fanfiction in the library

I've been involved in fandom for a long time, and being involved in fandom, you get used to not telling anyone you're involved in fandom. (Yes, I know what it sounds like.) I did a mock up of a fanfiction related program and did some research about fanfiction in the library.

It's actually being used! By a lot of places! I've been saying for years that it's a great way to develop writing skills and meet people with similar interests, so I was happy to see that librarians are on board.

Teens are already doing it; it's the smart thing to learn about it and understand it, and even smarter to learn about the issues surrounding it, especially copyright issues, which librarians should know anyway.

Anyway, I found it really encouraging to see how many fanfiction programs there were.

Twilight

I haven't read Twilight, but I have heard all about it and I kind of love the bitchy reviews people write about it. In class, we talked about what to do when someone is talking to you about a book they liked, but that you don't. Don't put the book down, give your reasons without sounding judgmental about the book. Fine, no problem.

But I just read this: http://www.cracked.com/funny-36-twilight/

Really? That's what happens? That can't all be true. Please tell me it's not all true.

Oh. My. God.

Book Recs

These are a few books I've read that I think teens would enjoy if they are interested in historical fiction.

Christopher's Ghosts by Charles McCarry. This book is amazing. The first half is about a German-American boy in love with a non-classified Jewish girl in 1939. The second half is about the man the boy has become, an intelligence agent hunting down the man who destroyed his life. It's well-written, humorous, romantic and dramatic. McCarry was a spy during the Cold War and tosses in just enough detail about the way operatives and operations work to pad the story without making it too technical. The last line is a killer.

Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor is a murder mystery set during the Irish famine and it occurs partly on the eponymous vessel but mainly in Ireland and England. From almost the beginning the victim and murderer are identified and you get to know them and the people who know them. But it turns out not to be as straightforward as the author lays out. The famine is a character itself and its existence drives much of the characters to action (or inaction). The book is organized as a book-within-a-book by a journalist who is himself intimately connected to the story and may not be as disinterested as he tries to be.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne is a modern-day fable/allegory about a naïve German boy, son of a death-camp guard father. He befriends a captive Jewish boy. The story is told entirely from the first boy's p.o.v. Beginning to end, he never comes close to understanding what is happening around him, instead fitting the tragedy into a schema appropriate to his own life. Boyne uses the boy's misunderstanding of certain words to underscore the intent of the true words. (This only works in English, I imagine this loses something in translation.) For example, he misunderstands his father's boss's name as "The Fury", and no amount of correction will dissuade him of this, especially after he witnesses the man's dinner manners. Often, the naivety of both children was incredibly frustrating, which the author does address in an interview included in this edition of the book. It does not have a happy ending, but it does close with a feeling that a lesson has been learned by the one character who needed to learn it most.

The changing library

Last week in class we had a group of teens come in to talk about their experiences at the library.

They were excited, rambunctious, enthusiastic. They talked about playing video games and making friends, often in very moving ways.

I admit, it warmed my cold heart.

Later, though, I had to ask myself, where were the 'nerds' in the group? There was one girl who could qualify as the prototypical teen nerd who heads to the library, but most of these kids--not a chance.

As the library is expanding its image to draw in the kids like the ones who visited the classroom--which is great--does it also risk losing the kids it has always had?

Talking to Teens

I am a member of an online community that has many teens as members, so I interviewed a few of them as well as a teenaged cousin for a recent assignment in getting to know teens. The most interesting thing I learned about this is that teens from around the world are basically the same. They have similar interests and hobbies and concerns. I suppose this should not be surprising given that the internet has basically made the world one small town. Even my cousin, who is not part of this online community, had similar experiences to share.

The teens range from 15 to 18 years old. Some are still in high school, some are in college, and one has left school. They come from the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K., and from cities and small towns. I asked them if the adults in their lives could relate to them, and the teens who said they could also portrayed having the highest self-confidence. Those teens who said adults were unable to understand them described themselves as different or ‘alternative’, and there was evident frustration in their circumstances, as if they thought adults were hopeless. They said they often felt out of place or like the adults were accusing them of something.

My favorite questions were the ones asking the teens to give advice to adults about what they should know about teens and the one asking the teens to describe themselves in their twenties. This is where their insight, idealism, and cleverness came out the strongest.

After talking to these teens, I realized that things have not changed much since I was a teen. For many of these answers, I could have easily provided them myself when I was a teenager. It made me think that maybe I was unnecessarily throwing a wall up between myself and teenagers by thinking that they were totally different from what they had been when I was a teen. Now I’m thinking that although the world has changed, and the things teens are exposed to has changed, the process and mindset of being a teen has remained the same, and that is the part that an adult needs to connect to in order to relate.

On Coming Out in the library

I spent the summer working at an archive specifically for lesbians. My fellow interns were all young lesbian women, many barely out of their teens. We often sat and talked about high school. Their experiences were a world away from mine. Whereas I was largely unaware of my sexuality in high school, these young women were not only aware, they had started clubs. Even the quietest one among them was the founder of her school's gay/straight alliance.

Where did this confidence come from? A changing society? An environment of acceptance? The "I don't give a shit" attitude of teenaged invincibility? A combination of each? I have served as a mentor to many queer and questioning youths over the years, including when I was a youth myself. It is something I have enjoyed, and I look forward to making myself available to any young adult who wants to speak to me.

Martin discusses whether or not lgbt librarians should identify themselves in some way to make it easier for the kids to approach them. I say this is up to the librarian. Some will be comfortable doing so, others will not. For my part, I wear a rainbow bracelet, which people can interpret as they wish. For me, something subtle is the best way to go. It is enough of a signal that a young adult looking at it, who knows what the rainbow means, will know that I am a safe person to speak to.

The young adult area should be a safe place for all YAs who wish to hang out there, and I think having a librarian who is willing to be open will make it easier for the YAs to do the same, whether their secret is their sexuality, a love of comic books in a literary "nerd", or romance novels in a football player. This is the most positive aspect of being out at the library.

What We Learn from Glee

I'm having a love-hate relationship with the new Fox series Glee. The premise is that a bunch of high school 'misfits' form a glee club under the auspices of a teacher who is also having problems in his own life. For the first few weeks the show split the kids fairly predictably down the usual televised lines: jocks and cheerleaders, the effeminate boy, the Asian chick, the black girl, and the Jewish girl. Each had their stereotypes firmly in place.

In last night's episode, though, they started to break them down. One of the emerging themes has been what is the best way to help these young adults. As Rachel, the bullied Jewish girl who sees her voice as her ticket to likeability, says to the teacher: "You help everyone else, but you don't know what to do for me." She hits on something vital here. When it comes to all the other kids, their problems are obvious, and are generally eased by giving them a confidence boost. Rachel has confidence already. What she needs from glee club is a social connection with people who will not judge her or mock her for having that confidence.

Talking about teen services, I think it can be easy to overlook the Rachels. They may come into the library and seem to have all the answers already and our focus remains on those teens who are not so confident. But Rachel's development is equally important. This is why it is vital to try, as much as it is possible, to know each teen, whether it is only for a moment or for a longer period, depending on often s/he comes into the library.

Young adults are often made to feel unwelcome. In Glee, the kids are in the club because they don't fit in anywhere else. However, the club is now giving them the confidence to branch out. Kurt, the effeminate boy, has joined the football team and come out to his father. (On a side note, the show's handling of Kurt's coming out story arc was one of the things that brought me around to truly liking the show.) The jock and the cheerleader have opened themselves up to accepting others' differences because of glee club. Likewise, the library can serve as a place for young adults to hang out with peers who they normally wouldn't. I see this as an inspirational start.

The important thing is to first provide a space where they are welcome.

Adapting Across the Lines

Both of this week's readings are about change. Or, to put it more accurately, adaptation. Gorman writes about how the librarian can adapt her attitude to welcome YAs into the library and provide a place where they feel comfortable and as welcome as the children or adults. Prensky writes about the differences between people who did not grow up in the digital age and the difficulties they have teaching the generations that are.

It seems to come down to a hurdle--jumping over the block that tells us teenagers should behave like fully-formed adults or that there is only one way to learn and it involves books and hours of dedicated study. I find myself on the edge of the digital age. We had computers in the house in the 1980's, and I remember the 'internet' back then, which was a black screen with green or white text that my father would type a question into and ten minutes later he'd get an answer. Wow. I remember each step of the internet's progression into what it is today.

YAs now do not have a historical memory of technology, at least not one as drastic as mine.

Does this make us unable to relate to each other on that level? I don't think so. Who knows, they could be interested in learning about the old days...

The greater issues could be the stereotypes that Gorman claims we hold against each other. Judgmental and overprotective. Noisy and disruptive. The male-female ratio and racial differences, too. They all push together in a recipe for confrontation. However, this can be offset by being firm yet open with the YAs. Welcome them, talk to them, hear them, and let them decide to behave or to leave. I have no idea if this last part will work in practice, but it seems better than yelling.

Week 1: 12-15 Year Olds--too old to wave for attention, too young to stage protests about it

This week the reading (and thank you, UPS man for bringing me the book last night!) is about understanding the youth audience. Teens, to me, are a fairly mysterious entity. I have one cousin who is a teenager, but I'm not certain if she counts anymore because she's 19 and in college, so I'm pretty sure there's a cut off there. In any case, my primary exposure to teens en masse these days is on the subway or at CVS right when school lets out. I see them at their most raucous, when they have just been released from forced order and quiet and are letting all their energy out by out-talking each other and playfully shoving each other around.

I generally try not to get in their way.

This is not to say that teens intimidate me. I simply understand that I am encountering them in a moment when they definitely do not desire an adult to be butting in in any capacity. I used to think quite a lot about teen services (or Young Adult services, as surveys have shown older teens prefer to be called, so I should probably start doing that...) So. I used to think a lot about teen *and* young adult services in my hometown, which is very small and had wonderful library programs for children but none for kids twelve and up. The town itself had nothing for kids that age, so in reading over the chart of internal and external assets that young people need to achieve their full potential, I was silently checking off each one as 'no, didn't have that, or that one either...'

I think that the kids aged between 13-15 are too often ignored by society. It seems that people don't really know what to do with them. Here are the kids in an age range where they are forming their traits that will see them through their lives, and yet there is a veritable black hole of services and programming available to them. Are they children? Are they young adults? What must it be like for them to age out of a children's program and find that the young adult programs are not suited for them? This is what I saw happening in my town.

My personal goal for a YA services program would be one that could serve all ages from 12-high school graduation with divisions of appropriateness, at first glance by age level, but more importantly by what the patron needed. Libraries and librarians are a social cornerstone that can be vital in the transition from youth to adult. Especially in situations where teens are without parental guidance for the majority of their day, the library should be able to provide a place of support where they can feel able to be themselves, to play on the computer if they want, but especially to feel that they have the support they need and the opportunities they need to achieve what they want now and to feel important now. No child should have to wait to feel validated.