Reading Spaces

Some good news about libraries

In light of all of the depressing and infuriating news of library closures, cutbacks and other gutting tactics, here is some good news from New York Public Library.

Patrick Ness wins Carnegie Medal for Monsters of Men

The Chaos Walking series by expat American YA author, Patrick Ness, is among my favourites. I don't have time right now to give all the reasons why I highly recommend it, and I'm still mulling over the conclusion, but I'm happy to see the books receive this kind of recognition. The writing is at times, truly, breath-taking. He can certainly turn a very nice phrase. The Carnegie medal is awarded by a committee of librarians, and Ness gives a quote-worthy defense of libraries in his acceptance speech. To read more about the Carnegie, library cuts and Patrick Ness see this article in the Bookseller, this BBC article, or this Guardian article.

Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel wins CLA Children's and YA Book Awards

The author reports on his double award on his blog. Half Brother is an excellent book -- challenging, interesting, timely, beautifully written and suitable for all ages. I loved it. But, I can't decide how I feel about the same title being granted both awards. The cons for me: 1) it makes it seem as though the field of production is so small, that we need to double up awards, 2) it takes away the uniqueness of the young adult field if books that are suitable for all ages can be nominated and win the YA award. For what it's worth, Half Brother for me, is solidly in the YA camp, but that wouldn't stop me from recommending it to strong younger readers. The pros: 1) really good books float to the top, regardless of age category, 2) the resistance of age categories suggests the kind of wiliness that is such a big part of reading -- you just can't pin readers down.

Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value by Philip Pullman

Just in case you haven't seen this yet: Philip Pullman on Libraries and the Greedy Ghost of Market Fundamentalism:

Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value. | Blog | False Economy.

YALSA Student Interest Group

There is definitely something in the air when it comes to connecting folks interested in young adults and libraries. News of the new YALSA Student Interest Group is floating about on the blogosphere.

Young Adult: Coming to a Theatre Near You

From a CBC story:

Charlize Theron will star in a film called "Young Adult" featuring a "divorced, teen-fiction writer...who returns to her hometown of Minneapolis to chase the love of her life, a man who is married and has a child." Jason Reitman is directing and Diablo Cody is writing. More on this from Deadline.

Libraries: The next-big-pop-culture-wave?

In her NPR column, Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries, Linda Holmes cites the UWashington LIS Lady Gaga parody,the Old Spice guy's library promo video and more:

"I don't know whether it's going to come in the form of a more successful movie franchise about librarians than that TV thing Noah Wyle does, or a basic-cable drama about a crime-fighting librarian (kinda like the one in the comic Rex Libris), or that reality show I was speculating about, but mark my words, once you've got Old Spicy on your side and you can sell a couple of YouTube parodies in a couple of months, you're standing on the edge of your pop-culture moment. Librarians: prepare."

Canadian Online Teen Reading Club needs your attention

A Canadian online reading club for teens with benefits for its member libraries needs your help to continue. Erin Walker has a post about its value to teens and libraries. There might be an opportunity here for a new funding line -- perhaps "Friends of the Teen Reading Club" that would enable individuals (i.e., non-institutional members) to make a contribution? Although the teenrc is run by the Greater Victoria Public Library system, it is national in its scope and audience.

A depressing update on the Teen RC

From Librarians to Informationists to Intelligencers: Adrian Johns

Listen to Adrian Johns' keynote address, As Our Readers Go Digital, given at the recent 2010 RLG Partnership Symposium When the Books Leave the Building: The Future of Research Libraries, Collections and Services.

At the symposium website, you will find a 30 minute mp3 of the talk, along with slides and a printable version of the paper. From the introduction of Johns' paper: 

"There is of course something odd about giving a conference at this moment in history the title “When the books leave the building.”  The conceit that they were confined in a building in the first place is peculiarly antique – it evokes images of those old cathedral libraries with huge, musty folios chained to the furniture.  As far as I know, it hasn’t been the case for centuries that run-of-the-mill books were kept in that kind of bondage.  Yet I do think that there is a real issue being signaled by our title – or rather, a set of issues.  They have to do with what I’ve come to think of as the “three Ps” of the move to massive digital libraries: the places of reading, the practices that are deemed appropriate to those places, and the publics that they can give rise to.

Those three things – places, practices, and publics – connote to my mind the major areas of hope and doubt associated with mass digitization.  I think that when we speak loosely of the revolutionary “impact” of the new technologies, what we really mean is a set of consequences that will have to emerge through the three Ps as those technologies are put to use.  Perhaps the places they will constitute will be radically new, for example; more likely, they will be formed by the creative adaptation and combination of existing spaces.  We have already seen this happening in offices, laboratories, and libraries (my old institution, Caltech, was one of the first more or less to eradicate its bookish library altogether).

The 3 Ps also have a very long conjoint history – longer than the book itself, if by “book” we mean codex.  My point today will be that if we approach the experiences of readers as they “go digital” through the history of the 3 Ps, we can articulate for ourselves the nature of a problem that we all face."

(Adrian Johns, 2010, "As Our Readers Go Digital," keynote address 11 June 2010, RLG Partnership Symposium When the Books Leave the Building: The Future of Research Libraries, Collections and Services. Newberry Library, Chicago, IL). 

CLASY Professional Development Day talk

On Friday, 28 May, 2010, Canadian Libraries Are Serving Youth (CLASY) held its inaugural event, a professional development day for people interested in library services to young adults and teens in Canada. More information about the impetus, and the organizers (Stephanie Vollick, Erin Walker and Sarah Noyes) can be found over at the CLASY blog.The organizers will be blogging about the day's activities.

I was honoured to be invited to participate in the day's event and gave a 30 minute introduction entitled "Taking Our Place at the Table Today: Working with and for Youth in Canadian Libraries". I've included a draft of the talk here: Download CLASY Introduction

Unfortunately, I was not able to stay for Stephen Abram's presentation or for the think-tank exercises and discussions but I've heard from a number of people that the day was a resounding success. I was excited to see a room full of lively and engaged people and I was honoured to be a part of what I hope are renewed efforts to network with others in Canada interested in public library services to teens.