Does Amazon love books?

I don't listen to many podcasts, because I find them boring, the way I do most TV shows, which is probably because I don't stick with them long enough.  (I wish children's books podcasts were more like PTI.  I enjoy arguing.)  However, I do like the NYT Book Review podcast, and I particularly like last week's episode, because it touches on two issues near and dear to my heart: Amazon and children's book reviews.

In the section on Amazon, Sam Tannenhaus asks something I've been wondering: why do all the major innovations in reading and publishing seem to be driven by Amazon?  For a while, I have perceived Amazon as the big bad, so I was surprised when Nancy Pearl, whose action figure I often receive as a gift, signed a deal with them.  I thought it was the position of librarians to dislike Amazon--especially now that they are encroaching on our territory.  However, my boyfriend often declares, "Nobody loves books more than Amazon."  I think he has a point.

"To the degree that we can ... replace books with people, that’s the future of where libraries are going.”

That's Anthony Marx, the President of New York Public Library, quoted in a 2011 article in The Nation.  He's talking about a plan to convert the Central Library to a circulating library as well as research facility.  The plan involves ripping out a lot of stacks, adding a lot of computers, and closing two branches to pay for the renovation.  I learned about the plan from a passing comment on the Fuse#8 blog--a Guardian article on the subject makes it clear staff are discouraged (forbidden?) from commenting.  However, library users have not been silent.  And there are some irate Slavic scholars out there.

Richard Peck labors for 40 years and produces a mouse

I just stole the funniest line from Peck's Horn Book acceptance speech for my blog post. But it's not the best line! There are many good lines in his speech. In it he explains that the best way to talk to young people these days is through a book. He seems to say that we can't reach them directly, because they're far away from us, checking their phones and their friends' hairstyles. They live in a different world than adults do. This seems quite true to me.

It was the perfect thing to read (because I agreed with it so wholeheartedly) after fuming about the Nazaryan piece I mention below. (Oh. I think my heart rate just spiked again. Anyway.) However, the speech is not without controversial statements. I also encourage you to read it because of what Peck has to say about attacks from the "family values right" and the "multicultural left." And his comments on Stuart Little's oddness remind me of the time I read the original Curious George to a kindergarten, forgetting about the monkey's pipe-smoking habit ...

In which I attack the attack on Walter Dean Meyers

I love a good polemic, and this one is delightfully hair-curling, so I hope everyone will pop over and read Alexander Nazaryan explain why Walter Dean Myers will FAIL as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.

Of course, I'm a librarian, so maybe my reaction to this opinion piece just shows that it's a good thing I'm not a literature teacher, but I completely disagree with Nazaryan. I mean, I hardly know where to start.

I also don't know much about what the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature is supposed to do exactly, but the title suggests to me that they are supposed to promote young people's literature. And Homer is not young's people's literature.

Also, you can't read Homer all day long. I want my students to become readers, which means to me that reading will be part of their lives in many ways. I want them to read for pleasure as well as enlightenment, and I want them to be able to read the millions of forms and news stories and emails that will fill their lives. And I don't think you have to put down one kind of reading in order to promote another.

Finally, I doubt very much that Walter Dean Myer's mission, as ambassador, is to promote his own literature. I expect he will promote reading and literature in general to many children, and I would argue that he will succeed in an area that Nazaryan and I will undoubtedly fail: in convincing minority kids that reading isn't just for white people. Or old men. Or nerds. Or plucky suburban school girls with adorable quirks who like to read books about butter churns and sleigh rides.

Anyway, the article doesn't even offer an intelligent critique of Dean's writing. It's just an excuse for Nazaryan to talk about his own awesomeness. Way to go, dude. Seriously. He got kids to read and relate to the classics. But why put down other kinds of reading and writing? What I dread much more than the thought that kids will stop reading Homer is that they will assume that all the important books in the world were written hundreds of years ago by dead white men.

* Edited to add: I just went over to the article and posted a comment, and Sarah Flowers, the President of YALSA comments, too! Let the jousting begin!

"Yeah, I'm an EA Librarian."

I'm imagining saying that to people in 20 years. EA stands for Emerging Adult, because according to a recent NYT article, what used to be "your 20s" is now a discrete neurological stage in the development of human life! Check it out:

"JEFFREY JENSEN ARNETT, a psychology professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., is leading the movement to view the 20s as a distinct life stage, which he calls “emerging adulthood.” He says what is happening now is analogous to what happened a century ago, when social and economic changes helped create adolescence — a stage we take for granted but one that had to be recognized by psychologists, accepted by society and accommodated by institutions that served the young."

If "Emerging Adulthood" is a stage with its own psychological profile, it follows that it must have it's own literature. At least, I think. And I can even think of a few examples:

Bookmobiles will save us!

The media has picked up the results of the University of Knoxville study on summer reading and learning loss. From the New York Times:

One of the most notable findings was that children improved their reading scores even though they typically weren’t selecting the curriculum books or classics that teachers normally assigned for summer reading. That conclusion confirms other studies suggesting that children learn best when they are allowed to select their own books.

I prefer the NPR take, which highlights people's love of bookmobiles. It has always been my dream to drive a bookmobile! There was a bookmobile that stopped at the retirement home across the street from me when I lived in Portland, ME, and although it was there to serve less mobile people than myself, I happily took advantage of it. In fact, I remember checking out a number of books about the Bermuda Triangle. So cool.

"Librarians get in fights"

Love this story from NPR (via my sister)! It's all about why libraries are capturing the imaginations of the cool kids. Let's carpe diem before we're perceived as charmingly old fashioned again. Although I like being charmingly old fashioned, too.

Air conditioning, anarchy, and makeshift summer camps

Two interesting news articles have been sent to me by other librarians this past week. Some context for the first one: the Smith Hill and Knight Memorial Libraries have been closed more than they've been open the last two weeks, because they're not air conditioned. When it gets too hot inside, union rules dictate that the building must be closed. Meanwhile, ABC6 is telling people to got to their public libraries to cool down, so the libraries that are open are overflowing (and so are my programs). Is this what it means to be a third space?*

Let me be clear: I'm very grateful for the AC in my building. Not only does it make me comfortable, but it allows us to be consistently accessible to patrons. However, I did enjoy this anti-air conditioning article from the Washington Post.

I did not enjoy this article, which has been circulating among librarians as well: Public Libraries Serving as Makeshift Summer Camps for Some Children in Chicagoland.

In Which I check my Google Reader

And discover some wonderful things!

I'd like to say "Amen!" to this Huffington Post article about the myth of men not reading. I don't think you have to be a man to publish and select books that men will like. But if the population you serve includes, for example, Asian men in their early 20s living in urban areas, then you have to figure out what Asian men in their early 20s living in urban areas want to read. Probably not Anne Tyler, much as I love her. Sometimes you have to read stuff you're not interested in. That's why it's called your job and not something you do for fun. (via Guys Lit Wire)

And where was this list last year when I was seeking out books about the different ethnic populations in my neighborhood? It's wonderful! At this point, I actually have all the books on the Cambodian list, which makes me feel good about myself, but also sort of sad. But it's not cake to find children's books that represent South East Asian experiences, and then when you find them, you think, who wrote this? Is it accurate? So I'm very grateful for this list from the talkstory website, and I'm totally going to use the Hawaii part as a resource for one of my summer reading program activities. (via the YA YA YAs)

Finally, I was interested in the Chasing Ray review of Sources of Light, because although she doesn't take about white privilege specifically, I feel like she's alluding to it. So now I have to read this novel-about-Mississippi-during-the-civil-rights-movement and compare it to My Mother the Cheerleader, which has actually grown on me since I read it a year ago. And Summer of Kings, which I need to re-read after reading The Rock and the River, because they both have scenes in which characters discover radical Black Panther newspapers. I feel like there's an article in here somewhere.

Roadtrip to Queens, anyone?

I really need to visit the libraries in Queens. They're always making news--especially for their teen services. And now, Christian Zabriskie, who is on the Great Graphic Novels for Teens committee with me, has made it into the New York Times as part of an article on love for manga among urban youth. I particularly like this point:

"Mr. Zabriskie, 39, now assistant coordinator for youth services at Queens Library, says manga is for these teenagers what punk rock, New Wave, and Dungeons and Dragons were for his generation: a world of specialized knowledge that excludes adults and opens a private creative space for young people.

“This kind of secret, hidden knowledge gives them a power and an empowerment,” he said. “It’s this generation’s esoterica.”

But, he said, unlike other teenage rituals like graffiti or, at the extremes, gang membership, manga fandom increasingly happens at one of the safest places around — the library."

I love the word "esoterica."

Oh, look! Youth RARI has a website

And I'm on it! I interviewed Kate Klise for the summer reading program newsletter, and now that interview is also available on the Youth Reading Across Rhode Island blog.


And just to refresh, the Youth RARI kick-off is at the State House at noon on Saturday, June 12th. To quote from the blog: "There will be information and activities for kids grades 3 - 6 beginning at noon. Kate Klise, author of Regarding the Fountain will speak at 1:00 and Joe's Backyard Band will perform at 1:45. The first 250 families will receive a free copy of Regarding the Fountain."

Library, meet your new best friend

According to the articles I read last week, one of two things is going to save the publishing industry: the ipad* or erotica. I'm sort of hoping it's erotica. But seriously, what does this mean for libraries? Since the ipad came out, there's been a lot of talk about ebook pricing, and the different players in the industry: authors, publishing companies, bookstores. But libraries are never part of the discussion, which I assume means that the number of books publishers sell to libraries is too small to be important.

Actually, I bet libraries are big buyers of some of the niche nonfiction titles, but publishers never rely on niche nonfiction to bring home the bacon. We all know now that publishers rely on a few bestselling titles to subsidize the rest of their publications. Which is either ridiculously inefficient or sort of encouraging, if you're an aspiring writer.

So the only thing I can figure this means for libraries is that we better get on the ebook and erotica trains, because those seem to be what people want. Interestingly, both ebooks and erotica in the library evoke questions about what a library is "supposed to be."

A study of the optimum distance between a library and a school

They're closing a number of schools in Providence, and I've been discussing with people how this might affect the libraries near the schools. Mount Pleasant, my humble library, is walking distance from two public elementary schools, two Catholic schools, one public high school, and one private high school. Of course, "walking distance" depends on the length of your legs and your walking tolerance, which depends on how often you are transported by minivan.

I once had a volunteer (pity her) take the NCES list of schools in Providence and map them, along with the public libraries, so I could figure out what schools were my responsibility.

[View Providence Schools in a larger map]

Libraries as Physical Places

I'm listening to a podcast about the Boston Public Library situation--they have a budget shortfall, so they're looking at closing some branches. Sound familiar? Oooooh, they just got to the part where they compare the situation to the Providence situation. Ann Robinson is on the line!

Anyway, I think what's at stake here is the library as physical place. Unless we get a lot more money, libraries can't be everything people want them to be: children's playroom, research institution, internet cafe, senior center, homeless shelter, continuing education extension, video store, after school program, etc. But one of the biggest either-or decisions we have to make is whether we're going to be a physical place or an online presence.

In Providence, we've already taken sides. PCL is keeping the physical spaces open--both in terms of locations and hours--and naturally that means other things have to take a hit--collections, staffing, building maintenance, etc. Dale Thompson has embraced the other path, where the assumption is that people have computers and can access your resources 24/7 from wherever.

Maybe another thing that's at stake is whether the library is a social service for people with lower incomes (and the homeless) or an institution that will compete with Netflix and Google to attract the middle to upper class. Maybe we don't have to choose between these two particular extremes, but I don't think we can be everything to everyone in this economy, so we need to commit. To something. Know who we are and be that.

Note: I'm not the first blogger to talk about this, obviously, although it's more often a discussion at University Libraries.