“I guess I should’ve known by the way U parked your car sideways that it wouldn’t last”
advocacy
Fighting Fire with Free Speech: Protest Book Burning on 9/11
Sep 9th
In what is emerging as a series on “why I became a librarian”, here’s my next blog post. I started out this series, not realizing at first what it would become, by talking about the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom’s Banned Books Week Machinima contest. As it turned out, there was a short depiction of book burning, in a video game, included in that post:
Denying people the right to freedom of speech via the burning of media is a pretty anti-American act. Libraries are constantly facing struggles in making sure that information, even information some people want to censor, is available to all.
That brings us to my 2nd post on “why I became a librarian”, and I credited a group of musicians as influencing my future career. You know who is another group of musicians who influenced many people? The Beatles. (this post happens to come on the 1-year anniversary of the release of the first Beatles video game)
How did they deal with this American opposition to their British music? They took the true ideals of America, staging protests and standing up for what is right:
And that brings us back to this post. In the most un-American way possible to remember 9/11, a pastor in Florida will burn copies of the Qu’ran.
In Chicago, the ALA will be staging a protest to this act.
Fighting Fire with Free Speech: ALA Will Protest Book Burning with 9/11 Qur’an Reading
“The librarians of America will not stand by and let ignorance rule,” says ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels. “For every would-be book burner, there are thousands of readers who will speak out for the freedom to peaceably assemble and read whatever they choose.”
Book burning is the most insidious form of book banning, and just as the American Library Association is preparing to celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week, along comes one Rev. Terry Jones of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. The good reverend’s idea of world outreach is to commemorate the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 with a public burning of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book.The mind-boggling logic behind Jones’s plan has attracted the attention of Muslims and media around the world, and this morning, news sources reported that Gen. David Petraeus had personally pleaded with the reverend to restrain himself because of the potential for retaliatory violence against U.S. troops and citizens overseas that the book burning could provoke.
Meanwhile, the American Library Association and librarians across the country will move the Qur’an to the top of the Banned Books Week agenda. (Leading the way by modeling tolerance, an Oklahoma public library has been hosting an exhibit of artwork inspired by Muslim tradition.)
“Free people read freely,” says Barbara Jones, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. “That is a fundamental principle of the American Constitution and a basic mission of public libraries. We don’t burn books, we read them.”
Whether or not the Rev. Jones (who is no relation to ALA’s OIF director) proceeds with his plan, librarians and library advocates will assemble on the steps of the American Library Association headquarters in Chicago this Saturday at 1 p.m. for a public reading from the Qur’an to counteract the burning in Gainesville, and Banned Books Week will launch on September 25 with readings from the Qur’an.
Link to the ALA’s full post on the topic.
PLEASE HELP US HELP THE ALA SPREAD THE WORD BY TWEETING THIS LINK:
http://bit.ly/dgkn2t
This is why we became librarians, folks. Let’s stand up for Freedom of Speech.
Amateur Video Game Composers
Sep 3rd
Coming off of yesterday’s post about the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom Machinima contest, I decided to talk more about using video games as a medium for creative expression. Yesterday I talked about video games & film, today, video games & music!
Chiptune is a genre of music where the composer and/or performer uses the sounds generated by “retro” video game or computer hardware as the instrument. Instead of playing a guitar or a trumpet or a violin, they play a Gameboy. Or a Commodore 64.
The phrase “8 bit” evokes a certain nostalgic emotion attached to video game culture, which is why the movie we linked to in yesterday’s post was titled 8-bit, why we’re called “The 8bitlibrary”, and where this collective of chiptune musicians get their name:
Before I was a librarian blogger, I was a video gamer. And as such, I got into this crazy genre of music called chiptune. The 8bitpeoples are a collective of musicians who use classic video game hardware to make music and then give it away free on the internet. I actually think they are at least part of the reason why I ended up becoming a librarian: the idea that information and expression should be free (including artistic expression) is one of the core principles of librarianship. The contest that spawned yesterday’s post, and inspired today’s, is thanks to the efforts of the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom in fact!
8bitlibrary.com is inspired a bit by them as well; while the “8 bit” in the name we took because of its nostalgic nature, and the “library” because of our love for Library Garden et al, the idea of “a collective of creative outside-the-box thinkers” in this field is at least partly inspired by the 8bitpeoples.
This is something librarians should seriously think about as we move forward: we aren’t book depositories. Even things like literacy are only part of what we do. Let’s take our inspiration from a variety of sources. Musicians. Chefs. Artists. I would love to see a wave of librarians who say “I became a librarian because of an example set by a musician“. I had a convo with Allen McGinley on our way down to #ALA10: he said he would love to see a librarian on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, not as a musician, but as a librarian. I ended up using that as one of my two goals for an exercise we did during an ALA Emerging Leaders event.
Anyway, enjoy some free Chiptune music via the 8bitpeoples:
one of my favorite Christmas Albums, ever:
Who doesn’t love Axel F?
Banned Books Week ’10 Machinima
Sep 2nd
As the video game medium grows in cultural importance, it is natural that game players will want to use these communication tools (are they REALLY games?) in creative ways. A good friend of 8bitlibrary.com, filmmaker Justin Strawhand, released a documentary in 2006 titled (appropriately) 8 bit. The trailer for the movie, interestingly enough, includes a shot of an artist who used a video game to depict “book burning”, see if you can catch it about 1 minute in:
The largest movement towards “using video games as to make art” is called Machinima. When you make a Machinima, you record video game characters as your “actors”, the video game is your “set”, and you are the director. Machinima is so popular that the PR campaign for the upcoming game Halo: Reach include humorous machinima commercials using Halo as the tool to make the commercials. Here’s an example of machinima:
And that brings us to the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom’s contest:
Banned Books Week 2010: Second Life Machinima Contest
Calling all filmmakers! As part of our celebration of Banned Books Week (BBW) in Second Life this year, we’re inviting everyone to take part in our Banned Books Week Machinima Contest. Machinima is filmmaking within a real-time, 3-D virtual environment like Second Life.
Your inspiration for your machinima entry should be “Think For Yourself and Let Others Do the Same,” the theme for this year’s BBW campaign. Submissions will be accepted between August 22 and September 25, 2010. Participants can enter as many videos as they’d like. The grand prize winner will receive 10,000 Lindens; a BBW 2010 T-shirt; and their video featured on the OIF Blog and in AL Direct. For more information about the contest, including rules and specifications, please click here. For further questions regarding the contest, please contact Tina Coleman (AKA, Kay Tairov in Second Life) via e-mail at ccoleman@ala.org.
You know 8bitlibrary.com will be participating! We will for sure be taking that little clip of a “video game book burning” as inspiration.
Please help us help the OIF spread the word about the contest by tweeting this link: http://bit.ly/deMZui
Librarians (*will be*) taking SXSW by Storm..
Aug 21st
…with your awesome assistance…
We in the library <yawn> conference land can gain to learn from the unique panel proposal process at play over at SXSW, sure it takes some coordination and work, but man – does it ever get the community involved, and get people riled up for the conference MONTHS in advance.
Case in point: “They stopped coming?”: Librarians Don’t Cry They Re-View panel proposal
We don’t need to replay all the library X.0 cliches, but we can roughly agree that there are plenty of amazing and radical things about libraries that the public/industry/internet has forgotten about – or at least has slid out of the radar. So here’s an example of taking action in a variety of ways, including cross-pollinating info-related conferences/festivals on the kick-ass-librarian’s agenda. And being good information inseminators, we can bring back the good components to put into play within our own field.
So, go on, take a look at the proposal above – give it a vote if you like it, and toss in a comment about what you’d hope to see, and how you’d like to get involved (they don’t call it INTERACTIVE for nothing). While you’re there, poke around and see what other panel proposals strike your fancy….then we can start ruminating about getting a similar process going within libraryland conferences too – hmmm?
Sooooooo we did get a bit sassy with the write up. If you need some help deciphering, this may help: dating acronyms
Simple & Easy Shared Library Ideas (via Infolink)
Aug 18th
Mary Martin, director of the Long Hill Public Library in NJ recently did a poll on the listserv for Infolink, one of our regional library cooperatives in NJ, and the results were so good I had to share them with you 8bitlibrary.com readers! Hope you can pass these ideas on as well!
NJ has a truly great library community.
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Simple & easy shared library ideas – August 2010
Ways to Engage Patrons
Front Desk Raffle
Run a fun contest at the circ desk every few months (e.g. get a quote from a book, display it and have patrons guess origin of quote. Those who guess correctly are entered into a drawing to win something simple (a gift card to Starbucks, DD, etc)
Raffle Ticket Inside Book
Variation of above, but put a “raffle” ticket inside books so people will be surprised when they find the ticket. (Bestsellers, hot movers, etc). The raffle ticket could even ask people for their opinion of the book.
Summer storytime
Does your town have a pool or a lake? There’s no law that says storytime must always be offered at the library. One library does a special storytime at the pool during the summer.
Book Bingo for the Whole Family
“Join us to play Bingo and win a book! All ages welcome, parents and grandparents too! No registration required.” All you need is some refreshments and some books as prizes (they use donated books so there is no cost aside from the refreshments). This has been very popular – the library who ran this had over 70 people in July.
Adult Summer Reading Program
A librarian writes: Based on this year’s water theme, we expended to the elements in general. We asked people to read a book or watch a DVD concerning the elements. We provided a list of suggestions to get them going. For each title, they fill out an entry slip for a drawing. We’ll do a drawing for some mugs at the end of August.
Teen summer reading program
At Long Hill we run both a teen and an adult summer reading program. For each book the patron reads or listens to, they fill out a raffle ticket. We draw winners weekly, and they win either a mug or a book (we use donated books as prizes). At the end of the summer we have one grand prize teen winner and one grand prize adult winner, each win a $25 gift card to Borders. We also offer the option for the patron to review the book, and we post their reviews on our library blog.
Storytime for Grownups
Because why should kids have all the fun?
Blind Date with a Book
In late January/early February, wrap up some books in brown paper, decorate with Valentine’s Day theme and encourage patrons to choose one to take home. Long Hill did this last year, it was fun and patrons enjoyed the opportunity to check out a book they might not otherwise have chosen.
Happy Holidays from the Library Staff!
Engage the staff by asking them to recommend holiday or winter themed books or DVDs. Then create a bookmark with their recommendations and give it out to library patrons.
Sharing Our Knowledge w/ Patrons
Staff Picks/May We Recommend?
Display backlist titles or staff picks that people may not have had a chance to read, at the front desk. You’d be surprised at how the staff picks fly off the desk. One caveat: pick books that are in good shape with interesting cover art. They are more likely to catch patrons’ interest.
If You Like cards in the stacks near popular authors
“If you like James Patterson you might also like….” these have been very popular at our library, I am happy to share the cards with anyone who wants to use and/or modify them.
Help patrons find their way around Nonfiction with shelf end cards that include not only the Dewey numbers but the subject patrons will find within that Dewey range – e.g 910.202 – 940.54 Geography, Travel, Ancient History or 600 – 618.24 Nutrition & diets, health & medicine
Recent Returns cart
In front of the circ desk, we have a cart where we put recently returned new books. We deliberately put the cart next to the book drop at the desk, because right after people drop off their old set of books is when they’re looking for new stuff to read. It cuts down on shelving, gives people a smaller section of books to browse.
“Bestsellers You Haven’t Read Yet”
Create a new section right next to New Fiction (or even use a folding bookcase or cart in front of the circ desk) with colorful books by big authors (Grisham, Roberts, Patterson, Picoult etc). You could even do a variation on the theme and do a “Best Books You Haven’t Heard Of” or a “Staff Picks” section. Assign someone to keep the display fresh and replenish it when necessary.
Get those oversized books circulating!
A librarian writes: “One thing we do is combine our browsing shelf with two lower shelves, and we choose a selection of oversized books there. Our oversized books tend not to go out as much as the other books, mainly because they are shelved separately. By showcasing them, not only do they go out, but people will go to the oversize shelves more than before.”
Oversized art books
One library I visited has a special set of shelving near the circ desk where they display oversized art books. As soon as they created this special section, the circulation of this type of book skyrocketed.
Summer Reading Lists
Make sure you have printouts of the local schools’ summer reading lists (both required, and recommended), and put them in binders. It may also be nice to post links to the reading lists on your library’s web site. We didn’t have the K – grade 5 recommended reading lists printed out until one of our staff members mentioned that she was getting a lot of requests for them. So I talked to the elementary school librarian and got the lists, then printed them & posted on our website.
Creative use of volunteers
Reading Buddies (teen volunteers)
Teen volunteers come in to read to little kids. Great all year round but especially during the summer when you have all those teens who want to volunteer
Computer Tutors (adult volunteers with computer skills)
Adult volunteers who have computer skills come to the library once a week at a set time, and help whoever comes in with their questions. It’s been very successful at Westwood Library and they’ve gotten great feedback from their patrons.
Another library described a similar program, PC Tutoring. They offer one-on-one computer tutoring to patrons twice a month, on several PC basics.
Better Communication with Patrons
Ask patrons for help in maintaining your collection
Patrons complaining about DVDs, audio CDs not working properly? You can create a simple slip asking patrons “Help us keep our collection in good repair” and including checkmarks where they can indicate what is wrong with the item. Then train staff to look for those checkmarks when an item is returned. And clean/repair item before it is reshelved.
Ask for what you need in your answering machine message
At Long Hill, we noticed that when people left messages for us at the front desk they usually failed to give us the info we needed (e.g. if it was a renewal) or they would be crystal clear in their message up until they told us their last name, which always ended up sounding like “Blarfengar.” So we changed our answering message to say “We’re sorry we missed your call. Please leave a message with your name, and please spell out your last name for us. Provide your phone number and your request. We’ll return your call as soon as we can.” This friendly message that clearly tells them what info we needed from them. It has cut down on the head-scratching we were doing when we checked our messages.
“You don’t have enough mysteries.”
One librarian writes: I met an elderly gentleman at a community event. He told me he stopped using our library because we didn’t have many mysteries. When I asked him for more details I learned that he thought the only mysteries we owned were on the New Book shelves. So now we have a sign on our New Mysteries shelves that says “We have over 7,500 mystery novels and many others available from other libraries at no charge…”
Cheap Advertising/Marketing
Use printable business cards to advertise services. For instance, if you want to promote Reference USA you can print business cards and hand them out to business patrons for them to file in their wallet, where they might actually have a chance of finding it when they need it.
Contact your local newspaper and find out if they have “community blogs.” Long Hill’s local newspaper encouraged us to start a blog with them. We use it to promote library events and what is interesting is that the newspaper staff read our blog, so occasionally they will print an article in the paper about the library even though we didn’t send them a press release – they just take the info from our blog.
At Long Hill we get BookPage book review magazine (for patrons) and we subscribe to the NextReads database (providing 21+ book related email newsletters people can sign up for.) When BookPage comes we put a sticker on it saying “Like what you read here? Sign up for NextReads for even more great recommendations.” To increase use of NextReads newsletters we also created easy sign up sheets and put them all around the library (including in our New Book binder) to encourage people to sign up. (We also use NextReads for our monthly children’s events email newsletter.)
Tax Forms
As you know the State of New Jersey stopped providing tax forms and instructional booklets this year. One of Long Hill’s staff members suggested we print out a couple copies of the instructional booklet, put them in binders and allow patrons to check them out for 7 days. This was a great way for us to serve the patrons
Easy Technology Tools
A librarian writes “We are a small library and only have 4 public Internet computers. We also have a large number of latchkey kids. This summer we decided to implement separate adult and juvenile usage times. Adults get their time on the computers from 10:30 to 12:30 and kids get their time from 2 to 4. Now we don’t have adults complaining about the noisy kids at the computers with them, and can guarantee that kids won’t be bothered by adults during their designated time period.”
Digital frame
You can get a cheap digital frame and put pictures from library events on it. Long Hill has this at our front desk. The kids especially are mesmerized by this – they look for themselves and their friends in the pictures.
Why Does the Media Still Think Video Games are Bad for Kids?
Aug 10th
Why Does the Media Still Think Video Games are Bad for Kids?Experts say video games can help children develop complex critical thinking skills, experiment at their own pace, and learn from their own mistakes. So why does the media still focus only on the negatives of video gaming?
To read more of this article, click here: Why Does the Media Still Think Video Games are Bad for Kids?
JP’s edit: Coinciding with today’s #libgaming chat is the twitter meme hashtag going around: #gamingis Let’s try to merge these convos!!
I wrote this post a few weeks ago which sort of touches on this same subject
Thanks to Bobbi Newman for pointing this article out.
Retro Gaming Day press release…
Jul 29th
I got really excited when I got an email with an 8bitlibrary.com Retro Gaming Day press release in it! Big shouts to our own MaMcGinley & RedheadFangirl for setting this all up. Hope to see some of our readers at the event:
Saturday, September 11, 12 – 4 PM
The 8bitlibrary.com Retro Gaming Day
The first ever Retro Game Day will be conveniently located in central NJ at Piscataway Public Library! Cool panel speakers on retro games, and open play on old school platforms like SNES, Gameboy, Xbox! From Pac-Man to Mario to World of Warcraft, learn and play with the 8bitlibrary.com bloggers and librarians. See you there!
For more information, visit us at http://blog.8bitlibrary.com/retro or email questions to Laverne at lmann@lmxac.org.
Location:
Piscataway Public Library
Kennedy Branch
500 Hoes Ln, Piscataway, NJ
May I See Your RealID? (Part II)
Jul 26th
As I commented in my previous post, (here) World of Warcraft’s new BattleNet RealID system allows for players to communicate with their fellow gamers all across the spectrum of “realms/servers”. All you have to do is log in to your BattleNet account, and all of your virtual friends will know that you are online.
The purpose of this is to turn World of Warcraft into a type of game-based social network. If players create a single RealID username for themselves, they don’t have to remember several different character names for each of their friends. Much like Facebook or Friendster or MySpace, your identity is strictly that; it’s who you ARE. You could even include your RealID on your business card if you don’t mind having your business associates find you in the PvP arenas! ;)
Image stolen from worldofwarcraft.com screenshot gallery. (then modified by me)
Many World of Warcraft players were greatly pleased by this new ID system. It allowed players to keep track of their friends online, and provided a way for characters to communicate across servers. There are, a few unfortunate consequences to having this kind of immediate accessibility.
At first, it was Blizzard’s plan to require the player to sign-in with their RealID on the Official World of Warcraft forums. This would allow people to recognize each other as they posted on the message boards. This was generally accepted as a BAD idea. Although many people are very civil and well-intentioned on the official forums, many others enjoy venting their grievances with great passion and reckless abandon. Having a RealID that could be used to trace the commenter back to the player, could have very negative consequences for some. The anonymity in WoW is what allows some players to express themselves in a more unrestrained fashion.
From Penny Arcade, 7/9/10
So while some argue that the RealID system is a useful tool for preventing abuse on the forums, still others have argued that this is a privacy issue. Some users can even discern issues related to the Freedom of Speech and the expectation of privacy in this system. Shouldn’t players be free to speak what’s on their mind, regardless of the content? While we all hate trolls (no no, not this kind) and griefers, but don’t they have the right to spew their venom online too?
As it turns out, this a moot point. Not only has Blizzard kindly capitulated to the message board trolls, (your RealID name is not shown on the Forums now) they’ve also taken steps to ensure that the player is reasonably safeguarded from their personal information.
From the BattleNet FAQ: http://us.battle.net/realid/faq.html
Only the people that you add to your RealID friends list can see your name, and they ONLY see your name. They can’t track you down in that magical land we call “Real Life” unless you personally give them the information that they’d need to do that. Parents are also able to safeguard their children’s identities by using the BattleNet parental controls to lock their wee ones out of this feature. (as well as control the amount of time the kidlings spend on online, and other such things.
So while there was a brief blizzar– … er, snowstorm, of controversy surrounding the RealID system, it turns out to be much ado about little. Of course, the potential for drama is still there. There are doubtlessly still players who secretly play characters of an opposite faction from their regular Guild for a little good-natured competitive ganking, right?
... or does that kind of thing just happen in fictional web series?
… and of course, there are certainly those who can probably track down their fellow gamers no matter how carefully you cover your tracks. But the question is, where do we draw the line between privacy and socialization. Do we necessarily want anyone else to be able to put a real-life name to our virtual identities? Does anyone really NEED to know that the sexy warlock Lachrymae of the Lordaeron Undercity is really just some pathetic librarian in a lame fedora? Am I personally willing to sacrifice privacy just to be able to find my friends online?
Perhaps World of Warcraft is a safe haven. Maybe the protections and security there are solid. But what about the other social media? Are we TOO connected? Can someone trace my Nintendo Mii back to … Me? How much of my identity is my virtual identity? Am I more Craig, or more Lachrymae, or more whatever you’d call my XBox Live avatar? It’s been said that privacy is dead in our modern culture. That young people are not concerned with privacy, they want the spotlight. Thousands of self-indulgent YouTube videos would seem to bear this out, but the truth is more complicated, isn’t it?
Are we too involved? Have social media completely ensnared us in a web of connections that we can’t escape? How much of you is online for anyone to see? I’m looking for answers from YOU, faithful reader. Could I track you down in real life from your Facebook profile like some creepy stalker guy? What is YOUR Real ID? ;)
World Cup Programming in Libraries is a Win for the Whole Community
Jul 20th
Sky Blue FC player looks on with Piscataway-area kids during the 2010 FIFA World Cup US-Algeria game on June 23.
On June 23, the Piscataway Public Library was cloaked in silence. Not the regular kind of library-silence. Silence, as people sat on the edge of their seats, hoping and praying. The silence suddenly erupted into yelling, clapping, and cheering. The U.S. had just scored a goal in the 91st minute to gain a victory that sent them into the next round of play in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. But as far as I was concerned, the real win was for the community of Piscataway.
Coordinated by the director, James Keehbler, the Library hosted its first ever World Cup event. At around 9:30 am, I stood in the back of a room packed full of 60 plus jersey-clad people of all ages. The far end of the room featured a large movie theatre style screen displaying ESPN. There was a buzz of excitement in the air that this building just wasn’t quite accustomed to. Was I really in a public library?
In addition to screening the all-important group C match, the Library also arranged for the local women’s professional soccer team Sky Blue FC to join in the fun. Sitting with kids from the community, the team watched the drama unfold, and signed autographs for fans during halftime. During the break in play, I watched a young girl wearing an “O’Reilly” jersey talk to none other than Heather O’Reilly (two-time Olympic gold medalist and member of Sky Blue FC) and the full impact of this event really hit me. I don’t know what they were saying to each other, but I had a feeling the young soccer fan would not forget this day any time soon.
Piscataway is an incredibly diverse community, and the demographics have changed considerably in recent years. The room was packed with people young and old, and reflected a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. But on June 23, none of that seemed to matter. For one magical morning, regardless of where we were born, or what language we spoke at home, the only country on our mind was the United States of America.
#libgaming (Topic: July 7, 2010: Core Collections)
Jul 7th
#libgaming will discuss the following topic today at 4pm EST on Twitter
If you were to create a core collection list of MUST HAVE titles for your library collection, what would they be and why?
