Our Book Blog to Attend NJ Librarian Convention - sort of

The BHPL Book Blog will celebrate its 5th anniversary this May and to celebrate that momentous occasion, the Reference Department bloggers wanted to share their collective wisdom and experience about library blogging with our colleagues at the annual NJ librarian convention 2010. First we had to submit a proposal to the Poster Board Session Committee. For all you laymen (non-librarians) out there, librarians are known to be amongst the most technologically connected professional groups and we like to attend professional meetings dressed in sensible shoes and dirt-resistant outfits whilst texting, blogging, podcasting and sending singing Gorilla telegrams.

Blogging as a Team Presents Unique Challenges
Working as a team on a blog and poster board session requires compromise. Let us share our decision-making process about the title for the poster board session application, keeping in mind that once submitted to the committee, the title is carved in stone- ie: printed on the NJLA program if they choose to accept our proposal. This process almost derailed the project from the git-go. Herewith, Ellen and Anne batting around ideas about the application title.

Proposed Titles
Possible Title #1:Anne- ‘Librarians from around the country call and say, ‘My director wants me to start a library blog, but what can I possibly write about day after day?’ Ellen –‘Too long.’(Eye roll)

Possible Title #2: Anne –‘Seriously Practical Ideas for Library Bloggers.’ Ellen- ‘meh! Too short.’

Possible Title #3: Anne,(exasperated) ‘21st Century Modes of Communicating Effectively to Targeted Library Demographics using Web 2.0 Mash-ups, Social Media Applications and other Solutions too Technical to mention in a Short Title.’ Ellen (also exasperated)-‘Anne, be serious.’

Brainstorming: What do we think we know about blogging which might be helpful for other librarians to know? 1. We know there are blogs which are way more sophisticated technologically, but we stand by the pretty good quality of our original content over time; our pretty consistent methods of producing content on a pretty regular basis; and the fairly readable and often, we hope, pretty funny style of our content. So that’s what we are going to present on our poster board: how to be pretty good, pretty painlessly?
Possible Title #4: Anne- ‘Content, it’s all about the Content. Except for a few bits about the Geeky stuff like our Side Bar RSS feeds.’
Possible Title #5: Ellen- ‘Will Blog for Readers: Tips & Tales from a Library Blog.’
Anne- ‘bingo!We've got our title!’
And so you see, single author blogs can devolve into the I & Me Show, but our blog involves brainstorming, compromise and, yes, Anne admitting that Ellen’s ideas are almost always better than hers.
Having decided on a title, finished the application, amazingly, the unsuspecting NJLA PBS Committee (librarians love acronyms) accepted our application and we are now beginning to think about the actual content of what I have come to think of as, our 21st Century Blogging Triptych. Ellen has made me promise not to put too much gilding on the frame or Carolina Blue as the background and will have to generally keep me in line. Just because Duke is doing better than UNC this year, I have to defer more than usual. Meh!

Books for Book Clubs

This month's reading room book display, Books for Book Clubs, combines fiction and non-fiction titles which have been popular with book discussion groups and were recommended in the following titles:

More Book Lust, 1,000 reading recommendations for every mood, moment, and reason by uber-reader's advisor/librarian, Nancy Pearl.

Between the Covers, the book babes' guide to a woman's reading pleasures by Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel.

A Year of Reading, a month-by-month guide to classics and crowd-pleasers for you or your book group by Elisabeth Ellington and Jane Freimiller

Read It and Eat, a Month-by-month guide to scintillating book club selections and mouthwatering menus by Sarah Gardner. Book discussions can make you hungry.

Books currently on display are:

I am Charlotte Simmons, a rollicking tale of undergraduate life (at UNC?) by Tom Wolfe, original master of the snarky turn-of-phrase.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a memoir by Dave Eggers.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, you won't eat fast food for a while after reading this; factory-farmed, feces-laden beef patty your way? Om-nom nom...

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, an English butler's view of a wartime household. Emotions stifled? check. Nazi sympathizer? check. Good movie? check. Even better book? yes!

The Abstinence Teacher by Summit, New Jersey's own Tom Perrotta treats hot-button issue.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, wife of time-traveling librarian has unique marital issues...husband randomly disappears and reappears - naked. Better than movie.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, rare book dealer traces the history of the Sarajevo Haggadeh.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, a sure bet for book groups, travel with Depression-era circus veterinarian on animal- and clown-laden train.

My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult's thought-provoking, ripped-from-the-headlines story of a sister conceived to save her ailing sibling. Her formula works for most groups.

One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus, what if the U.S. had traded institutionalized white women for horses in a swap with Native Americans?

Related websites:
Reading Group Guides
Random House Reading Group Center
Penguin Book Clubs
Amazon Book Clubs

Library Databases for literary criticism and reviews, available from website:

NextReads: sign up for book newsletters by genre
Contemporary Authors: the reference series online
Literary Reference Center: reference books online
Online Book Clubs: get book chapters by email
Next Good Book: browse booklists by subject

Scribbling as Journalism, why not?

I'm intrigued by this article in UNC's Daily Tarheel, New journal open to all margin scribblers . Imaginative students are starting a journal titled Uncharted, the article explains,

"A new arts journal on campus will start not with a bang but a squiggle.Uncharted is calling for your drawings, your doodles and your cramped scribbles yearning to be expressed."

The editors will be taking submissions starting today on campus. Uncharted will feature the arts on a campus currently obsessed with the Tarheels (basketball team, that is.) The editors expound upon the creative brainstorming benefits of doodling,

"During class, a part of your mind is completely disconnected to your body," said doodler Trevor Brothers, a sophomore. "You look down and there's a picture.""It's better than falling asleep in lectures, but you're definitely not taking notes."

Go, Trevor, I say, and I might add, it's also better than text messaging during class. Isn't it possible that if you look at doodles on your notes, the content of the lecture pops to mind, permanently associated with that particular doodle? It worked that way for me, or at least I rationalized that it did. Somehow, my brain linked the spoken word (lecture) with the doodle in my notes in some part of my memory, forever entwined or at least entwined until the exam. Made it hard for people to borrow my notes and get much out of them though.