The #weneeddiversebooks Twitter campaign - Learning to use a social media tool

Reflection: Learn to use a new tool

Theme: Diversity

For this activity I wanted to learn how to use Twitter because despite its popularity I haven’t really understood it. I had noticed the rising popularity of a campaign called We need Diverse Books (WNDB) which I found increasingly often being referred to in the blogs and e-lists I follow. After some investigation I understood that this campaign had originated in a Twitter exchange between Ellen Oh and Malinda Lo  (2 prominent authors of YA books)  in April 2014 and that their tweets were picked up in the Twitterverse and formalised in the hashtag #weneeddiversebooks which has now been tweeted 7519 times, not including retweets. This grassroots campaign has resulted in a non-profit organisation being set up that seems set to have a profound effect on the publishing and reading community not just in the United States but around the world.I wanted to understand firstly how to use Twitter and secondly how Twitter could be used for social activism.

I was interested to learn that there are estimated to be 500 million Twitter accounts worldwide and nearly 3 million in Australia.( CCI.2015) (Wikipedia 2015)  Twitter has been used by activists to deliberately start movements and sometimes hashtags evolve organically as with the recent shootings in Paris. Because of the immediacy of the data  exchange on Twitter it is often co-opted and quoted by news agencies as news. It serves as an information carrier for like minded individuals who can follow each other to share their news. Additionally Twitter is often used as a tool by politicians, movie stars and the like who use it to promote themselves and influence public opinion. In some case a Twitter campaign will come to nothing - think  #Kony2012 whilst others, as in the case of WNDB flourish and are actioned.

It was easy enough to set up an account on Twitter as it is on most social media outlets but I needed to do quite a bit of reading to understand the ‘rules’ of Twitter and tweeting. I  searched the Internet for how-to advice, read Wikipedia which gave me a good background into Twitter and carefully read the Help section of Twitter. Previously when using social media I haven’t bothered much with that step but I did find it gave me a lot of information that I might have missed such as Verified accounts having a blue tick. I particularly wanted to understand the concepts of hashtagging and ‘trending topics’ which I now understand

Once established I quickly got into the flow of information and I felt very up-to-date using Twitter. I have colleagues who claim that Twitter supplies them with nearly all of their professional information.  I don’t use Twitter to push information at my library, although many librarians do, but I work with children up to 14 years and they generally don’t use Twitter. I did find Twitter useful for staying on top of the current buzz. In the end  it was too time consuming to keep up with and I stopped checking it regularly. It is not an application you can just check once a week as tweets are soon overtaken and disappear. I felt I had to always be checking for new feeds and ultimately I didn’t feel there was enough new content to make the effort worthwhile.

References

Cci.edu.au,. (2015). First Survey Finds 2.8 Million Twitter Accounts in Australia. Retrieved 31 January 2015, from http://www.cci.edu.au/node/1671

Lublin, N., & Lublin, N. (2010). Slacktivism: Helping Humanity With a Click of the Mouse. Fast Company. Retrieved 31 January 2015, from http://www.fastcompany.com/1615198/slacktivism-helping-humanity-click-mouse

Rainie, L., Smith, A., Schlozman, K., Brady, H., & Verba, S. (2012). Social Media and Political Engagement. Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved 31 January 2015, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/10/19/social-media-and-political-engagement/

Sun, C. (2014). We need Diverse Books Inc. formed. Library Journal, 139(14), 20. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA379639915&v=2.1&u=csu_au&it=r&p=EAIM&sw=w&asid=975f5beb6e8742225df2a8b4320f6b56

We Need Diverse Books,. (2015). Home. Retrieved 31 January 2015, from http://weneeddiversebooks.org/

Whitehead, T. (2015). Paris Charlie Hebdo attack: Je Suis Charlie hashtag one of most popular in Twitter history. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://Paris Charlie Hebdo attack: Je Suis Charlie hashtag one of most popular in Twitter history

Wikipedia,. (2015). Twitter. Retrieved 1 February 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

To read the report click here

Newbery Medal 2015 - The year of a brown girl dreaming?

Reflection 4: Write a book review
Theme: Young people's book award

Book reviews are an essential tool for librarians who rely on them to fill the gaps in, for what they cannot get to read themselves. Equally librarians by necessity become book reviewers when they recommend books for their clients either in person, via social media or more formal mechanisms such as newsletters or book suggestion lists. For this activity I have chosen to review a children’s book that I believe is likely to become very well known when or if it wins the upcoming Newbery Medal to be announced on the 2nd of February.

This particular award is given to the most distinguished original contribution to American children’s literature and is without doubt the most prestigious such award in the US. Some of the works which have won the Newbery or been awarded an honour in previous years include Charlotte's Web (1953) Bridge to Terabithia (1978), The Giver (1994), and Holes (1999). Although it is American in orientation it is influential in other countries. In America, a Newbery Medal guarantees a bestseller as every library, school and reading list will feature the title.

This year brown girl dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is considered the frontrunner. In the USA speculation about the Newbery Medal winner is rife and serious. There are innumerable websites and blogs dedicated to discussing the shortlist and trying to predict the winner. Most serious reviewers will rate the contenders, and interested public members also participate, for example on the Goodreads website there is a 'Mock Newbery' discussion and reading group.

brown girl dreaming is highly regarded as a superb piece of literature. It has been ‘starred’ by at least six of the most influential review publication and this is considered a portent of success. It is an autobiography of the author who is African-American  and set against the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Diversity in books has been a major theme this year and some have suggested that this may strengthen this book’s appeal. In addition some reviewers have suggested that as a 3 time Honour book winner this could be the year for the author to finally win.

I enjoyed researching the Newbery Medal and thinking about the place that awards and reviewing books plays in my professional life however I found writing a review is not easy. To get some ideas I looked at some reviews from literature magazine such as Literature base, Magpies and Good Reading magazine. I also ‘googled’ some book review sites. Whilst writing the facts of the review are easy, what is difficult, is trying to describe the writing style without sounding laboured or overblown. I was also concerned to try and make the review interesting and meaningful beyond the basics of plot and structure. After reading some professional reviews that flowed so well that I realised I have some way to go. Like everything it is a matter of practice and finding your ‘voice’. I would consider writing a review for a magazine and may contact Magpies or a company like Pledger for more information.

Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York: Nancy Paulsen.

To read the book review Click here

E- reading vs Paper Reading. Is there a difference?

This amazing E Reader has been developed by a team in South Korea. It may mitigate some of the issues people have with reading online.

Reflection 3: Find, read and analyse a peer reviewed journal article

Theme: Emerging Technologies

The issue of whether to invest in the technology of online reading has been a vexing one for libraries. Most have chosen to go down this path but there is still the question of whether online reading is the same as reading on paper. Particularly when it comes to serious reading. Is online reading as effective as regular reading? Should libraries be using precious resources to establish virtual library collections? It is important to me as a librarian to have some knowledge of recent research around this topic so as to understand whether to continue to use my budget to provide e-books and whether to concentrate effort on encouraging my library patrons to use this technology.

It would seem that online reading is the logical step for our digital society but reaction to online reading is mixed. In particular it seems that overwhelmingly, students prefer paper books. This has been demonstrated in numerous studies including the latest to be published in an upcoming book by American linguist Naomi Baron, which revealed that of the students she surveyed, 92% said they concentrated better when reading hard copy. (Baron 2015) I have also surveyed my students and despite their almost devotional attitude to computers they are not overly enthusiastic about e-reading which they are able to do on their own devices.

I have been interested to try and understand how online reading differs from reading on paper. In his article The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens (Jabr 2013), Ferris Jabr attempts to summarise the current scientific research on this topic and answers those questions. Overall he concludes that reading online is different for 2 main reasons.

Firstly on-line reading is more difficult to navigate. Online text is presented as a seamless stream of words. We can’t easily flip from page to page and can’t control the reading experience as easily as when reading a book. We are unable to form a coherent mental map of the text as we do when reading a book.  Some research suggests that we actually remember where information is in a text by recalling where it is located in relation to the layout of the books and its pages. What’s possible is that when we lose that mental map we absorb less and can recall less compared to reading on paper. These difficulties with navigation make reading online more tiring that reading a book which further affect our comprehension

Secondly there is some evidence that people tend to be less serious about reading online and people make less mental effort when using computers. According to Jabr people reading on screens take a lot of shortcuts, preferring to hunt for keywords rather to read sequentially from page to page. Other researchers have pointed out the distractions that online reading presents compared to books.  More self-control is required to stay on track and avoid multitasking whilst online. Horizontal clicking on links can be almost irrestible. (Konnikova 2014) This is particularly true in younger children and possibly e-readers should not be used with younger readers, who, in, my experience tend not to like them anyway.

Online reading is here to stay but I would argue that it might have less of a place in the school library than others. Given the problems with keeping on task and issues around comprehension and remembering information, it may be better for younger children to keep using books. I will continue to look out for related research on this topic.

 Read the article here

References

Baron, N. (2015). Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World. Oxford: OUP.

Jabr, F. (2013). The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens. Scientific American. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-screens/

Konnikova, M. (2014). Being a Better Online Reader. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/being-a-better-online-reader

Wolf, M., & Stoodley, C. (2008). Proust and the squid. New York: Harper Perennial.

The Florida Polytechnic Library - a bookless library
Taken from www.theguardian.com/books

Professional Development for the School Librarian

Reflection 2:
Activity:  Attend and document an event


2015: The Year Ahead In Youth Literature

Tuesday 2 December, 6pm – 8:30pm

The Courtyard, State Library of Victoria

Cost: $18 per person 

Hosted by the Centre for Youth Literature

This event hosted by the Centre for Youth Literature was an opportunity for local and international publishers to showcase some of their upcoming teen literature titles. The publishers involved were Bloomsbury, Egmont, Harper Collins, Penguin, Pan MacMillan, Ford Street, Text, Walker Books and Allen and Unwin. Each publisher was given a strict 5-minute limit to promote their latest publications, which allowed the event to progress very smoothly and was enough time for each publisher to mention their most noteworthy titles.

Some choose a machine gun approach and mentioned as many books as possible with, perhaps a 30 second description of each. Others chose to focus on just a couple of significant titles and spoke at (relative) length on each. It was a perfect way to get quick and convenient information about some of the major titles for next year.

I have to admit to some doubt in the beginning that it would be a productive night as I wasn’t really sure whether there would be enough titles and publishers to make the outing worthwhile. However I need not have feared, it was a satisfying selection of titles, in fact I was hard pressed to keep up with the ones mentioned.

The advantages of these events are numerous. Firstly having an insight into forthcoming titles assists with budgeting and pre-ordering. It also allows the librarian to develop displays and plan promotions to create anticipation with patrons. It helps to be known as an expert about books and reading by being the ‘first to know’ about what’s coming up. In a school, children rely on your expertise and you can influence their reading behaviours significantly with your knowledge.

Knowing who might be popular in advance is also an advantage for arranging author visits, in some schools these are an important part of the curriculum. A recent small-scale American study on author visits has suggested that after a visiting author… “ there were increases in student mean scores in reading interest, reading efficacy, writing interest, and positive attitudes about revision” (Schoolvisitexperts.com, 2015). More research is planned for next year.

Author visits, in my experience do really excite children and inspire them to read. It keeps reading and writing in their sights as an important and worthy activity. This can be particularly important in a boy’s school where the status of literacy can be swamped by other more valued events.

This PD session also provided me with a potential new title for our students to study that would fit with the cross curricular priorities of the Australian Curriculum. Input like that is of real use to teachers and helps them deliver the curriculum. This in turn strengthens the Teacher Librarian’s place in the school hierarchy and opens the door to collaborative efforts that help sustain the library.

Another advantage is meeting up with like-minded colleagues. This can be a real boon especially if you work alone .The organiser allowed plenty of time for this and although I didn’t take full advantage I will definitely screw up my courage next time. Librarianship is a collaborative industry and sharing helps us to all perform better.

Overall this was a useful professional development activity which of benefit to me.

References:

Schoolvisitexperts.com, (2015). School Visit Experts | Creating Programs That Kids, Teachers & Librarians Love. Retrieved 17 January 2015, from http://schoolvisitexperts.com/

Censorship in the School Library

ALA poster used to celebrate Banned Book week in the U.S
Copyright free

Reflection 1

Activity: Write an article for submission to  ALIA's journal ‘Energise, Enthuse, Inspire’

Topic:     Censorship

I wrote an 800-word article for submission to ALIA’s Incite magazine. The topic was censorship and the responsibility the school librarian has to protect her patrons or students from unsuitable books.  I started with the idea that I might be stocking my library with books that some of my school community would be uncomfortable with, but which I knew my readers would like. Sometimes, I too have felt discomfited by the dark themes and mature content of some teen and YA books. I have wondered if ‘I sail too close to the wind’ with some of the books I have in my library.  I concluded that children and teens do not need or want ‘sanitized and squeaky-clean’ stories. They are too mature, too accustomed to ‘racy’ modern life to be satisfied by that. Most teens have many leisure choices and we need to offer books, which have appeal and interest even if sometimes the content is possibly controversial. In addition I believe children and teens self-censor and won’t read material they instinctively know is unsuitable. Obviously I am subject to the overall moral values of the institution I work for and must pay some heed to parents opinions about books but I reject the suggestion that I should be the gatekeeper and will continue to choose books that satisfy a modern reading audience.

I have never written an article for publication before, although I have felt that it would be a good thing to do for career interest and advancement. Fundamentally I lacked the confidence to do it, feeling that I had less to contribute than others who have been in the industry for many years. However once I got started on the article, which is on a topic that I have been thinking about for a while, I am wondering whether it might, in fact, be suitable for publication. I haven’t read much in Australian library journals on this topic and if it were of interest to me as a teacher-librarian surely it would be of interest to others. I would certainly like to read an opposing view, as I am sure there would be one.

I do, however think that Incite is not the right publication for this article. It would be better suited to FYI, the School Librarians of Victoria’s journal or similar. The audience is really TLs, although obviously public librarians face censorship issues as well. With that in mind I have emailed the article to the editor of FYI for consideration and feedback.

Despite what some people might think about the conservative nature of librarianship, it is actually an industry, which moves at break neck speed and requires constant diligence to keep up with developments. Writing for journals is a way to discipline yourself to stay current and interested.

Apart from stimulating my interest in writing for an industry publication the most significant outcome of this exercise is that is has crystallized my thinking on this topic. I know where I stand now on the issue of censorship and I am prepared to defend my opinion. I will continue to research and take note of opinions and reporting on this topic.

To read the article Click here