Week 16 Prompt

1. Ebooks are going to continue to explode. More publishers are going to get on board to loaning to libraries. Advances will be made in visual mediums so that picture books and graphic novels translate to a digital platform.

2. The print book isn't going anywhere in the near future. In a June 2013 Pew Study titled, Younger Americans' Library Habits and Expectation,  Source, 75% of young adults stated they had read a print book in the past year. That is more than adult readers. If this young tech-savvy generation is still reading print, books will be around for awhile. Additionally, most did not want print books moved out of libraries to make room for technology.

3. Reading may continue to decline due to the availability of information online. According to this article, Source, the percentage of adults who have not read a book in the last year has tripled since 1978. Why? People are busy, Internet. But, reading is correlated with higher education levels, and many young adults are going to college. Additionally, the percentage of people who claim they read for pleasure is NOT declining.

4. The internet and social media will make it continually easier to find book recommendations. Authors are also much more easily accessible now. Authors will increasingly be more responsible for promotion and marketing.

5. Publishing: See this article: Source .  Indicates that print books are holding steady.

While eBook use is continually growing, print books are holding steady. So even though more people are reading on devices, they are continuing to read print.

Week 15 Prompt

I addressed this issue with our midterm paper.  There are many ideas to market a library’s fiction collection.  I loved the creative ideas that I found in blogs and on Pinterest.  I found wonderful ideas from a “Readbox” playing on the video vending machines known as Redbox.  I found a banned book display that featured drawn characters from books that are frequently challenged.  These characters were holding picket type signs.  Just an interesting idea overall.

One of the great ideas I found what was termed an “Awesome Box.”  These are patron input stations, so to speak, that allow for feedback from patrons.  They can be a good tool to receive reader recommendations in which some libraries have even worked into the catalog.  I saw one made to look like the TARDIS from the Dr. Who series.  Clever and fun idea.

I believe that with the rise of social media popularity, a library would miss a potentially large audience if they were not to have a social media presence.  Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, etc. all offer ways of marketing towards an audience online.

Week 14 Prompt

For many people with concerns about controversial materials in a book, separating collections is a way to discourage use of items and make them easier to avoid. For this reason, my decision would be to integrate materials into the regular fiction collection.

1. Moving materials to a separate location can discourage use, especially for young people who may be questioning their sexuality. By moving this material to a separate section, the young person may be too embarrassed to look for books in the "special section." In this case, you have effectively made the books off limits and denied information to the people who need it the most. By creating a separate section, you have effectively said "these people in these books are not the norm" and we don't want to send that message to our communities.

2. By putting these things in with the regular collection, patrons may be more likely to stumble upon a book and choose it without knowing exactly what it includes. It removes the bias of choosing a book about someone who is different than you are. And hopefully, patrons may read about these people and learn a little bit about their history and their lifestyle, and perhaps remove some of the stigma these people face.

3. If we create sections about GLBTQ and African American fiction, where to we go next? Where do we draw the line? Should we remove all other nationalities to their own section? Do we create a heterosexual section? Who decides what gets placed in each section? If there's one marginal gay character, is it GLBTQ? This opens up more confusion than what is necessary.

So, say you have a population asking for it, who doesn't want to marginalize it, but instead celebrate it and promote the materials. You can still do this through readers' advisory, book lists, blog posts, and book displays. Make it easier for your patrons to find this materials while still integrating it into the regular collection.

Young Adult Annotation

John Green's Looking For Alaska

Summary: Miles is a sixteen year old who embarks on what he calls the “Great Perhaps,” leaving Florida for a prestigious boarding school in Alabama.  Miles meets and befriends some truly interesting individuals including his roommate Chip and the book’s namesake, Alaska Young.  As Miles, Chip, and Alaska plan pranks to pull on the schools rich and privileged students, the reader discovers the complexity that lies within each and every character.  When a terrible event changes everything, Miles and Chip are left to discover the factors precluding the event. 

Genre:  Young Adult, Realistic Fiction

Appeals:

Pacing – Neither fast nor slow, makes the reader want to continue reading to find out what happens.  Pace picks up leading towards the climax. 

Characterization – Intelligent characters whom are easy to relate to.  The emotions and thoughts felt by Miles, Chip, Alaska, and the other characters are those same emotions felt by many teenagers.

Storyline – A story of teenagers in good and bad times with a reminder of how life can change.  Deals with serious subjects such as death, depression, self-destructive behaviors, drinking, love, friendship, grief, and moving on.  The first half of the book counts down to a surprising event that occurs midway through the book with the remainder of the story from that point forward.

Tone/Mood – The mood varies greatly throughout the book, anywhere from playful to dark, suspenseful to romantic.

Frame/Setting – A boarding school in Birmingham, Alabama and Florida.

Read Alikes:

Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You by Joyce Carol Oats

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard

A Certain October by Angela Johnson

Other books from John Green including Paper Towns, Fault in Our Stars, An Abundance of Katherines, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson (co-written by David Levithan.

Week 13 Prompt

There seems to be a bit of a stigma related to Graphic Novels and to a lesser extent YA.  The stigma doesn't really seem to come from children or teens, they know what they want to read.  Rather, it comes from parents, teachers, librarians, etc. who believe that for some reason these books have no place in a library.  However, why not? 

 

1. Look at your mission statement. Are you claiming to be purely educational? Or are you wanting to meet the information needs of your community? GNs are showing up everywhere in pop culture (look at The Walking Dead or the upcoming Sandman movie). You won't be meeting their needs when they come in to ask for these materials. Same thing goes for YA literature. Surveys show that a sizeable portion of people reading YA books are adults. If you don't collect YA Lit, you won't be able to provide materials to those coming in and asking for the popular crossover works (The Fault in Our Stats, The Book Thief, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc). And when these titles are inevitably made into movies, your patrons won't be happy. 

2. Look at your collection development policy. What are you trying to do? Do you want a collection of classics/literary fiction that will sit on your shelf? Or do you want to use a more patron-driven collection method, purchasing materials you know your patrons will want to check out and read, books that patrons will want to use? Main point...just as we don't censor books for controversial content, we don't censor books because we don't deem them "quality". Yes, we can't purchase everything, but in order to have a well-balanced collection, librarians must get past that bias and purchase these materials that their patrons are asking for.

3. Not only should we purchase these materials, we need to promote them! Create a booklist on great, well-reviewed GNs to show your patrons they aren't like the old comic books of their youth. Be prepared with some talking points about why GNs are worth a second look. Create a display on crossover YA that appeals to adults, and LET adults check them out!!! Some places put age limits on their YA section, not allowing adults to enter. They want to check these materials out also, so let them!

4. Readers' Advisory: You may not like the genre, but librarians needs to be well-versed in these materials just as they are in more traditional genres. Be able to talk these books with patrons! Or have someone on staff who is an expert and really loves the genre. Don't, by any means, show your disdain for their reading choices, or you've lost a patron. Administration must support reader's advisory training and make sure all staff are capable of answering these questions in a positive and affirming way.