Author: Jenny

Keep ‘Em Coming – Fiction Series Creators Talk Shop

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I may have left this one off the list originally because it wasn’t one I had planned to go to. However, it was a really interesting panel: authors Lauren Myracle, Jonathan Stroud, Dan Gutman, and author/editor David Levithan. Of these, I had only heard of David Levithan previously (he wrote The Lover’s Dictionary, which I thought was unique and poetic and just generally wonderful. Read it!) He has also, it turns out, written a whole bunch of young adult (YA) novels, and has edited over 300 YA series books, including many of the Babysitters’ Club books. (“I was the 19-year-old male reading The Babysitters’ Club on the subway…with a highlighter.”)

One explanation for the popularity of series books among teens, Levithan said, was “the love of story, the love of wanting to know what happens next, wanting the story to continue.” When kids – and adults, I would contest – find a book they like, they want more of it. However, speaking as an author rather than as an editor, Levithan said that sometimes, “There’s a reason I ended the book there – the story’s over.”

Other bits of wisdom from the panel:

Lauren Myracle: “Middle school is painful. Writing is painful. But writing about middle school…surprisingly cathartic!”

“Every book must be a game-changer.” I forget who said this – Stroud or Gutman, I think – but they were emphasizing the need for something to happen in each book in the series that caused the character to grow. The story may have its arc, but each book must have an arc of its own as well as be part of the larger story.

Jonathan Stroud talked about the importance of building a brand, which is easier with series books than with stand-alone novels.

Lauren Myracle: “Series are born in different ways.” Sometimes a story might be conceived as a series from the beginning; other times reader response might prompt a second book, and then a third.

Though there may not be the proliferation of series fiction for adults as there is for the YA group, adults are likely – speaking solely from experience here and not from any particular data – to develop loyalty to certain authors. The characters may not be the same from book to book, but one can have confidence in the quality of writing, character, and story.

“Books are magic”

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Dan Savage was the opening session speaker at ALA Annual. He writes the Savage Love column for the Seattle Stranger and is the founder of the It Gets Better Project. At ALA, he spoke primarily about the evolution of the It Gets Better Project (the goal of which, for those who haven’t heard of it, is to show gay teens that their future can be better than their present), and why, despite the massive popularity of the videos, he wanted to make a book as well: “I’m a print guy and I think books are magic.”

Well, that went over well in a crowd of librarians. But beyond a simple love of books, he said, “We also did the book to challenge school libraries and school librarians.” Some kids may not have internet access, but most have access to libraries, and over 1,500 copies of the It Gets Better book have been donated to libraries.

Overall, I enjoyed his talk very much; he’s an articulate and funny speaker, and a champion of libraries. Got the conference off to a great start!

ALA Annual Conference, New Orleans

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This is just to say (yes, William Carlos Williams) that the ALA Annual Conference was an amazing experience. Here’s a rundown of the programs I attended; I’ll be typing up my notes from each and sharing a brief summary here over the next several days. Many thanks to Simmons College GSLIS and Don Wood at ALA for making it possible for me to go!

Friday, June 24
Opening session – Dan Savage, speaker
Exhibit floor opening

Saturday, June 25
HarperCollins Book Buzz
Modernist Cuisine presentation/demonstration

Sunday, June 26
LITA Tech Trends (panel)
Wikimedia, Sue Gardener
GSLIS Alumni reunion

Monday, June 27
Rating systems for young readers (panel)

As part of the Students to Staff program I also worked with some wonderful people at the Press Room and the @yourlibrary booth, checking in reporters and photographers and telling people about the Campaign for America’s Libraries, respectively.

More to come!

Friends of the Library

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Monday of this week was the annual meeting of the Friends of the Somerville Public Library. There was a guest speaker, Kenneth Gloss, the proprietor of the Brattle Book Shop in Boston. I have been there once – last summer a friend and I made a project of visiting all the used book shops we could find in Boston and Cambridge – and can vouch that it is an excellent place to poke around.

Gloss brought some “show and tell” objects: a 14th-century manuscript page (which has held up better than cheap novels printed much more recently); a cookbook from the 1790s that included a recipe for “how to cook eel, the common way”; and a facsimile of Poe’s Tamerlane. “Almost anything you can think of out there, people are interested,” he said.

For those who are interested in valuable/rare books, here are a few things to check for:

  • Is it a first edition?
  • Does it have an intact dust jacket (for hardcovers)?
  • Is it in good condition?
  • Is it signed by the author?
  • Is it an association copy? That is, has the author inscribed it to someone in particular?

And for those who are wondering about how to store old books properly, a good rule of thumb is “if you’re comfortable, the books are comfortable” – it shouldn’t be too hot or too cold, too dry or too humid. Keep the books out of direct sunlight, and don’t pack them too tightly on the shelf (or so loosely that they lean over).

For the book collectors out there, I also recommend Allison Hoover Bartlett’s excellent and enthralling The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession.

Promising Pals Breakfast

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The Promising Pals end-of-year breakfast was on June 3. I didn’t realize what a huge program it was until I got there; every single student, 6th grade through 8th, has a Pal, and the program strongly emphasizes how important it is to come to the breakfast; students are disappointed if their Pals don’t show up.

There were several speakers (including Mayor Menino!) and performers, and all of us “adults” got to meet our student pals. It’s a pretty incredible program – still going strong after 25 years, and impressively well organized. I’m glad I got involved.

SLA Day on the Job

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Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to spend the day with Curriculum Services Specialist Ann Cullen at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library as part of the Special Library Association’s (SLA) Day on the Job program. Coincidentally, another GSLIS student who I had met twice before (once as part of an informational panel for prospective students, and once at the Somerville Public Library, where we both volunteered at the Friends of the Library book sale earlier this month) was starting her summer internship at Baker that day, so we went around together.

Ann – herself a doctoral student at GSLIS – introduced us to several other Knowledge and Library Services (KLS) librarians and staff. We also got to sit in on a meeting of reference librarians discussing virtual reference; saw behind the scenes of the historical collection; and of course we got a tour of Baker (and got to see inside Widener as well). I may never work in a business library, but Day on the Job provided an excellent inside look at a top-notch academic library. A great experience!

ACRL Creative Collaborations

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Yesterday was the ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) New England Chapter Spring 2011 Conference at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. This was my first library conference and, other than having to get up extra-early to drive to Worcester, it was a great experience. I met and talked to several librarians, some of whom were Simmons GSLIS alums, all of whom were friendly and interesting.

I also especially enjoyed one of the morning breakout sessions, where Judy Montgomery and Rebecca Sandlin from Bowdoin College in Maine gave a presentation strategies for collaboration between the library and IT department. Some of their tips: collaborative strategic planning; identify core shared values; leverage positive relationships; collaborate visibly on projects; reward collaborative projects and attitudes; and have equal partnership to preserve both cultures.

Bowdoin’s LIT (Library/Information Technology) partnership would have been a great example to study in the Principles of Management class at Simmons: an organic process of real leadership, thoughtful collaboration, and internal buy-in, rather than a top-down forced merger.

Overall, the ACRL conference was a great learning experience – and a chance to get my feet wet before ALA Annual (next month!).

Digital Library Launch

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Tomorrow, the digital library we have been building in LIS-462 is officially launching! Over the course of the semester, the class has digitized the scrapbook of Caroline Stokes, a student at Simmons from 1929-1933. We’ve done everything from digitization to metadata, writing content to creating the database and website. It has been a huge effort but a great learning experience. View the Caroline Stokes Scrapbook here.

The Caroline Stokes Scrapbook home page.

Academic Uses of Social Media

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The GSLIS Tech Lab streamed the Berkman Center for Internet & Society webinar “Academic Uses of Social Media: Exploring 21st Century Communications” this afternoon. John Palfrey, faculty co-director of the Berkman Center (and author of Born Digital ), gave an introduction and noted that, when looking at the growth of social technologies, it is important to keep in mind the digital divide (which so often corresponds to the socioeconomic divide).

The keynote speaker, Danah Boyd, sought to provide “a higher-order conceptual understanding” of the “cultural logic” behind social media and networking sites. She examined the components of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter; what do these services do? She spoke of the user profile as “writing the self into being” and the friend structure as “writing the audience into being.”

Boyd also talked about the creation of a new kind of public space; its persistence over time, its replicability, searchablity, and scalability. She also spoke of the invisible/imagined audience, the collapsing of contexts, and the blurring between public and private, and how “young people” are participating in a public environment but still want privacy.

One of the most interesting points she made was that face-to-face interactions are private by default and public by effort, whereas interactions through social media are public by default, private by effort. She, too, emphasized that not all young people are “digital natives,” and that even because they use certain technology doesn’t mean they understand it: for example, one can use a search engine every day without really knowing how to structure a query properly.

Near the end of her lecture, Boyd showed a slide with this image: “Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity.” The source appears to be a blog concerned with celebrity news and fashion, but it’s an excellent position to take, all the same.