Dirty Library Trilogy, part 1: Drink your way to better librarianship

Mechanical Dolphin

This is the first of three blog posts exploring the very limits of what librarians can learn from popular culture.

I often end presentations and workshops with the challenge: “What’s the naughtiest thing librarians can do to promote literacy today?”

 ‘Naughty’ doesn’t mean dangerous, inappropriate, or damaging – but in a profession sometimes misrepresented as staid and conservative, and so often at the mercy of local government bureaucracy, it’s important to remember that public librarians are firebrands – that public libraries are innately subversive institutions, born of the radical notion that every single member of society deserves free, high-quality access to knowledge and culture.

So being “naughty” in the name of literacy might involve kids smashing up fruit inside your library; or playing real-life versions of video games among the shelves; it might involve zombies besieging kids and teens within your building.

 In the ‘Dirty Library Trilogy’, I’m going to try and push the boundaries and see what libraries can learn at the far reaches of pop culture…from the battling broads of the rollerderby rink to the barrooms of the world. 

So…could we drink our way to better librarianship?

Cocktail

Read more →

Mechanical Dolphin

readitadmin's avatar

A youth event with a difference highlights the community value of libraries

There is no-one in the library when the children arrive.

Jagged letters are chalked across the door: SAVE YOURSELVES.

Blood is pooled on the front step.  Within, bookshelves have been knocked to the ground, their contents spilled across the carpet.

The air is thick with summer heat and silence.

The children suspect a prank.  They’re quick to investigate, eagerly picking over the vandalised interior, quizzing their teachers:

“Is it a murder mystery game?”

“Did you fake a burglary?”

Before the adults have time to answer, a terrible cry comes from the street outside.

The children run to the library doors.

They see figures approaching: gruesome, deformed individuals from the ranks of the walking dead. Zombies attack!  The children scream as the teachers hurry them inside and barricade the doors.

Only the library can save them now…

View original post 540 more words

The zombies of Tullamore: A library youth programme with a difference

Mechanical Dolphin

As my regular readers will know, Friday 9th November saw a very special event in Tullamore, New South Wales. Australasian libraries have run a lot of innovative youth activities in recent years – but I think this was the first time that they had gone so far as to summon the living dead in the name of literacy…

A zombie lurks at the windows of Tullamore Library, New South Wales

Read more →

Mechanical Dolphin

readitadmin's avatar

A guest post by Dr Matt Finch

Snoopy was my first comic book hero.  Before I could read, before I could even follow the stories from frame to frame, I used to flip through the dozens of Peanuts books we had lying around our home, hunting out the pictures of Charlie Brown’s taciturn dog.

Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, was a master cartoonist who could convey volumes with a minimal number of pen strokes.  The image above, capturing Snoopy in a soaring act of imagination, is potent because, though wordless, it belongs to the world of storytelling (and therefore literature) as much as art.

It took time for my infant self to fully make sense of Charlie Brown and company, but once I did, there was another mystery waiting for me – the inscriptions by my Mum and Dad in every edition.  It took a few years for…

View original post 541 more words

Image gallery: September workshops from Australian libraries

Mechanical Dolphin

A selection of photographs from some of my recent workshops for children and young people in New South Wales.

These school holiday sessions in libraries offered high quality speaking and listening opportunities alongside exciting and unusual hands-on experience, with attendees also producing a range of narrative and non-fiction writing amid the fruit smashing and tower building!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

You can see more images from the spooky mining themed workshop “Mysteries Underground” at my Tumblr page.

Stealing fire from the gods: Keynote address to Canberra Early Literacy Conference

Mechanical Dolphin

On 13th September, I spoke in Australia’s Parliament House at the inaugural meeting of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Early Literacy, followed by a keynote address to the third annual Paint the Town REaD Early Literacy Conference.

Paint the Town REaD (PTTR) is the Australian initiative which encourages families, carers and the wider community to ‘read, talk, sing and rhyme with your child from birth.’

Paint the Town REaD's Reading Bug

I tend to give speeches the same way I used to prepare my classroom as an infant school teacher: research the topic, put loads and loads of resources into place, then allow free play across the interests and needs of the audience. Today’s blog post captures a few highlights from the conference’s keynote discussion, assembled under the hashtag #occupyliteracy.

Read more →

Guest post: Adele Walsh on blogging your way to a dream job

Mechanical Dolphin

Adele Walsh, aka Snarky Wench, runs the Centre for Youth Literature at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne.

Adele Walsh, Centre for Youth Literature programmer

Adele’s one of my writing heroes because she used her blogging skills to shift from a career as a schoolteacher to a dream role as champion of youth literature in one of the coolest and most hipsterious* cities on the planet.

After I blogged on the unexpected joys of copywriting, I started to think of other writing careers that don’t focus on the ‘hunched over a desk cranking out a Great Novel’ model, and Adele came to mind.

There’s a lot of waffle written on the Internet about following your heart and living the dream – but Adele really did find a way to turn her passion into her career, using her writing skills as a springboard.

*Yes, hipsterious.

Here’s Adele on ‘how to get your dream job in 10 (easy?) steps’:

Read more →

No matter how hard they’re punched: on superheroes and real-world issues

Mechanical Dolphin

To round off my recent series of posts on comics and education, I’m joined by Professor Mark D. White of CUNY; Master’s student Tom Miller of McMaster University in Canada; Australian critic and screenwriter Martyn Pedler, currently completing an interdiscplinary PhD thesis on superhero stories at the University of Melbourne; and Nick Sousanis, an artist-educator and doctoral candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University.
 
The discussion was prompted by a piece on the Batman: Arkham City computer game on the Overthinking It website.
Batman: Arkham City video game cover 
In it, John Perich argued that ‘Superhero comics are rarely a good medium to talk about real-world issues’:

Nothing about Arkham City is subtle. But then, nothing about superhero comics has ever been subtle.

Whenever superhero comics try to get “edgy” and “real,” they bump against the limits of the genre. Superhero comics are meant to have action and thrills. That’s why people read them. So when a writer introduces a problem in a comics storyline, it has to be a problem that can be solved through thrilling action.

I used the article as a leaping-off point to ask Mark, Tom, Martyn, and Nick whether the need for fisticuffs prevents superhero comics from exploring deeper issues.

Read more →