Reading is alive and well

There is an interesting piece on "The Future of Reading" by Tom Peters in the Nov. 1 issue of Library Journal.

He discusses various types of reading and readers, emerging formats, and much more. The last couple paragraphs:

Reports of the death of reading are premature. Readers are resilient and inventive. What worries me is not so much that reading will become an attenuated, marginalized field of practice but that the developmental paths of librarianship and reading will diverge in the 21st century. We may wander off from our power base, or it will evolve away from us.
Librarians should encourage—nay, aid and abet—experimentation in reading. We need to cleave to the needs and wants of readers. We must continue to study their reading habits, then design and redesign our content collections, systems, and services to help them improve and maximize their reading experiences. We are in a long-term commitment with readers. We need to be vocal, flexible, and patient as the longstanding relationship between readers and the libraries that serve them continues to evolve.

Right on!

Recharging one's professional soul

I haven't been to an ALA conference since Anaheim 2008 and was going through major Conference Withdrawal, so I decided it was high time I attended my state conference - it's been quite a few years since my last one. The California Library Association held its conference in Pasadena last weekend, and although it was of course very slim compared to ALA, there were plenty of thought-provoking programs.

The best thing about conferences is that I never know what nuggets of inspiration I'll take away from them. During a program on San Diego Public Library's online homework services, that system's collaboration with local schools spurred me to fill my notepad with thoughts on how my own system could improve our outreach and partnership with schools. A program on effective training programs brought home the fact that our system, as a whole, has no training program or budget - is there anything I can do to bring about some needed improvement in this area? A program on El dia de los ninos/El dia de los libros, and especially how it is celebrated in California, made me realize what a perfect match this would be for Los Angeles libraries. And two programs on self-evaluation and assessment reinforced my belief in the urgent need to build evaluation (probably in the form of outcome measurements) into every program and service we offer.

The last program I attended was called 21 Ideas for 21st Century Libraries, offered by a husband-and-wife consulting team. Kim Bolan Cullin, as a trained librarian, understands both the traditions and needs of libraries and their communities and from there makes inspiring leaps into what libraries could and should become. Some ideas are obvious, some are happening now, and some are deliciously full of potential. In her blog The Indie Librarian, Kim presents these ideas and more. I particularly like idea #3 - "multi-functional, zoned children's spaces" and #16 - "the demise of big service desks." And #12 - "people policies" which favors putting the customer first rather than arbitrarily making rules that focus on the word NO - is long overdue.

I won't be attending ALA midwinter (I'm not on a committee, darn it!), but PLA's conference in March 2010 should be amazing, and I'll be there with an open and eager mind.

What if I started a blog and nobody came?

When I was working as a children's librarian in various branches, I had a recurring anxiety dream that the children's area was filling up with children and their families, eager for a storytime that I had totally neglected to prepare for. As they watched, I started frantically searching for books, while minutes and even hours went by and my audience became more and more restless and dissatisfied.

In real life, this wouldn't happen (not only would I be able to gather books together in seconds, but I, like all children's librarians, know enough participation stories, songs, rhymes, and fingerplays to present a storytime without any books at all) - but in anxiety dreams, nothing goes well.

After reading Betsy Bird's enjoyable SLJ article on kidlit blogging yesterday, I had a dream last night that I arrived late to a Kidlit Blogger's Potluck Meeting. Not only was all the food gone, including Monica Edinger's famous cream puffs, but everyone looked askance at the odd rice concoction I brought and only Betsy very kindly and politely tasted it.

Rats - and I thought I had cultivated a very comfortable devil-may-care attitude about this whole blogging thing!

Review of Fortune's Magic Farm by Suzanne Selfors

Selfors, Suzanne. Fortune's Magic Farm. Little, Brown, 2009.


Ten-year-old Isabelle's "grandma," who unofficially adopted her after Isabelle was left on the doorstep as an infant, insists that there was a time when the sun shone in Runny Cove and folks were happy - but Isabelle has only known constant rain and a grueling life toiling away in Mr. Supreme's Umbrella Factory. In fact, that's the way life is for almost everyone in Runny Cove, where all hair is colorless, all skin is pruny with moisture, and slugs are the happiest creatures around. However, one day an elephant seal delivers a magic apple to Isabelle, and soon she has escaped with a mysterious, if slightly cranky, lad named Sage to the hidden land where her family tends a farm that grows magic. Not only does Isabelle blossom (almost literally) in the sunny splendor of Fortune's Farm, but she is able to use her new gifts and resources to bring much-needed aid to the good people of Runny Cove.

This fantasy draws a bit from Dickens (the nasty boarding house, the dreary factory, the poor orphans) and a bit from Dahl (over-the-top mean grown-ups, plucky kids with a specialness to them), but the overall effect is lighter and fluffier -perhaps it's because Isabelle's sunny nature is absolutely undeterred by her grim situation or maybe it's the eccentric folks and creatures (especially a slightly deaf elephant seal and a rock-throwing marmot) whom she meets. I was reminded of The Outlandish Adventures of Liberty Aimes by Kelly Easton, which has a bit of the same sweet, slightly fey quality to it despite the mistreatment of the heroine by ludicrously despicable adults.

The nature of the magic on Fortune's Farm, and especially its use and limitations, remains rather vague, and the happy ending (the transformation of Runny Cove into Sunny Cove) is too pat and hurried to be very satisfying, especially the marriage that occurs in the blink of an eye. One other quibble is the cover art, which depicts Isabelle not with gray hair (as she has in Runny Cove) or green hair (as she has in Fortune's Farm), but with brown hair. As someone who tends to scrutinize cover art (and I'm sure I'm not alone in this), I find such blatant inattention to details irritating. The inside illustrations, drawn by a different artist - Catia Chien - have much more eccentric charm.

All in all, this is a cheerful and fast-moving fantasy with just the right amount of whimsy. Recommended for ages 8 to 10.

Review of Camp Alien by Pamela F. Service

Service, Pamela F. Camp Alien (Alien Agent #2). Carolrhoda Books, 2009.

Science fiction is a genre that, unless it's being deadly earnest and full of Message, delights in being both subversive and funny, with a sense of humor that can be dry, outlandish, or tongue-in-cheek. Pamela Service, author of the modern classic Stinker from Space, keeps third and fourth graders well supplied with breezy science fiction that might well create an SF addiction that leads to longer and more challenging fare as the years go by.

Young Zack grew up thinking he was a human kid adopted by loving human parents, but as he found out in book 1 of this series, he is actually an alien agent placed on Earth to prepare humans for future membership in the Galactic Union. As Zack tells us, "I was numb for a few weeks after learning it all , but it's odd how quickly you can get used to things." And now, just as he's looking forward to a normal, fun summer at camp, he gets swept into a mission headed by a young alien cadet named Vraj who bears a startling resemblance to a velociraptor. They must find 100 Duthwi eggs before they hatch into creatures that could cause a worldwide ecological disaster. Complicating the situation are Bad Aliens with Major Weaponry and of course campers of all types.

Zack is the perfect narrator, self-deprecating and prone to the occasional dry comment and eye-roll. He's got some fascinating alien powers, but he's wary and almost embarrassed of them rather than thrilled. The characters, plot, and events are broad without crossing the line into outright goofiness, and Service's absolute command of a certain brisk yet humorous tone (familiar to and loved by SF fans young and old) raises this series above most other SF series for this age group, a good example being the first two sentences of the book:

"Agent Sorn walked to a table in the Galactic Union headquarters cafeteria and plunked down her plate. The cafeteria's gurlg worms were never as crispy as her brood mother used to make them, but they would do."

Good stuff! Recommended for ages 8 to 11.

Review of Ring of Fire by Pierdomenico Baccalario

Baccalario, Pierdomenico. Ring of Fire (Century Quartet #1). Random House, 2009.

Four 12-year-old kids - an Italian girl, a French girl, a Chinese boy, and an American boy - are brought together to undergo a mysterious but vital quest. At first it seems mere coincidence that brings them together in the Roman hotel that belongs to the Italian girl Elettra's father, but it is soon clear that there are too many coincidences, the most obvious one being that they were all born on the same day - February 29th.

When they are given a suitcase by a strange and desperate man who is murdered soon after, the contents set them off on a search to find the Ring of Fire, although what that is they have no idea. One clue leads to another, but as the kids look for the Ring of Fire, a contract killer is looking for them.

This adventure has a strong Da Vinci Code feel to it, with a mysterious object that links ancient events to modern times, secret groups, and strange events that occur regularly over the centuries. Rome makes a fine backdrop for the kids' adventures and is brought to life by a full-color "scrapbook" of photos of the buildings the kids visit, receipts, maps, and all the clues they find. There is nothing particularly clever about the clues or the way the kids figure them out, but that makes the story more realistic - these kids are fairly ordinary, not intellectual giants.

What makes this a fantasy and not just a suspenseful adventure is that Elettra possesses a kind of supernatural power or ability - although what it is exactly is hard to tell. She stores up energy and lets it out in powerful bursts that can disrupt electrical power all over town, and these bursts seem to happen when she is close to an answer, as her skin starts to glow hot, her hair writhes, and her eyes turn yellow.

What this means - in fact, what any of it means - is not answered in this installment. Yes, the kids do find the Ring of Fire, but its significance remains utterly unknown to them and the readers. Who the various adults are who work like puppet masters behind the scenes is equally mysterious, except that some are Very Bad. What seems certain is that somehow, the fate of the world is in the hand of these four leap-year children.

Only the barest dashes of personality - and their nationalities - help us tell the kids apart - we don't learn much about them or what makes them tick. They all apparently speak English fluently, allowing them to communicate with each other without a hitch - and Elettra can translate learned tracts like a PhD at the drop of a hat. When one of their number is kidnapped, the kids search for her, but they never seem too worried, nor does it occur to them that it might be a good idea to tell the police or at least a trusted adult. So yes, it is necessary to suspend one's disbelief quite a bit.

However, the exciting plot and the exotic setting make this a fine book to hand to kids - and if they like it, the second installment will take place in New York City. For kids ages 10 to 12.

Looking at children's library services with new eyes - part 3

In part 2, I mentioned the importance of having a mission statement and goals for a library system's children's services program. As an illustration, here is what the Sarasota County Public Library recently came up with as a basis for the programming and services they will offer over the next 5 years. This comes from an email that Carole Fiore posted on the PUBYAC listserv:

Strengthening Sarasota County's Youth through Robust and Vigorous Public Libraries
Strategic Plan for Youth Services 2009-2013

"Plan for the future because that's where you are going to spend the rest of your life."
Mark Twain

The mission of the Youth Services Team of the Sarasota County Library System is to help youth succeed in school and in life by:

. Nurturing young readers and learners;
. Stimulating imagination;
. Satisfying curiosity; and
. Providing comfortable real and virtual places.

Goal 1: Sarasota County school age children and teens will have access to age and developmentally appropriate resources and programs to support their success in school.

Goal 2: Children, tweens, and teens and their parents, teachers, and caregivers know about summer library programs and know the value of these programs.

Goal 3: Families with preschool children, birth to age five, will have access to age and developmentally appropriate literacy resources, programs, services, and environments, and trained staff to service them and the children to support the development of young readers and learners.

Goal 4: Children ages 0 through 5 years will have access to age and developmentally appropriate books at home.

Goal 5: Families with children birth through 5 years of age will understand the importance of early and emergent literacy activities have the resources to read to their children, be encouraged to use the library, and become the best first teacher for their children.

Goal 6: Children served by members of the Sarasota County early care and education community will participate in programs designed to nurture young readers and learners and originated by Sarasota County Library System staff.

Goal 7: Youth in the Sarasota County Library System service area will have access to library materials in various formats that encourage the development of independent learning practices, research proficiency, and the development of literacy skills.

Goal 8: Youth in the Sarasota County Library System service area will have opportunities to participate in library programs that encourage creativity and imagination so that they may develop and express innovative ideas in a dynamic and rapidly changing society.

Goal 9: Youth in the Sarasota County Library System service area will have opportunities to publicly express ideas through the arts so that community members of all ages develop respect for their insights and capabilities.

Goal 10: Children and teens in the Sarasota County Library service area will have information and resources that will instill a love of life-long learning and enrich their recreational experiences.

Goal 11: Children and teens in the Sarasota County area will be offered programs that will instill a love of learning and enrich their recreational experiences.

Goal 12: Children, teens and their parents, teachers, and caregivers will find the children's and YA spaces in all Sarasota County libraries accessible and conducive to reading, study and library-appropriate recreation activities.

Goal 13: Sarasota County children, teens, and their parents, teachers and caregivers will recognize the library as a popular and socially acceptable place to go for school-related assignments and for recreation.

Goal 14: Youth in Sarasota County who use the libraries' children's and teen's web pages will find them relevant, exciting and current.

I don't exactly what programs and services were changed, eliminated, or added as a result of the new strategic plan, but Carole did mention that it was not a painless process! Those goals do seem to cover just about every possible service the library could offer youth, so I'm wondering how Sarasota is using them to prioritize services - perhaps the goals are listed in order of priority?

LAPL also created a strategic plan, covering the years 2007 through 2010. Service to children (or to any other group) wasn't focused on specifically, but here are some of the goals that specifically mention service to children:

Goal 3: Help Students Succeed
Children and teens in Los Angeles will have resources that assist them with
their assignments and help them succeed in school.

Goal 4: Provide Reading Readiness
Infants, toddlers and preschool children in Los Angeles will have access to
collections, programs, and services that will help them develop a lifelong
love of books, reading, and learning.

Goal 6: Offer New and Popular Material Now
Children, teens and adults will have access to materials, programs and
services that stimulate the imagination and provide a variety of leisure
activities and experiences.

For each of these, there is a list of objectives and actions, most of which are services we already provide and a few of which are new. For most goals, the objectives seemed to be to simply increase what we're now doing and whom we're now serving - increase enrollment in summer reading club, increase the number of kids going to programs, increase the number of kids who have library cards, and so on. Certain benchmark goals are also set - a certain number of classrooms should be visited, a certain number of presentations should be made to preschool teachers, and so on.

There's nothing wrong with those goals at all - but measuring our success merely by trying do more, more, more doesn't seem to me to be the way to go. I won't even go into some of the panic children's librarians feel when they wonder if they will "get in trouble" if their statistics don't pick up - or have declined! - by the end of 2010.

I would like to measure our success not just in numbers but in outcomes. Here is how outcome is described in Dresang , Gross, and Holt's Dynamic Youth Services Through Outcomes-based Planning and Evaluation - "Outcome...is the change in attitude, behavior, skill, knowledge, or status that occurs for users after a purposeful action on the part of the library and library staff." To be fair, LAPL's strategic is not devoid of outcomes-based objectives; for instance, objective 4.3 states "By FY09-10, at least 75% of the parents/caregivers who bring preschoolers to the library will say the library plays an important role in helping children to develop a love of
books, reading and learning." I assume this will be captured by a survey, though I haven't heard of any plans for one.

However, I want to know more. Let's take my old pal the Summer Reading Club. I already mentioned in a previous post on the SRC that the California Library Association launched a pilot project this past summer to measure certain outcomes in certain branches of certain library systems. Although I was sent some information on this, it was in draft form, so although I can't quote the document, I can mention that different outcomes were decided on for preschoolers, school-age kids, and teens and they included such simple things as "Children enjoy reading." Information was gathered both before and after the SRC in the form of surveys, interviews, and focus groups. The librarians involved in the project have met and will continue to meet throughout this next year to figure out what worked and what didn't, what needs to be changed, and how to implement the project on a larger scale without driving staff to an early grave.

I don't know the results of this project, but I do have to wonder about one thing. My experience has been that kids who participate in the Summer Reading Club (and here I'm talking about the part where kids read and maybe earn incentives of some sort, rather than the programming part) do it for one or more of the following reasons: they already like to read, their parents make them do it, and/or they want to earn those incentives. For the kids who already liked to read at the beginning of summer (which is probably most of them), the desired outcome of "children enjoy reading" doesn't apply. For the other two categories, it only applies if they disliked reading (or didn't like it much) at the beginning of summer but at the end of summer they like reading. For those kids who now like reading at the end of summer, what brought on the change? And for those who dislike reading at the end of summer despite the summer reading club, what can be done differently next year? I'm not sure that it's very likely that a child who dislikes reading will suddenly learn to like it over the course of one short Summer Reading Club - although perhaps such miraculous conversions do occasionally occur ("The Diary of a Wimpy Kid changed my life!!!") At any rate, I'm not sure we can reasonably expect that outcome.

Things start to get complicated as the questions mount! One of the many things I always wondered about my own Summer Reading Clubs was: how many of the kids were coming to the library for the first time because of SRC and of those kids, how many would continue to come to the library throughout the school year? That's something I might try to measure - although the thought of trying to track those kids is daunting, to say the least. That's the thing about any kind of evaluative project. Not only do the results have to be meaningful, but the process has to be feasible.

I seem to have rambled on quite a bit over these past three posts. You may have noticed I have offered no answers, only many questions and things to think about.

That's my message, I suppose. Don't stop thinking about what we are doing. Keep pondering what we are trying to achieve and how we can best achieve it. By doing this, we'll stay receptive and relevant to the needs and desires of kids and their families.

Heh! Sermon over - but the topic is not. Please feel free to write voluminous comments - and you'll hear from me again.