted on Friday, August 15, 2008 9:25:49 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #    Comments [2]

Page rendered at Saturday, July 04, 2009 8:36:58 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)