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Posts tagged 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.
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
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.
National Gaming Day ’10 / HELP!
Aug 17th
Via http://ngd.ala.org!
We’re happy to announce that libraries can now register for National Gaming Day 2010, which will take place on Saturday, November 13.
Registering will also get your location on the national map we’ll be promoting to both the public and the press. Does your library plan to participate in the national Rock Band and/or Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournaments? Be sure to register so we can work with you ahead of time to get everything in place and tested.
National Gaming Day needs your help!!!
Please visit this link for the full post. Help us help the gaming-in-libraries cause!
Hi, Everyone –
I’m happy to say that we have more international libraries signing up for National Gaming Day this year. Unfortunately, we can’t ship the free donation to them, but they still want to participate (hooray for international libraries!).
Right now, a foreign services librarian with the State Department named Elenita is working with libraries worldwide that are partnering with U.S. embassies. She’s asking for our help to give them ideas for games they can play on NGD (Saturday, November 13).
“I would like to suggest free games that they can find on the Internet to play on NGD. Do you know any paper-based games, such as crossword puzzles or word games for them to try? Anything that is low-tech or no-tech based is preferable. Many participants are learning English as a foreign language.”
Does anyone have suggestions to help with this? TIA!
HAPPY GAMING, 8BITLIBRARIANS.
Technology is not the enemy!
Jul 16th
Let’s talk about education.
We’ll start here. This is an old old 8bitlibrary post that leads to a video of James Paul Gee, one of the world’s experts on using gaming as a teaching tool. His idea that the traditional schooling structure now has “competition” was one that resonated with librarians. By competition, he meant this: in the past, if you wanted to learn something, you had to go to “school”. NOW, you can go lots of places; I’ve managed to get things like “Login with Facebook” and mobile “touch” integration on this site without ever going to school to learn it. Gee goes on to list LIBRARIES (along with the internet) as one of those “competitors” to schools.
But what does this “competition” mean for the traditional educational system?
This leads me to something I shared on Facebook a few days ago. It is just a short article from the New York Times that suggests cheating in K-12 schools isn’t just a problem, it’s an epidemic. We had a lengthy discussion on the topic, which was launched with the comment I made:
As someone who was a HS student just as the internet rose, we never thought of it as “cheating”. IRL, you use all the tools at your disposal to accomplish a task, including working with others (aka “sharing answers”), using multiple information sources (aka “pasting from the web”), and choosing the fastest means to solve a problem (aka “texting”). All of my post-HS accomplishments (like 8bitlibrary.com) were partly because I employed the same “illicit” skills I learned in HS.
While in the traditional, 19th-century notion of “school”, these things might be considered cheating. But let’s analyze the skills that these students are learning in this process: they have learned to solve problems by communicating quickly and effectively (in their case, via txt message & sharing answers). File that under working with a group, team building, and effective communication skills. They are learning how to think outside the box. You know who else thought outside the box? EVERY INNOVATIVE HUMAN BEING, EVER. When Pink Floyd sang “we don’t need no education” on The Wall, they didn’t mean they didn’t need to learn. They meant they didn’t need that traditional learning structure. Our students are learning valuable life skills in many cases despite of the education system, rather than by it.
That leads me to the next link. It is another article from the NY Times that summarizes research on the relationship between student achievement and access to a computer at home in low-income households. The results were (seemingly) pretty dire, with a noticeable achievement gap by the low income students at school when a computer was introduced at home. One of the findings was that the students spent their time playing games, which is presented as a negative in the article. Our readers are here at 8bitlibrary.com because they know games are not bad, and this leads us back to the first link where James Paul gee suggests that using games to teach is the wave of the educational future. I could link you to my School Library Journal article on using Pokemon as a Teaching Tool, but I won’t, because I’ve done that already.
So in that NY Times article, there’s just negative comment after negative comment about low-income students who have computers at home (and, let’s not forget that old basic rule of comparisons “Correlation does not imply causation“). So in one of the studies, there were strict filters put on the computers so the students could only use them for what was deemed “educational” by those performing the study. What the most interesting line in this article says is:
When devising ways to beat school policing software, students showed an exemplary capacity for self-directed learning.
That line was buried all the way in the last paragraph of the article. The sentence that follows it is:
Too bad that capacity didn’t expand in academic directions, too.
This is what is wrong with the education system. When teachers have students who show “an exemplary capacity for self-directed learning”, if they can’t direct that capacity into “academic directions”, we have a system of failing teachers, not failing students.
And this is what Gee talks about in that original link. If the education system doesn’t “reform”, these learning “competitors” will constantly put the education system in deeper and deeper irrelevance.
Project Brand Yourself a Librarian: THE AFTERMATH (PART 1)
Jul 8th
We came, we ALA’ed, and we got branded as librarians…
Since I had already branded myself a librarian back in January of this year, I decided to go another route for the ALA 2010 Project Brand Yourself A Librarian. As an 8Bit Librarian, it goes without saying that video games have a special place in my heart. I can remember getting my Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986 along with the games Super Mario Brothers, Duckhunt, Trojan, and Mighty Bomb Jack. I was in love instantly, not with just the experience itself, but the characters as well. Old Nintendo games have a reputation for not having the most well developed story lines but I found out that worked to my advantage. Instead of books, it was video games that unlocked my curiosity and imagination. They challenged me to create stories, think, and create.
When it came time to get another tattoo, picking my homage to video games was easy. The Legend of Zelda was the first video game that captured me completely. I was so into the world of Hyrule and the main character Link that it was all I thought about. I would spend hours playing in the woods, envisioning my own Hyrule. I would draw maps based on what I discovered while playing the game. Point being, The Legend of Zelda unlocked something in me that had been locked up before. I became curious. Instead of just sitting back and having the world fed to me, I decided to seek it out on my own. I don’t know exactly why I became a librarian, but I’m thinking that had something to do with it. That eternal curious feeling.
One of the reasons why 8BitLibrary was started by JP and I was not only to advocate for video gaming in libraries but also to reach out to the people that are just like the six year old version of myself I described above. In my youth, video games in libraries were not something that went together at all. Because of that, I sort of backed away from my library as I got older. I felt like they didn’t get me. I now look back on those years as a time where I lost a valuable resource that could’ve changed my life. Who know what I would be like if I had the library to guide me during those teenage year. My point is simple…if I can reach out to those teens with games and show them just what else we have to offer, I might be able to make a positive impact on their life.
So, here’s where I explain my tattoo.
Here’s the history behind the game and the Triforce, the relic which Link holds in my tattoo. I got it simply because I love 8Bit art and I love what the triforce stands for: WISDOM. POWER. COURAGE
I feel like that should be the new logo and slogan for libraries.
(much love to Peter Bromberg for the photo)
QR Codes and Libraries
Jun 29th
If you’ve come to this page from the ALA Annual Conference QR Code Scavenger Hunt, WELCOME! & congratulations! Email me [jp@porcaro.info] the full “path” you took, from Cognotes to now, and we’ll be sure to send you a prize!
So let’s talk QR Codes in libraries. I’d love to hear what you’re doing with QR Codes in your libraries, so leave us a comment and we can discuss!
So it seems the buzz around QR codes in libraries takes a few forms. Some libraries are using codes that leads users to the OPAC data on a book or shelving area, depending on the physical location of the code. In the case of our ALA Conference hunt, we had the codes lead participants to physical locations, presentations, and digital destinations. Since the codes embed a tremendous among of text in a small box, the sky is the limit to what libraries can use these codes for. How about placing them around your community announcing a event (there’s a certain amount of excitement and mystery surrounding these codes!). Libraries can connect users to who interested in certain topics to different places in the library and beyond with these codes.
This is a new topic in libraries. We all need to work together on how far we go with this topic, so let’s the convo started right here in the comment box! Look to the right of the page, and you can even login using your facebook account to post comments here.
Go forth! – JP
Digital Distribution for Libraries
May 20th
This post was originally going to be a review of the Rock Band Network/Rock Band Music Store for Xbox 360. Since the start of 8bitlibrary.com, JustinLibrarian and I have sweated over the answer to this question: how can libraries develop a successful video game collection when so many new games are reliant on DLC (which Nintendo, Sony, AND Microsoft have all set up as closed distribution systems completely controlled by them). How can a library, which has a goal of circulating media, circulate content so closed and controlled that it is impossible to use by anyone except the person who purchased it?
File this under “We don’t have all the answers.”
And, of course, librarians across the country are wrestling with this same question, albeit for other forms of media. How can we distribute digital music when iTunes (& to a lesser extent, Amazon and the like) have already taken away our ability to do that? While there are some very expensive (and, in my opinion, very clunky and not-iTunes-like) vendor-controlled options such as Overdrive, Naxos Music, & Freegal, this is just a “patch” that we have while we, as a library community, decide to either get serious about digital distribution or continue to tread water.
A current trending topic of concern in libraries is eBook distribution. How can we loan an eBook on an eBook reader if that content is closed and controlled by a large corporation?
Along that “we don’t have all the answers” line, I decided to go to an expert on the topic, Mr. Libraryman Michael Porter. He has wrestled with the larger distribution issue, just as we are on the smaller (albiet still gigantic) issue of game content distribution. So I asked him,
- How do you feel libraries will be distributing digital media in 2015?
He gave this well-reasoned response:
I imagine two most likely scenarios with little gray in between the potential outcomes. For both, the lynchpin is either succeeding or failing to develop a new electronic content access and distribution infrastructure via libraries. If we can develop that new infrastructure and make it a truly effective, competitive, well used and well liked place for people to get what they want, when they want it, in the format they want it *through the library*, then our future will be more secure and on-target than ever before. If we fail to do this though, libraries will fade in use, funding and relevance. This would eventually lead to the demise of the library as the hub of content access and community engagement and turn many of those functions over to for profit business and institutions that have mission statement tied to profit rather than the health and wisdom of the community and country they serve.
This is a call to action for all of us. We shouldn’t just wait for a vendor to develop a platform for us. We shouldn’t let something as simple as a library’s ability to loan a book be taken away by corporations in the digital age. We need to raise this issue. If we want libraries to continue to exist, we need to let go of our comfort and get on the front lines of this issue.
So there is no confusion, I am not anti-corporation, per se. Corporations can be our partners in it the future. And, so my last words will be positive, we can do it.
Thanks go out to Michael Porter from us at 8bitlibrary.com. Check out his Library 101 project, if you haven’t yet.
8bitlibrary around town
May 17th
Hey all, wanted to share some updates with you about what our contributors are doing in libraries and beyond:
- Justin Hoenke was on Good Day Maine last week promoting the new Portland ME Public Library’s Teen library program. You can watch the video here.
- JP Porcaro just wrote an article for School Library Journal titled The Pokemon Generation which you you can read in its entirety here.
- Craig Anderson‘s 8bitlibrary.com article titled Why Nobody Plays Second Life has lead to a two-part guest post on the Library Journal “Games, Gamers & Gaming” blog. You can read Nobody Plays Second Life (part one) and Nobody Plays Second Life (part two) at those respective links.
- Today is 8bitlibrary.com contributor, 2010 Library Journal Mover & Shaker and creator of #andypoll Andy Woodworth‘s birthday. Happy Birthday, dude!
- We’d like to welcome some new contributors: Eli Neiburger, author of Gamers…in the Library?! The Why, What, and How of Videogame Tournaments for All Ages, High School Librarian Buffy Hamilton, of the Unquiet Library, Brandon Robbins, who has already posted lots of great video game reviews here on the 8bitlibrary, Harvard University librarian Tom Bruno (aka @oodja on twitter), and Stevens Institute of Technology librarian Valerie Forrestal. Welcome to everyone and glad to have you aboard.
- RedheadFangirl Laverne Mann got to meet graphic novel superstar writers the Luna Brothers. How cool is that?!
Hope everyone has a fun week! JP
