Keeping it Social

For Teens!

Teenagers, you need your social lives!  It’s part of discovery.  It’s part of being you!  

You’re the lucky generation:  It’s much easier for you to keep up with what your friends are up to because you’re the first teens in the age of online social sites!  You can always know where the next party is, who is dating your ”ex,” and who just mentioned your name.  You can even find out unpleasant things:  You probably didn’t even want to know that there is a test in English today when all you can do is worry.  After all, it’s too late to study, anyway.  Yep, you’re the first generation who can truly find out all of the latest in everything.

Or can you?

Is the site you’re socializing on lately the “right place to be,” or have your friends found a new, better, cooler site that you don’t even know about yet?

Quoting Shakespeare, “Therein lies the rub.”

You teens are fickle about your social sites.  As soon as a new one crops up—and you find out that your friends are there—you’re last site is stale and forgotten. 

Do you remember My Space?  There was a time where everything you ever needed to know about yourself and your friends could be found there.  It never failed you, but how often do you visit that site, now?  In fact, when was the last time you went there—or even thought of going there?  If you want to know about today, you probably don't even consider that moot place.  It’s become passé—obsolete—so yesterday!  Did it all go downhill when your parents started to use it?

You have moved on, and—if you’re like most teens—you and your friends are on Facebook.  It’s a great, comfortable, social place to be!  All of your friends are on your “Friends lists,” so it's where you can share everything!  You might even give some of your decidedly “not friends” access to keep things interesting; but you get to pick and choose who shares your life!  To sooth your curiosity, you can monitor what people are saying and doing--even without them knowing you’re watching--or you can jump in and applaud their successes by clicking on the thumbs up “Like.” In tough times, you can bemoan and commiserate about each others problems by using emoticons and shared words of encouragement.  You can share links to the sites of favorite movie star or share favorite music by bringing in links to YouTube.  You can even break up with someone! 

Did you just think that Facebook WAS the perfect social spot!  Parents (and even grandparents!) are now using Facebook more than you are!  They got in your way, and then they wondered why you don’t want to “friend” them!   All of the filters in the world aren't good enough to make you want to have Mom and Dad in on your social life!  And how can you tell Grandma that you don't want to share some secrets with her?

Are your parents invading your Snapchat or your Instagram?  

If history is any indicator, there will always be another site cropping up to use before your parents catch up:  Is it, again, time for another new, cutting edge social site.  Make sure that you stay connected to keep up, or you'll be out of the social loop.  Losing your place would be a social disaster! 

 Maybe, the next time, you can keep the parents out—but it will be tough.  They’re catching up with you and your techl savvy—and they might just try to make up for their isolated, unconected teen years!

Promoting Books 
in the Information Age

It’s always satisfying to have one of your own opinions validated…to find that someone agrees with you. Having created a few (very few!) book trailers, I have come to believe in their value in regards to “selling” a book.  This belief is why I was first drawn to Karen Springen’s article, “The Big Tease:  Trailers are a Great Way to Hook Kids on Books.”  Once I began reading, however, I found much more than what I’d expected.  If a book is to become a hit, professional book trailers are now expected. 

Whereas, not long ago, book markers, book jackets, book-signing events, and an occasional poster were the extent of publishers’ promotion, today’s readers expect much more.  According to Springen, in this age of fast-paced, technological communication, young readers expect book trailers.  Kids spend so much time in the Internet that they expect to be able to access all of their interests via this “life-line.”

According to Jack Paccione Jr., director of Escape Goat Pictures, which produces book trailers (Yes, new industries have been spawned!), since the Harry Potter books and Twilight, authors have come to understand the value of taking the advertising to the readers—to the Internet. 

Experts have discovered, however, that today’s audience is picky about what they will watch:  Creating an exciting trailer is just not enough.  To be effective trailers require work and expertise.

Although this is a new media, much has been learned.  With limited time, a trailer should not simply summarize a book:  It must tease.  Further, it needs to find the right balance of length:  According to several authors, it takes about a minute to draw the potential reader in, but longer trailers run the risk of telling too much and of losing your audience.  In addition, as would be expected, humor is a great aspect, enhancing a trailer and making it more effective.  It is important to remember that a book trailer is not a plot summery.

Accompanying the new book trailer production industry are production awards.  Beyond the professional awards, Newberry brings young readers into the game with their “90-Minute Newberry Festival,” which is a contest for student-created book trailers. 

Teachers are also using this concept as a teaching tool by including student creation as an assignment to replace or enhance book reports.  Further, teachers and librarians (as we know!) are creating their own trailers to entice students to read!

Just as with the rest of the world, technology is making changes in the ways of selling books.  The customer expects more, and the industry delivers.  Karen Springen’s article is insightful regarding various aspects of this change.

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Link to Karen Springen’s article, “The Big Tease:  Trailers are a Great Way to Hook Kids on Books”:  http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/894810-312/the_big_tease_trailers_are.html.csp

School libraries are in the middle of an exciting change!

This 21st Century blast of technology is bringing us more information than ever before even imagined; and navigation of all of this new information is going to take great knowledge and skill.

Just as with any skill, its acquisition and use must be taught and guided.   Quite naturally, this job rests with your traditional Information Guide...Your Librarian.

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If you are interested in taking a peek at how school libraries are changing, watch 

this video.

It looks at an elementary school library; but the message is solid and accurate.

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 School Libraries:  A Solid Mystery

You may have heard the questions—or even asked them, yourself:  What is going to happen to school libraries now that computers abound and books are trending toward becoming electronic creatures?  Why would we even need to keep school libraries open if we don’t need a place to maintain and share collections of books?  Exactly what’s going to happen with libraries may well be a mystery; but they certainly won’t be eliminated!

Consider the logistics and the logic.  Although the current, wonderful avalanche of 21^st Century information seems to come from the clouds (now more figuratively than ever!), there are a number solids behind the vapor; and they must have a home.  There are extensive collections of both hardware and software which build our new information systems, and they require stability for both their maintenance and their operational activities.  Then there are the people:  Both technology’s managers and users need a physical location from which to maintain and to employ these new tools. Technology, simply, needs a “place;” and because libraries have been society’s information centers for centuries, it is natural that they should remain so. 

Further, since librarians have been the information conductors for ages, it makes sense that they should continue to select, organize, manage, and share any new forms of informational material—as well as become information experts who are adept at guiding and educating all patrons on the dangers, methods, and possibilities of our jumbled new wealth of information.  There are great changes in the information system, but with adaptations which are already being implemented, the school library system and school librarian are far from obsolete.  In fact, more than ever, they are proving to be the essential school hub of past, current, and future information systems.

When most of today’s teachers were children, we visited our school libraries to check out books for pleasure or to gather information from what we now call “hard copy.”  We might sit at a table with open reference material, taking notes which we would probably take home to organize into a published piece. Our works were usually hand-written, with an occasional typed term paper.  We might also sit in the library to quietly discuss our findings with other students, but we seldom collaborated—not with the teachers’ blessings, anyway!  Libraries certainly had their place then; but, boy, do they have a place now!

Students who now visit school libraries are required to discover, evaluate, digest, discuss, and publish copious amounts of information.  They must navigate a technological world without precedent and produce printed work which looks professional—no more handwritten essays!  Students now expect—and are expected—to be computer savvy.  Our students must be adept with computers for innumerable and disparate purposes:  Researching, collaborating, communicating, embracing areas of personal interest, publishing for pleasure and “for business,” registering for colleges, taking on-line courses, entertaining themselves with silly cat pictures or jokes about N00B’s, and even reading an online book or short story.  Although more and more students are blessed with iPhones and personal computer systems at home, while at school, these activities all occur in the library: Libraries have moved from being essential for a good education to being imperatives. 

Staff and others the in community also find more frequent—and extended—need for the school library than previously.  Today’s teacher might need to “borrow a computer,” to “print something out,” or to send a student in search of emergency copies of something.  Mostly, however—and more than ever before—they need a place to collaborate with other teachers, with parents, with administrators, with clubs and other groups, or with the librarian.  In addition, parents, administrators, school boards, and combinations of all shareholders utilize the benefits of a 21^st Century school library.  They choose the library because it is welcoming, comfortable, and convenient; and it is, the most high-tech forum in the school—if not in the community!

Happily, not everything about a school library has changed. It still maintains hard-copy research material—although, perhaps to a lesser degree; it still offers wonderful and current fiction and non-fiction selections for enjoyment, research, and self-enlightenment; it still shares magazines and comfortable couches on which to relax; but now each Internet-connected library houses more information than anyone could have imagined available in one spot, even ten years ago.  While today's library hosts more information, today’s librarian provides more in depth guidance for patrons in their searches for information and literary enjoyment.

Libraries have changed—and they are changing, still!   We don’t know in what exact ways change will happen or what new educational/informational treasures await us; but we do know where and with whom the excitement will occur:  In the comfort of the library with the knowledgeable librarian as leader and guide for each new, mysterious step as we go further into this exciting 21^st Century’s Age of Information.

A Most Interesting 

YouTube Video 

About Our Brains!

"God is in the Neurons"

We're living in most interesting times!

Dr Seuss!  Mental Floss Magazine gives some background about where some of Dr. Seuss's stories came from:

"The Quick 10: Stories Behind 10 Dr. Seuss Stories" 
by Stacy Conradt - September 24, 2008 - 2:05 PM

On this day in 1991, the world lost a classic writer and artist – Dr. Seuss (AKA Theodor Geisel). I know the _floss has done stories on Dr. Seuss before, so I thought we’d go a little bit different route today – the stories behind his stories.

1. The Lorax. In case you haven’t read The Lorax, it’s widely recognized as Dr. Seuss’ take on environmentalism and how humans are destroying nature. The logging industry was so upset about the book that some groups within the industry sponsored The Truax, a similar book but from the logging point of view. Another interesting fact: the book used to contain the line, “I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie,” but 14 years after the book was published, the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss and told him how much the conditions had improved and implored him to take the line out. Dr. Seuss agreed and said that it wouldn’t be in future editions.

2. Horton Hears a Who! Somehow, Geisel’s books find themselves in the middle of controversy. The line from the book, “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” has been used as a slogan for pro-life organizations for years. It’s often questioned whether that was Seuss’ intent in the first place, but I would say not: when he was still alive, he threatened to sue a pro-life group unless they removed his words from their letterhead. Karl ZoBell, the attorney for Dr. Seuss’ interests and for his widow, Audrey Geisel, says that she doesn’t like people to “hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view.”

There is much more!

--brought to you by mental_floss! 

Reference Desk
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