Week 16 Prompt: The Once & Future Book

Changes in Reading and Books Since I Was a Child

Personally, I think one of the biggest changes in my reading habits since childhood is that I am now much less likely to browse books on a library shelf.  I used to love scanning titles from book spines, and that delicious moment when you’ve decided on a title that seems worth reaching out your hand to grasp and slide off the shelf.  You drink in the cover art and then flip it open to read the inside jacket synopsis or back cover blurbs.  (Ooh, yes!  This one looks good!)

These days, I do tons of canvassing for books online – Amazon, Goodreads, etc.  By the time I enter a library I know exactly what book I’m looking for and where to find it in that collection.  Online retailers, social media, and library OPACs have made my browsing far more efficient, but quite a bit less fun.

I also didn’t have so many format choices as a child.  I enjoy using my Kindle for some leisure reading, although a print book will always be my preferred medium.  But the most significant change for me in book format has been the addition of audiobooks to my reading repertoire.  The ability to read books while driving and doing housework has greatly expanded my available reading time.  And the more format options I have available, the more conscious I become of the act of reading itself.  Whichever medium we use in any given moment, reading is an act, a choice.  I loved Ursula K. LeGuin’s description that “reading is active, an act of attention, of absorbed alertness” (LeGuin, p. 37).  [Did you note all that lovely alliteration? Very, very nice.]  The reader is engaging in a sort of contract with the author, and dozens of others -- editors, publishers, marketers -- have added their two cents to the transaction.  (And BTW, I can highly recommend the class S681: The Book for anyone who might be interested in book history.) 

The Future of Reading and Books

Many years ago I attended a demonstration in Chicago for a personal electronic reading device called “Alice.”  It was named in honor of Alice in Wonderland and we were fascinated at the idea that we could electronically search for individual words and even link to a dictionary for definitions.  This was almost a decade before anyone had heard the terms Kindle, Nook, or iPad.  After the demo, we were asked to complete a group survey about whether or not we could see a device like Alice becoming popular and what kinds of reading material we might use it for.  The people in my focus group agreed that it was fun to experiment with, but not something we would ever enjoy reading from in bed at night.  Our group suggested that such a device might be extremely useful for reference materials like encyclopedia, almanacs, and maps, since we thought its best feature was quick searchability.

The main lesson to be learned from this tale is that I am pretty lousy at predicting the future!  These days I do use a Kindle for some leisure reading, but dislike using it for textbooks or fact finding – essentially the exact opposite of my focus group recommendations.

It’s hard for me to predict what format books might take in the future.  The move toward digitalization is changing the reading landscape, and most publishers have not adapted quickly to changes that consumers appear to be embracing.  In her essay from this week’s readings, Diane Wachtell points out that the vast majority of ebooks are digitalized versions of existing print books.  But the simplicity of electronic publishing makes alternative options such as self-publishing and independent publishing far more viable than they once were.  Wachtell reminds us that book jackets, design, page layout, displays, etc. are marketing devices, not intrinsic components of the book itself.  “They are window dressing to attract attention to an underlying lofty idea that can open the window onto a new way of seeing the world.  We can live without the window dressing, but the world would be a much darker place without the windows” (Wachtell, p. B12).

No, I don’t think print books are going away in my lifetime.  But while I will always prefer the tactile sense of holding a codex form book, I do wonder if ancient Romans scoffed at the idea that any other format could ever replace the scroll.  (And before that, the chiseled tablet?)

And the future of reading?  Well, if reading ever fades away, I'd have to move to another planet.  Oh, no!  That brings me right back around to the name of my blog.  Maybe I really will be the First Librarian on the Moon!  

References:

Germano, W., DiLeo, J., & Wachtell, D.  (Oct. 1, 2010).  Fate of the book.  The Chronicle Review.

LeGuin, U.K.  (Feb., 2008).  Staying awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading.  Harper’s Magazine, 316(1893).

Week 15 Prompt: Marketing Your Fiction Collection

What do you think are the best ways to market your library's fiction collection?

My college library spends very little of our materials budget on fiction, focusing instead on non-fiction and reference resources to support student coursework.  (And, in case you’re wondering . . . yes, it is a bit boring.)  The same holds true for our marketing efforts.  We tend to focus more on student services than on books.  This is one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed this course so much – it’s given me a perfect excuse to think and talk about fiction!

Here are some of the plans we’d like to put into place to market the fiction that we do have on shelf.  While our efforts may appear modest, we’re pretty jazzed up about the idea of showcasing something a little more exciting than textbooks.

·         Fantasy Display -- This winter we received over a dozen boxes of books from a professor at the college who reads and collects fantasy novels.  His donation included high quality titles by Christopher Paolini, Robert Jordan, Margaret Weis, Brandon Sanderson, and Frank Herbert, among others.  A co-worker noted that the colorful covers would make a great display to promote leisure reading over the summer.  The art department contributed a couple of student art projects – a painting and two small dragon sculptures – and we’re assembling a splashy display at the library entrance.  We’ll be using several signs scattered around the library with messages like “In the mood to escape?” “What’s your summer fantasy?” and (my personal favorite) “Ready to read something you don’t need to put in a bibliography at the end of a term paper?”

·         OTR Program/Display -- One of our librarians is a huge fan of old time radio shows.  He recently wrote a script for a “Boston Blackie” type of detective show and we performed a reading of it during the college’s Humanities Festival.  (I played Gracie the waitress, to very little acclaim.)  To our surprise, it was a big hit with students.  Of course they loved the sound effects like popping balloons to represent gun shots!  But several also submitted comments to the effect that they enjoyed using their imagination to visualize a character to fit the voices in the play.  We’d like to repeat the success of that program by doing another radio drama during Freshman Orientation week at the end of August.  Our cataloger has already compiled a list of library materials that could coordinate with the nostalgia theme – books on radio shows (Tune in Yesterday, On the Air), bios of great movie stars (Cary Grant, Ava Gardner, Bette Davis), and classic films on DVD (The Maltese Falcon, Bringing Up Baby).

·         Alumni Magazine -- We don’t do enough to market our library resources to college alumni, who also have borrowing privileges.  The editor of the alumni magazine is doing a story on the old time radio show performance, and I asked if the library could perhaps become a regular part of their publication.  We could list a few of the latest titles added to the collection – both fiction and non-fiction, or maybe feature a different author each month.  It would be a good place to market our monthly book club discussions and other programs.  I’d also like to think that a reminder that library resources are available to them would provide another thread linking alumni to their alma mater, which is a boon to the college’s development efforts.

Although the focus of our marketing will probably remain on library services, these are just a few of the ways that we hope to reach out to students, faculty, staff, and alumni to advertise our collection.

Week 14 Prompt: GBLTQ and AA Fiction

Question to Consider:  Consider yourself part of the collection management committee of your local library. You must decide whether or not to separate GBLTQ fiction and African American Fiction from the general collection to its own special place.

My Thoughts:  Putting myself in the place of a collection manager, I don’t believe that I would be in favor of creating separate shelving locations for either GBLTQ books or African-American fiction.  Each of these categories contains books that may be more effectively classified in one of many different genres.  My basic reasoning would be centered around issues of:

·       Searching -- Would a patron looking for Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower look for the book on shelves labeled Science Fiction or African-American Fiction?  Would John Boyne’s The Absolutist be found on Historical Fiction shelves, General Fiction, or in a separate GLBT location?  These books and thousands more could be sought by patrons who are not necessary focused on the author’s race or a GLBT character in the book.

·       Browsing -- Patrons who are browsing shelves for a desired genre may miss books that have been shelved in separate African-American or GLBT locations.  While surfing the Mystery section, I wouldn’t want to miss Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series because it was shelved separately with African-American books.

·       Stigmatization -- We’ve talked this semester about the fact that some genres or categories of books are unfairly stigmatized as somehow less than desirable.  A library with good intentions of featuring books in categories such as GBLTQ, Erotica, or even Chick Lit, might instead be branding these books in a way that feels more like segregation than promotion.

While genre separation can be used very effectively to make a library’s collection more user friendly, there is also a danger of creating too many subdivisions in shelving.  RUSA’s Barry Trott notes that:

“We may also be creating a library in which readers can simply ignore parts of the collection because they are labeled science fiction, fantasy, or mystery. As readers’ advisors, this should give us pause because our goal is to make connections between readers and books and not to artificially wall off parts of the collection” (Trott, p. 34).

There are other great ways to market a sub-set of books.  Displays are a great promotional tool to feature a subject, genre, or author.  Print or online bibliographies can help readers get an idea of the scope of your collection in a specific area.  I liked the quote from our readings that pointed out, “Finding aids can feature books that directly address the gay/lesbian experience, books by gay and lesbian authors (not always the same thing), and books that include gay and lesbian characters” (Thomas, p. 40).

I can imagine libraries where separation by GBLTQ or African-American fiction would be appropriate and effective.  The question would be best judged by the librarians at each facility.  However, my general feeling would be that these categories are not genres, per se, and their collections should not be shelved separately.

References:

Thomas, D. (2007).  A place on the shelf.  Library Journal, 132(8), p. 40-3.

Trott, B. and Novak, V.  (Winter, 2006).  A house divided? Two views on genre separation.  Reference & User Services Quarterly, 46(2), p. 33-38.

 

Book Annotation: YA The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Author:  John Green

Publisher:  Dutton Books (Penguin USA)

ISBN:  978-0-525-47881-2

Genres:  Young Adult Novels
                Realistic Fiction

 

Summary: 

Sixteen year old Hazel Grace Lancaster has cancer and she’s depressed.  “Depression is not a side effect of cancer,” she reminds us.  “Depression is a side effect of dying.”  But Hazel is determined not to let death ruin her life.  At a cancer support group meeting she meets Augustus Waters, a teen whose bone cancer is in remission.  Hazel and Gus have more than cancer in common – both are witty, snide, and hungry for life.  As their hearts connect, they know (and we know) that there is heartbreak ahead for all.  In the meantime, their story provides laughter as well as tears.

Appeals:

·       Dialog:  I’m not sure that any of us in our everyday lives – teens or adults – really speak with this kind of wit, intellect, sarcasm. But I sure hope we do.  There is something so satisfying in the idea that Hazel and Gus can hone in so keenly on the irony of their situation.

·        Intimate first person point of view:  Hazel tells the story, so we feel the pain, love, confusion, and fear behind even the most glib of her phrases.

·       Characters:  This must surely be one of the world’s most difficult plots to make work.  But it does work, because of Gus and Hazel.  In a relatively short time and a relatively short book we get to know them deeply.

·       Setting:  A bonus for Hoosier readers is that the novel is set in the author’s hometown of Indianapolis.

Read Alikes (from NoveList):

• The Summer I Found You by Jolene B. Perry
• The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder
• How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
• A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner
• Just One Day by Gayle Forman

My Notes:

The day after I gave this book to my 15-year-old niece I received a text message:
 
“FIOS Day 2: As I close the finished book my symptoms include deep thinking, laughter, tears, wrenching sadness, and complete infatuation with fictional characters. This book has created a glass heart, filled with alternating layers of lovable characters, witty banter, and perfect description – only to be BROKEN by the cruelty of a hard fate. The fault was indeed in their stars. This book . . . this brilliant book . . . I loved it so.”

The text message moved me almost as much as the book did. When a 15-year-old describes a book that way, it makes me think that all of us – authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, readers – must be doing something right.

Week 13 Prompt: YA, Graphic Novels, and Street Lit

Question to Consider:  Though this week's group of "genres" all seem very different, they all have in common the fact that many people don't feel that they are legitimate literary choices and libraries shouldn't be spending money on them or promoting them to adults.  How can we as librarians, work to ensure that we are able to serve adults who enjoy YA literature, graphic novels, and street lit? Or should we?

My Thoughts:   I’ve really had to wrestle with myself this week over this response, because there is a part of me (don’t hate me, please!) that does wish the whole world was reading Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, and Leo Tolstoy.  But that isn’t because I think badly of street lit, graphic novels, or YA books.  It’s because think so highly of many classic works of fiction and have such an appetite for them.

It’s not easy to be this honest, because I’m afraid of alienating people or being called a literary snob.  I read a wide range of genres and writing styles.  I devoured The Hunger Games series and actually sent an enthusiastic fan-email to Gene Luen Yang a few years ago after reading American Born Chinese (see “The Highwater Review” blog for a great annotation J).  But in my heart of hearts, I’d almost always rather be reading Charles Dickens.  That’s just my thing.  I shouldn't have to cringe and apologize for it any more than street lit or graphic novel readers.  But I always feel like admitting a love for classic lit will make me seem hoity-toity.  (Using the term “hoity-toity” in a blog probably just exacerbates the snooty image.  Oy!)

However, reading is such a priority in my life, such a pleasure in my life, such a NECESSITY in my life that I can’t imagine any reason to discourage patrons from reading what they like regardless of the genre.  I’ll read whatever you put in front of me.  In a pinch, I’ve been known to read cereal boxes, political tracts, or even (gasp!) user’s manuals.  I’m sure a lot of my fellow SLIS students fall into this category, and I don’t think any of us will go out into the world and shame a patron who wants to check out a title by Sister Souljah or Stephenie Meyer.

I know that there was an era when librarians did assume some responsibility for shaping a reader’s literary development.  Today, I think the responsibility lies instead with shaping our own literary development.  It can be valuable to have at least some experience and knowledge of a wide variety of genres, styles, and formats.  Keeping abreast of publishing trends, reading tastes, and new technologies can enhance the effectiveness of readers’ advisory services.

And since I tend to preach on the subject of talking about books, I’ll add that I think talking to readers about the authors and genres they love can provide librarians with insights into appeals we might personally be missing.

Now if you’ll forgive me for my literary snobbery, I’ll go back to reading my latest work of high-brow, quality fiction, Pride and Prejudice . . . and Zombies.

 

Book Annotation: Literary Fiction

Silver Sparrow (2011)

Author:  Tayari Jones

Publisher:  Algonquin Books

ISBN: 1-565129903

Genre:  Literary Fiction
             African-American Fiction
             Women’s Lives & Relationships

Awards:

·         2012 ALA Black Caucus Literary Award

·         Library Journal’s 2011 Top Ten List

·         Women’s National Book Association 2011 Great Group Read List

·         O: The Oprah Magazine’s Best Books for 2011

·         NAACP Image Award nominee in 2012

·         Tayari Jones was selected to receive the “Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts” by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in 2012

Summary:  The first line sets the stage: “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.”  Two sisters live their lives only a few miles apart.  One, Dana, has always been aware that her father has a real wife and a legitimate daughter, while she and her mother are kept in the shadow of her father’s love.  But mother and daughter rationalize that they have the advantage, since they know the truth of their unusual situation.  The other sister, Chaurisse, gets more time and attention from her father, but is happily unaware that he is living a double life.  Silver Sparrow gives each of the sisters a voice and provides the reader with surprising perspectives on family relationships and self-image.

Appeals:

·         Character-driven and relationship-centered, contrasting the lives of two sisters, one of whom is unaware that she has a sibling.

·         First person point of view switches from Dana to Chaurisse halfway through the book, allowing us to experience the thoughts and emotions of both sisters.

·         Strong sense of place, the neighborhoods of suburban Atlanta are small enough that the reader anticipates the inevitable face-to-face meeting of the sisters.

Aspects of the book which are characteristic of the Literary Fiction Genre:

·         Characters are more important than storyline

·         Setting is prominent (suburban Atlanta from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s)

·         Pacing is gradual

·         Language and dialect reveal compelling aspects of differing characters

Read Alikes:

·         Family Pictures by Jane Green (2013)

·         The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen (2012)

·         Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (2011)

·         The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian (2007)

·         October Suite by Maxine Clair (2001)

·         The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970)

Week 12 Prompt: Non-fiction RA Matrix

Title:  Shadow Divers: The True Adventures of Two Americans
          Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II

Author:  Robert Kurson

Publication Date:  2004

Length:  397 pages

Subject Headings:     U-869 (Submarine)
                                    World War, 1939-1945—Naval operations—Submarine
                                    Shipwrecks—New Jersey
                                    Deep diving—New Jersey

1.     Where is the book on the narrative continuum?  A mix -- highly narrative moments (perilous deep water diving) are mixed with periods of fact-based prose (history of submarine warfare).

2.     What is the subject of the book?  Weekend divers find an unrecorded sunken German u-boat off the coast of New Jersey and spend several years trying to correctly identify the submarine.

3.     What type of book is it?  Narrative non-fiction with rich descriptions of characters, setting, and events.

4.     Articulate appeal

What is the pacing of the book?  Begins with background material and proceeds at a gradual pace, but some of the more suspenseful scenes race by rapidly.

Describe the characters of the book.  The two main characters – John and Richie – are described in detail.  John is a straight-laced, courageous leader who is respected by all.  Richie, on the other hand, has approached diving with a casual, “rock star” attitude.

How does the story feel?  Prominent emotions would be the obsessive drive and determination of the two divers to identify the submarine, and their frustration when they hit roadblocks to the truth.  There is also a slow build of suspense, since the dangers of deep sea diving result in several deaths during the continuing investigation.

What is the intent of the author?  It is very clear that the author respects the discipline and courage required for recreational diving and the resolve of these two men to complete their task.

What is the focus of the story?  Essentially, this is a quest tale.  Two men risk their lives to find an answer.

Does the language matter?  There is a lot of technical description – both about diving and about submarines – that is delivered in a surprisingly accessible manner.  I expected to get lost in technical jargon, but I never did.

Is the setting important and well-described?  The underwater world of deep sea diving is vividly described.

Are there details and, if so, of what?  The submarine is not well-described at first, because the divers have only limited time to view it before they must return to the surface.  On subsequent dives over the course of several months and years, the reader gains additional details of the vessel as the divers explore further.  These details are combined with research on German u-boats of the World War II era.

Are there sufficient charts and other graphic materials?  Are they useful and clear?  The book includes a schematic drawing of the sunken sub and 24 pages of photographs.

Does the book stress moments of learning, understanding, or experience?  Because the two divers immerse themselves in researching WWII-era submarines, the reader accumulates knowledge of Naval history as well as deep water diving.  The divers feel that it is important to identify the sub in order to help bring closure to the families of German sailors lost at sea.  Their respect for these “enemy” seamen leads the reader to feel satisfaction in the completion of their quest.

5.     Why would a reader enjoy this book?  (Rank appeal.)

1.     Learning/Experience

2.     Characterization

3.     Detail