The Future of Publishing

I came across a very, very interesting You Tube video that I wanted to share with everyone. It is called: The Future of Publishing. Click on the title to access the link. Please check it out…and oh please, oh please, watch the whole thing. It is an amazingly well made video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Weq_sHxghcg

Is technology affecting the way Teens write?

To follow up on my last post: “Is Teen reading on the decline?” I found some interesting information on a similar topic. In the same way that technology is changing how teens read, is technology also affecting the way they write?

According to one article, it was stated that a considerable number of educators and children’s advocates were concerned that the quality of writing by young Americans was being degraded by electronic communication, with its carefree spelling, lax punctuation and grammar, and its acronym shortcuts.

Others wonder if this return to text-driven communication is instead inspiring new appreciation for writing among teens. The American Life Project and National Commission on Writing conducted a national telephone survey and focus group to see what teens have to say about the role and impact technology has on writing. These were some of their findings:

•85% of teens ages 12-17 engage in some form of electronic personal communication, including texting, emailing, instant messaging, or social networking. However, 60% of teens do not think of these electronic texts as “writing.”

•50% of teens say they sometimes use informal writing styles instead of proper capitalization and punctuation in their school assignments, while 38% say they have used text shortcuts in school work such as “LOL” (or “laugh out loud”) and 25% have used emoticons (symbols like smiley faces ☺) in school work.

•50% of teens say their school work requires writing every day; 35% say they write several times a week. The remaining 15% of teens write less often for school. Also, 82% of teens reported that their typical school writing assignment is a paragraph to one page in length.

•47% of teen bloggers write outside of school for personal reasons several times a week or more compared to 33% of teens without blogs. Moreover, 65% of teen bloggers believe that writing is essential to later success in life and 53% of non-bloggers agree. Blogging encourages teens to collaborate and contribute with their opinions and ideas. This, by default, promotes language skills, comprehension, and cohesiveness.

•15% of teens say their internet-based writing of materials such as emails and instant messages has helped improve their overall writing while 6% say it has made their personal writing worse. Some 73% of teens said this kind of writing made no difference to their school writing.

•57 % say that when it comes to using technology for school or non-school writing, teens believe that when they use computers to write they are more inclined to edit and revise their texts.

•93% of teens say they write for their own pleasure. The anonymity allows for a certain freedom of expression; They can write without the fear of being graded.

They survey noted that teens are more motivated to write when they can select topics that are relevant to their lives and interests, and report greater enjoyment of school writing when they have the opportunity to write creatively. Having teachers or other adults who challenge them, present them with interesting curricula and give them detailed feedback, motivates them to write. The report also pointed out that when teens write for an audience, such as blogging or social networking, it also serves as a motivation for them not only to write, but to write well. Ultimately, teens will continue to write for a variety of reasons—as part of a school assignment, to get a good grade, to stay in touch with friends, to share their artistic creations with others or simply to put their thoughts to paper, virtual or otherwise.

Book Worms

My oldest daughter, Bethany, is...(dramatic pause) a BOOK WORM!!!

OK, so for a librarian to have a book worm kid isn't that big of a deal, but it sure makes me proud. Even better is that she likes books independently of me, and while we share some books, she is not above asking to have some extra time in the library to just browse her favorite sections (Manga!).

One library activity that Beth participated in was Kid Vid Book Chats while she was an 8th grader at San Elijo Middle School. The librarian there, Mrs. Denney, encouraged students to come in and review books on film so that others could find out about literature from a teen perspective. As we all know, teens know WAY more than any of us adults, so it's awesome that Mrs. Denney recognized and made use of that particular teen trait. She's harnessed that self-absorbed power for good, and for that, I applaud her.

I've also got to applaud Bethany though, because she stepped WAY outside her comfort zone to do the book chat, and on camera no less, and she was so nervous about doing the videos that she didn't even tell me until it was all over. She wanted to participate in this project so much that she "auditioned" and lobbied hard for the chance to be a part of it.

Obviously, Mrs. Denney has done something right in her library to have teens fighting for a chance to do a book review. What a great example for those of us who want to be in a school library.

Way to go!

Teens Reading Habits Changing

Nearly 16 percent never visit school, public libraries
By Brian Kenney and Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 1/1/2006

Nearly 16 percent of teens don’t visit their public or school libraries, according to a recent joint study by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) and SmartGirl.org, a Web site that surveys teens. And many young adults don’t expect to visit public libraries in the next five years because they’ll likely be using search engines at home or elsewhere, says “Perception of Libraries and Information Resources,” the latest report by OCLC that examines the public’s attitude toward libraries and resources.

What message do these two reports send? The results may show that teens prefer accessing the library remotely from the Internet, rather than in person, says Beth Yoke, YALSA’s executive director. But they may also mean that libraries need to focus more attention on teenagers because they tend to visit libraries that have dedicated teen centers or teen librarians".........

This is a great article; we need to focus on talking teens on their language. Everyday there are more cyber citizens that need our help. It seems that with the invention of the internet, the habits of students are shifting and according to all those surveys, they preferred the Search Engines and Instant Messaging. On the other hand, we also want to make the library inviting so they may want to come to visit, instead of Texting. We as librarians need to dedicate more time to have activities for teens and make an area of the library a place where they feel comfortable and they can come and explore the library in person. The SDCL has a great teen page. The library is making an effort to be on the cyber lines to reach the teens, and broadcast the teen activities. We need to be proactive, and remember that if they like the library when they are young they will keep on coming back.
Oceanside Library is doing a good too. They have different activities for the teens such as Band Hero, Teen Movies “Twilight and new Moon”; Teen crochet, Teen Candle craft, Science Seekers, and Anime and Manga Club. They are doing an awesome work at bringing the teens in so they have different activities and they can choose what they want.
Teen reading habits may change, but if they like the books and the fun they have at the library they will keep on coming back.

(follow the link and you can read the complete article)

Welcoming Teens to the Library

The Morton Grove Public Library is a lucky organization - they've got Director Ben Shapiro, and Teen/Reference Librarian Katy Opderbeck working for them, and they have their fingers on the pulse of the teen population. Shapiro and Opderbeck wrote a great article about getting teens to "get" the relevance of libraries to them, as well as bringing them physically into libraries.

Shapiro tickled my funny bone when he said food would be a good lure. Before you panic, he's not recommending that we start a buffet line in the Manga section! What he meant was that teens like to browse the 'fridge and pick and choose from a large selection, so use that teen mentality of trying something at least once and get them interested. Check out the source article for more great ideas to bring in teens and keep them coming back!

Marketing the Library to Teens

I read a great article today by Anastasia Goldstein about how to get teens into a library. The article really describes teens' quirks and idiosyncracies, and how you can use those special teen features to your library's benefit. Here's a summary of the quirks, followed by my suggestions for using that to the best advantage for the library (in bold italics):

Illustration by Max Scratchmann

Teens are multitaskers: Today's teens take multitasking to a whole new level, and can do homework, surf the internet, listen to music, play games, and interact on social media...just don't ask them to do chores!! In her article, Goldstein quotes a 2005 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that says students between the ages of eight and 18 spend more than 25 percent of their media time multitasking. Libraries can capitalize on this by allowing internet access with headphones handy so that teens can listen to their music while doing homework and IMing friends.

Teens prefer byte-sized entertainment - Because of their penchant for multitasking, keeping a teen's attention for one single thing is a herculean task! I think libraries are currently doing a good job of providing entertainment in short snippets by having teen areas that specialize in media attractive to teens.

Teens expect content on demand. With iPods, DVRs, YouTube, and the like, teens today are used to getting what they want when they want it. This entertainment on demand attitude has begun to drive the way people market to teens. According to Goldstein, "...the CW series Gossip Girl was initially a complete bust—at least, in terms of traditional TV ratings. But when network executives noticed the buzz on teen blogs and fan pages and the number of times the show was downloaded on iTunes, they realized they had a huge hit." What this tells us is that if libraries use social media, teens will listen!

Teens want to participate. Teens like social media because of the instant gratification, and it's easy to see that when you look at how many young people participate in things like American Idol. Teens want to share their opinions more than adults might even want, but libraries can use that by offering young people the opportunity to share their book reviews in podcasts and video blogs. Put a camera or microphone in a teen's face and they will go!

To read more about this topic or to see the author's suggestions for using the quirks that teens share, check out the source article.

Teenreads.com

I came across two websites yesterday while looking for the next post. This one that I am going to write about looks on the outside to be very teeny. it has color, attitude, and energy, all things a teenager has. The other one, http://www.teensadvisor.com/teen-books/teen-reads.html, looks very bland, but only has a minor area about books. To really get the teens to see the books that other teens are reading it should have that web page look like it was made for a teenager.

Teen Reads contains a lot of energy. It has contests and polls for kids to enter to win even more books. I thought that was really great.

Their recent newsletter for April has a small book review for the teens to read to see if it is either a book they would like to read or recommend to other friends. It also promotes National Library Week, which I heard about on National Public Radio for the first time a couple weeks ago. They have about one to two newsletters out a month, which is pretty good. It gives young adults a chance to read the books and not have their emails crowded with notifications.

Overall I think they do a wonderful job trying to get young adults attention to reading and showing them what books are being read by those their age and keeping up with teen technology.

Is Teen Reading on the decline?

I came across an article that read: It is believed that in the United States, teen reading is on the decline, especially among the young. With technology changing so fast and new gadgets evolving each day, I began to wonder what affect this had on Teens and reading. Were teens seeing reading as a chore? Were technological gadgets distracting teens from reading? Was teen reading really on the decline? I did some research and this is some of the information I found:

•A study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that on the average 8-18 year olds spend 6 hours and 21 minutes per day using technology including TV, DVDs, video games, audio media, computers, and print media.

•This same study, from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, reported that 71% of teens use the Internet as their primary source for completing school projects.

•According to another study done by Harris Interactive in 2005, 86% of youth aged 8-18 have a computer in their home, and 74% have Internet access in their home.

Many experts stated that reading is far from dead for adolescents, and is actually on the rise in many ways. It just depends on how you look at it. Richard Beach, a professor in the literacy education program at the University of Minnesota says: “When people express concern about kids not reading, they don’t realize that they’re really reading all the time. It’s just what they’re reading and how they’re using media that’s changing. They’re on the forefront of an evolution in how reading is being redefined.”

Teens have become adept at using technologies to communicate with each other, find information, and connect with new people. Teens now spend more time online (often while in front of the TV) than just watching TV.

“Reading online involves a different set of conventions—for example, the non-linear process of selecting buttons or links on a website as opposed to a left-to-right linear reading of print texts,” Beach says. “What we need to understand better is how to make connections between different kinds of text.”

Libraries are helping increase teen reading by increasing their collections of print and online zines, manga, and comics. At St. Paul’s Highland Park Library, the use of games has prompted many kids to check out books that relate to what they’re playing. Anime and manga have even started a wave of interest in Japanese history and culture.

“If teens are excited about a game or anime, they’ll explore those subjects in different mediums like Web pages or books,” Lowry says. “The important thing is not to say books are better than games, or that they should be reading the classics.”
Sometimes librarians or teachers tend to develop groups based on what they think teens should be reading, rather than what they actually like, resulting in empty discussion tables. On the other hand, technology provides more ways to stay connected to friends were the conversation never ends.


The good thing is that there are many teachers who are integrated blogging, wiki writing, podcasts, and writing in gaming-based simulations into their courses. And as more technological tools are introduced, they will continue to offer different venues for teens to read. Whether it’s by a computer, eBook, iPhone, iPod, or some other type of hand-held, teen reading is far from being on the decline, it just depends on how you look at it.

Teen Tech Week

In doing some research, I came across this website about library teen services. It is an initiative sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association, or YALSA, a branch of the ALA. It is aimed at teens, their parents, educators and other concerned adults. Their purpose is to ensure that teens are competent and ethical users of new technologies, including DVDs, databases, audio books, and videogames.
Teens’ use of non-print resources has increased dramatically in recent years, yet more teens are doing this from home instead of the library. Teen Tech Week encourages teens to use the libraries non-print resources for education and recreation. They also encourage that librarians be recognized as qualified, trusted professionals in the field of information technology.

Teen Tech Week began in 2007. Its first general theme was called Get Connected @ your library.

This year, it was celebrated March 7-13, 2010 and their general theme was Learn Create Share @ your library. Their focus was to foster teen creativity and to position the library as both a physical and virtual place for safe exploration of the new technology available to libraries, such as music, gaming, video production, online homework help, social networking, tech workshops and more.


The next Teen Tech Week is scheduled for March 6-12, 2011. The theme will be Mix and Mash @ your library. Although their goal is the same, each library can choose which new technology they want to focus on each year. Everyone is encouraged to participate. Registration will begin in November of 2010.

The following year, Teen Tech Week will be held March 14-20, 2012. Typically, it is held each year the second week in March. However, some libraries may not be able to have a Teen Tech Week celebration the second week in March for a variety of reasons, such as spring break, while others may expand Teen Tech Week into Teen Tech Month. Be sure to call your local library for more details or log onto yalsa@ala.org

Getting Teens Into The Library

As I was searching for my next article I found this one. It’s a how-to guide on getting teenagers volunteering in libraries. I thought it was very interesting because the author advises scheduling the volunteering around the teen’s schedules. Teenagers want to help and would love to help, but can’t always because of school or other things that are going on. It also advises on setting the times for when you need volunteers and wait to see who either signs up or who shows up. I thought that was a great idea as well.

More of the article refers to various activities the youth might enjoy. One of the activities I might have enjoyed (and probably still would) was on how to make a cat blanket, which could also double as a dog blanket. Another sessions gave really great directions on making bookmarks. The youth can use these to make items for donation. From what I can remember when I was a teenager I was always making key chains and necklaces using plastic string or leather string with beads. The author, Erminia M. Gallo, really sounds like she knows what she’s doing in getting the teens to participate with library activities.

"A Year in Volunteering at the Library" by Erminia M. Gallo, http://web.ebscohost.com.prozy.palomar.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8&hid=112&sid=bdb94e6a-6651-4647-adf4-18e44fda6a44%40sessionmgr111

Library Blogs for Teens

While searching for my next post I cam across this website. I thought it reminded me a bit of CNN, but with blogs and built for children and teens. The great thing is that it lets children interact with other children and has relevant information to the young people. One example of an article was about the environment. This is a topic that gets played and played during school. Its very important to a lot of kids. It lists different books that can help kids from certain age groups understand things about the environment.

The site also gives highly recommended books from teens to teens and also has book reviews of popular books read by teens. I really liked reading the blogs and seeing them. It keeps the teens and other children active in the libraries.

Alice in Wonderland

Many of your may have recently seen Time Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and who could resist? But, how many of you have actually read the book? To coincide with our pole, here are some interesting tidbits on the original book and its origins:


• The original title was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

• The novel was written in 1865 by an English author by the name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudo name: Lewis Carroll.

• The story was based on a 10 year old girl, born in 1852, by the name of Alice Pleasance Liddell. Alice Liddell had dark hair and a short fringe. It is unknown who John Tenniel, the illustrator, used as a model for the Alice portrayal we are familiar with today.

• Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, is caricatured as the Dodo in the story, because Dodgson stuttered when he spoke. Thus, when he spoke, he annunciated his last name as Do-Do-Dodgson.

• "All in the golden afternoon..." —the prefatory verse, an original poem by Carroll that recalls the rowing expedition on which he first told the story of Alice's adventures underground.

• Among the first avid readers were Queen Victoria and Oscar Wilde.

• This book has never been out of print and has been translated into125 languages.

• The title is commonly referred to Alice in Wonderland by the countless adaptations in of theater, film, opera, ballets and other media.

• The title of the sequel is Through the Looking-Glass, and, What Alice Found There.

• Lewis Caroll’s own copy of Alice, one of only six surviving copies of the 1865 first edition, sold at an auction for $1.54 million dollars to an anonymous American buyer. It became the most expensive children’s book ever traded of the 19th century!

In the book, the Mad Hatter gives his famous riddle without an answer:

“Why is a RAVEN like a writing desk?”

Lewis Carol was big on riddles, but he never intended this riddle to have a solution. However, in a preface to the 1896 edition of Alice, he proposes several answers:

“Because it can produce a few notes,
though…they are very flat;
and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!”

Notice the spelling of “never” as “nevar.” This turns NEVAR into RAVEN when it is inverted. Unfortunately, the spelling nevar was “corrected” into never in later editions and Carroll’s pun was lost.



Speaking of the Mad Hatter, this character was inspired by the phase “as mad as a hatter.”

In those days, mercury was used in the process of making hats. It was impossible for hatters to avoid inhaling the fumes from the mercury while making the hats. The mercury vapor caused neurological damage resulting in confused speech and distorted vision. Many hatters died young as a result of mercury poisoning.

Undoubtedly, there are a lot more tidbits out there. We just hope these will entice you to go to your nearest library and, if you don’t already own it, pick up this old classic and read on.

Oh yeah, and just for fun, click on the title above to watch the original 1951trailer to Alice in Wonderland.

LOL @ your library

I came across this notice from the ALA. I found it on EBSCO. Annually they host a Teen Read Week (last year it was in October) to try of course get teens to read. This past years topic was all things funny or "LOL @ Your Library." I personally think they should have went with ur instead of your to keep with teen language. They promoted teens to organize various funny books and even to create a poster of different books they thought were funny. Creating a book swap would be fun for kids as they can recommend books to other teens. I think teens are twice as likely to read a book a friend recommended than one someone else did.

New Port Richey Library offers budding teen rock musicians a place to jam

This article is the starting point for Discussion Board #10. I located the article, and found it very interesting. I wish our local library had a program like this. The kids usually come in before the start, and use the time beforehand to explore the library.

Father and daughter book bond.

This is a story about a father who decides he wants to read to his daughter. To entice her, they make an agreement they call it the “The Streak”. He is a librarian for an elementary school; and his daughter, she was in 4th grade when they started this tradition. They read first 100 straight bedtime stories, later they went to 1,000 and then they could not stop. This routine helped them to make their bond stronger. They stop when she went to college.
Thru his experience, he knows students who read will go to college; they will get a better job, has a higher income and live longer….
This is just another warm story about how important is to read to your kids.

(Follow the link and you can read the whole article.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/fashion/21GenB.html?pagewanted=1&hpw