Posts Tagged libraries

A(nother) Love Letter to Libraries

I’ve long had a love affair with libraries. I grew up as a middle grade student wandering rows of dusty stacks and checking out piles of books. I did research in my high school and college libraries. I went to library school and  learned how to make my own library the center of our learning community. Now, I download new books from my local library. I go to write there, and dig into archives and bookstacks galore for nuggets and facts to add to my historical novels and articles.

Those are all great things and I’m so grateful for all of them. This is a different kind of love letter to libraries. I’m thinking of middle grade students today, getting ready to leave school for a long break, to spend their time sipping hot chocolate or sledding, or maybe reading all the books they got as gifts.

But what about those students whose families lack resources? What does their winter break look like? It’s cold here this week. We’ve been sick at our house. What if we had no way to deal with those issues? Worse still, what if one of your students doesn’t? I can’t get this thought out of my head. My imagination begins to run wild and I start to worry about kids like the ones in the first school where I taught, the kids who shared one coat between siblings through the winter. Who depended on a meal –  free or reduced lunch during the school year, or the sandwiches that were served in the cafeteria during the summer on the same day the book mobile came to school.

Libraries help – without regard to socio-economic status or religion or race or just about anything. Libraries help.

Here’s what my local libraries do about this problem that won’t leave my mind.

Some libraries provide cold weather shelter for homeless people. The Everett Public Library provides resources on its home page .

The Sno-Isle Regional Library system also posts resources on its site. In addition, every branch library’s home page lists the cold weather shelter in their neighborhood alongside the library contact information at the top of the page. Why is this important?

In our area, this past January’s One Night Count in Seattle showed that over 4500 people slept outside, and around 30 of those were children. Where I live and work, that is a whole classroom full of kids – or two. 

In my own county to the north, this was the most striking paragraph for me from the countywide Point in Time Survey:

“Precariously Housed Independent Children (17 & Under) Twenty-two children between the ages of 12 and 17 were found to be living on their own, in a precariously housed situation. The average age of this group was 16.3 years old. Three additional children were found living together as one household, one of them the dependent child of a teenage couple. This household stated they spent the previous night temporarily living with family or friends.”

Thinking about kids – the ones we teach and reach each week (or the ones we can’t) being outside in the cold makes me crazy. But there is hope:  alongside city and county agencies, libraries are joining the work and the conversation about homelessness. I will leave you with this document created by the American Library Association: Extending Our Reach: Reducing Homelessness Through Library Engagement 

What services does your library provide?

 

My First ALA Annual Conference

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A little over two weeks ago I got to attend my first ALA Annual conference. It was an exciting experience… and so exhausting. I was there not just as an attendee, but as an author. Lucky me!  I  was thrilled to be representing  three of my publishers: Charlesbridge, National Geographic Kids, and Nomad Press.

Why exhausting? I spent four days on  my feet about 10 hours a day discussing all things BOOKS.  It was awesome!

If you haven’t been to an ALA conference yet, you should go. It is definitely something to see if you love the literary world.

So what did I learn in my first adventure into ALA?

1) ALA is HUGE! Seriously. The room is massive and is FILLED with exhibits from every type of book imaginable: children’s (PB, CB, MG, YA), trade, educational, self-published,  Adult books of many different genres, graphic novels, and even self-help books. There are places to buy benches for your library, consultants to help you plan your technical needs, and also representatives from the Library of Congress and NASA.

My recommendation: Go in. Take a deep breath and get your bearings. It’s a lot to take in all at once.

 

This gives you an idea of the massive size of the convention area. This is one of their empty rooms. It  was actually twice this size. The other half stretched under the walkway I was on. See? HUGE

 

2)  Use your Conference Directory

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Yes, it’s a massive tome in and of itself. But it has all of the information you need. In fact, take a good look through it and make notes of things you want to do and people you want to see. There is a comprehensive list of authors who will be signing and if you know where they are you can get in line… EARLY!

That will save you the time of seeing a huge line, wondering who is there, and walking around to see that you missed the one awesome kidlit author that you definitely wanted to meet.  (Yes, that happened to me a couple of times)

3) Get a COGNOTES every morning

20160709_140603 This is the newspaper that the conference puts out. Every morning at the top of the stairs, people are standing their handing these out. Many people (like me) don’t take one. That is not a good idea. This is a GREAT source of everything that is happening that day.

 

 

4) TAKE THE FREE BOOKS!!

Every publisher is handing out books for FREE. They are just stacked on the tables and you can take them. It’s like being a kid in a free candy store.

People kept asking me “Would you like a book?”  UM YES!!

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This is just one small stack of the 20 books we came home with!

 

5) Find the Book Buzz Theatre, the Pop Top Stage and the Graphic Novel &Gaming Stage

These stages host various authors and editor speakers talking about fascinating topics. I was thrilled to be on a panel with Anastasia Suen and Chris Barton talking about STEM books for kids!

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6) Take time to meet up with author friends

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With author Miranda Paul at the We Need Diverse Books Booth

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Meeting author Sylvia Liu for the first time

 

 

 

7) Spend quality time with your editors

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With Alyssa Mito Pusey of Charlesbridge Publishing

 

8) Talk to many wonderful librarians about your books!

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Playing BRAIN GAMES at the Nat Geo Kids booth

 

Whew! Are you tired yet? And I didn’t even get to go to any of the hundreds of fascinating workshops and programs put on by amazing librarians, editors and authors.

There were so many things to do and see, you can’t possibly get to them all. So here is a short summation of some of the highlights of the conference:

For an amazing wrap up, I give you ALA Annual’s very own video. Go to this page and click on it:  http://2016.alaannual.org/

The ALA Archives has a great summary of many of the wonderful presentations here:  https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/tag/alaac16/

Some fabulous images from ALAAC16 shared by School Library Journal here

Matt de la Peña gave an awesome  2016 Newbery acceptance speech.                        It is a must-read! You can find it on the Horn Book Website here 

So are you game? Plan to attend the next ALA conference?

Here is my final piece of advice : Try to pick a few events that you want to attend and then fill in the rest of the time just walking around and seeing it all.  But whatever you see and do, just drink it all in. After all, its ALL ABOUT BOOKS!!

 

***** Jennifer Swanson is the author of over 25 books, mostly about STEM, because, well, STEM ROCKS! You can find her at her website: www.JenniferSwansonBooks.com

Driving book trailers to new locations — at libraries

You’ll often see book trailers on an author’s website and the publisher’s youtube channel. But did you know that your public library’s catalog is another easy place to view book trailers? It’s also a great place to put a book trailer, whether you’re an author, a teacher, a parent, a young reader (or any age reader). All you need is a library card and you can add content — ratings, reviews, lists of favorites, tags, videos — to a book’s record in the public catalog.

My hometown library is Seattle Public Library, and we share catalog content with our nearby neighbors at King County Library System and our far away friends at Boston Public Library, and dozens of other libraries in between. When I uploaded this book trailer for The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle by Janet Fox to Seattle’s catalog, it also shows up here at Boston Public Library.

And when I added the book trailer for Sarah Albee’s wonderful nonfiction book Why’d They Wear That? to Seattle’s catalog, it shows up here at San Francisco Public Library as well.

Here are a few other book trailers from recent middle-grade books I’ve loved — all uploaded via my local library’s website (I’ve listed a sampling of libraries where they show up, too):

Not every library has the ability (or has chosen to) include videos in their catalogs. But I encourage you to check to see if yours does. And if it does, you can start playing around with rating books, making lists, and tagging local authors (here’s what comes up under the tag “Seattle authors“).

Video interviews, book reviews and book talks also make great content to enhance a library catalog. If your students are working on book-related videos, consider broadening their viewership by adding their work to a library catalog. If you’re an author and one of your presentations or interviews is filmed, consider uploading the video to your book’s catalog record.