Miscellany: library news and trends, crafts, book art, and librarians playing croquet

This collection of links is going to be a real mix of things, but there’s so much interesting stuff I’ve seen lately!

YA lit and library news and trends
One of the things I’d like to see more of in librarianship in general and youth services especially is more rigor and research. YALSA is launching the Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults, an online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal, in November. They’ve put out a call for papers for the Winter 2011 and Spring 2011 issues.

Through 20 September you can also nominate librarians for the I Love My Librarian Award. The winners get a $5000 cash award, a plaque, and a $500 travel stipend to attend an awards reception in New York hosted by The New York Times, so this is a great opportunity for all of you library users to nominate a librarian who’s made a difference in your life or your community.

The Horn Book has available a poster called “A is for XBox: 26 Ways to Prevent Summer Reading.” While I think there’s some unnecessary hostility toward technology (you can read books and play video games), it’s still pretty cute.

Speaking of summer reading, one Bronx teen read 325 books during the New York Public Library’s summer reading program. That’s astounding, but I think my favorite part of the article was the bit about the boy designated “most improved” who began having to have his parents read to him but finished reading over 60 books on his own. Yeah summer reading!

In sadder/madder news, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was recently removed from a school library in Missouri. On Wednesday the school board voted unanimously to ban the book from the school curriculum and voted 7-2 to keep it out of the library.

Alexie’s book has won a number of awards, but that did not sway the board.

“We can take the book and wrap it in those 20 awards everyone else said it won and it still is wrong,” said board member Ken Spurgeon.

Supporters of the book said it was chosen to get high school boys, particularly, interested in reading. Spurgeon said that was a mistake because the book’s reading level is low for high school readers.

Over at Closed Stacks, The Librarienne rails against the ALA for continuing to promote the idea that librarianship is a greying profession and that there will soon be a mass exodus of retirees leaving positions for new librarians to fill, citing the unemployment and underemployment she and her fellow graduates are suffering.

But in non-sucky news, Bitch Magazine recently interviewed Lia Friedman, he head of public services at the UCSD Arts Library, the staff librarian for make/shift magazine, and an active member of Radical Reference. Lia talks about the values of librarianship, stereotypes of librarians, and what Radical Reference does.

Earlier this spring I reviewed Joanna Philbin’s debut YA novel The Daughters. For readers who want more, Philbin did interviews with School Library Journal and the Poppy website.

I finally finished catching up on all of the Mockingjay-related posts on blogs I follow! I think Leila’s overall analysis at Bookshelves of Doom and Jia’s take on its portrayal of the horrors of war at Dear Author are spot on.

Way earlier this summer, Shannon Hale asked other YA authors about books with morals and got a lot of interesting responses.

The team at Orbit had their summer intern do “a survey of cover art elements for the top fantasy novels published in the previous year,” and a few weeks ago they published their results. The summary in chart form:

Crafts
ohdeedoh has a tutorial on creating custom hardbacks with cardboard, fabric, a gluestick, and an inkjet printer.

Check out these simple cut-paper bookmarks from We Wilsons and Wild Olive.

And celebrate back to school with Sew, Mama, Sew!‘s binder pouch tutorial.

Book art, storage, and design
There’s more amazing book art at style/SWOON.

design*sponge‘s collection of photographs of different book storage techniques is pretty cool.

And João Machado‘s video “The Effect of a Book, Extending Beyond The Form” examines how we handle books:

And finally…
Via YABOOKNERD, the Masters of Library Science Croquet Tournament:

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2 Comments September 10, 2010

Crafts! Henna, crazy putty, and upcycled bags and stationery

Craft programs usually go over pretty well with teens and if you’re smart about where you get your supplies, they don’t have to be expensive events. A couple of projects have caught my eye recently and I thought I’d share them.

Henna programs (with permission slips if necessary) come up on the listservs every few months or so. Instructables user creativegirlz has detailed instructions and pictures.

James and Sylvia at Make show you how to make your own crazy putty. This one involves Borax and it might be a little ambitious, but for libraries with particularly crafty (or mad scientist-like!) teens, this could be a fun project.

Upcycling (using items you were planning to discard and transforming them into something new) is a great way to cut down on craft program costs. If you’ve done t-shirt surgery programs already and you’re looking for another way to put old t-shirts to use, Michelle, a first-year MFADT student at Parsons, shows you how you can turn an old t-shirt into a grocery bag (or a purse for teens).

And finally, Patricia Zapata of A Little Hut shows off a cute stationery set she made from security envelopes, including notecards and envelopes, bookmarks, clips, and pencils. She even provides a PDF instruction sheet.

I found most of these craft projects via the Craftzine blog. It’s kind of high-volume and some of what gets posted is too ambitious for libraries, but it’s a great source of ideas.

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2 Comments July 28, 2010

Make your own finger puppets

When my Youth Services class visited the Greenwood (IN) Public Library in February, one of the things assistant children’s services department head Anne Guthrie mentioned in passing was that you could make your own finger puppets by cutting open a small stuffed toy and sewing in the fingertip of a glove. I loved the DIY aspect of this and was struck by how easy and clever it was, so when we had to do an assignment that required us to plan a library program in detail (like, fifteen-page-writeup level detail!), I outlined a preschool storytime with a “tails” theme and created mice finger puppets that could be used as manipulatives during a recitation of “Three Blind Mice” using Anne’s method.

They took me longer to make than I was expecting, but I think that was mostly due to lack of experience not only with making finger puppets like this but with sewing in general. Even for a domestic arts pro, though, it’d be tough to whip up a batch of 30 the night before a program. If your library has a strong volunteer group, especially including people with sewing experience, this could be a good project to farm out to them.

Blind Mice Finger Puppets
Materials: stuffed mice (I used cat toys from a local pet store), an old glove, fabric scraps for tails, a little bit of sew-on velcro, a seam ripper, needle, thread, and scissors

Mouse #1, pre-surgery

1. Using a seam ripper and scissors, cut a finger-sized hole in the bottom of the mouse. Pull out a fingertip-sized chunk of stuffing (and maybe catnip), but make sure to leave in enough stuffing for the toy to keep its shape.

This mouse's seam was reinforced with glue, hence the gross ragged edges around the edge of the fabric

2. Cut a fingertip off of an old glove. It helps to put on the glove, put your finger into the toy, and then mark around the bottom of the toy so you know how much to cut off. More tightly-fitting gloves work better than loose ones, and if you plan to have children use these as manipulatives, be sure to plan for little fingers.

Reminds me of my marching band days

3. Insert the glove fingertip into the toy and sew around the edges. A whipstitch is easy, but if you’re not using a thread color that blends in, it makes the fingerpuppet look a little like Frankenstein’s monster. I also recommend choosing toys made of a forgiving fabric; the knit mouse in my collection really showed off every mistake in cutting and stitching.

Post-surgery Frankenmouse

4. To create detachable tails, fold a rectangular bit of fabric in half (or in quarters with the raw edges on the inside) and sew the sides together. Then fold over a bit of the end of the tail and sew it down to create an elongated t-shape. Cut a piece of velcro to size, cut off the mouse’s original tail (if it has one), and sew the velcro onto the new tail and the mouse’s behind.

Removable tail--no carving knife necessary!

5. Repeat as many times as necessary to create your own nest/colony/harvest/horde/mischief of finger puppet mice.

My mischief of mice earned me an A!

While the storytime I planned was tail-themed, these could be reused for a more general animal storytime, a pets storytime (although the detachable tails are a little sad in that case!), or a nursery rhyme-themed program. They’re not too hard, especially once you’ve gotten a little practice, and they’re pretty cheap, too.

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1 Comment July 14, 2010

News: property tax caps and Indiana libraries, microfilm art, and YALSA mentoring

About two years ago, the Indiana legislature voted to institute a property tax cap of 1% for residential homes effective in 2010, and Governor Mitch Daniels signed the bill into law. This is bad news for libraries because in Indiana, most of the library’s income is from property taxes (about 80%, in fact, according to the director of the Allen County Public Library). Budgets were cut, hiring was reduced, and cost-saving measures were introduced. The St. Joseph County Public Library said it’d cut all its Saturday hours. A year after the tax caps were announced and revenue cuts had begun, most of the library branches in Vigo County were closed. This fall the Anderson Public Library cut its hours. And yesterday, the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library (IMCPL) announced that they’d likely be closing six branches and cutting 55 jobs. Back in January one poll showed the governor’s approval rating was about 65% across the state with his highest rating (around 70%) in the Indy area, and about 73% of people approve of the tax caps. Libraries provide things like story times and recreational reading and fun programs, but we also provide absolutely essential resources like computer and Internet access and assistance in filing for unemployment online. I’m really hoping that when library services, hours, and staff get cut, people reconsider their approval of property tax caps, but since even cutting fire departments by about 30% hasn’t convinced people that the tax caps are a bad idea, I just don’t know how hopeful I can be.

In more cheerful news, IUPUI’s University Library recently got rid of about half of its microfilm collection and the librarian in charge of the weeding project, Mindy Cooper, was determined to keep it out of the landfill. According to Mindy, a lot of it went to students at the Herron School of Art and Design at IUPUI, Indiana art teachers, and the Eiteljorg Museum, and one of the things it was used for was to make this collage by Alisa Nordholt-Dean at the Eiteljorg. What a neat reuse of discarded library materials!

Finally, the application process for YALSA’s mentoring program began on Monday (here’s the official blog post). They’re looking for librarians who’ve been working with teens in public or school libraries for at least six years to be paired up with new librarians and graduate school students to form a mutually beneficial mentoring relationship. The application forms are due by 30 June and reference forms should be submitted by 7 July. Participants will be notified of their selection in mid-September. I’ve applied and I’m hoping to be selected, but regardless of whether or not I’m invited to participate, I think this is a really cool program and I’m glad YALSA is offering this opportunity not only for new librarians to have guidance, advice, and a source of encouragement, but also to give more seasoned librarians a chance to pass on some of their wisdom and learn new things themselves.

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2 Comments April 10, 2010