Friday, February 28, 2014

Freedom to Read and Reconsider at the Toronto Public Library

What it takes to get a book removed from circulation—and how often that happens at the TPL.
Entrance to Lillian H  Smith branch  Photo by Greg Stacey from the Torontoist Flickr Pool
Entrance to Lillian H. Smith branch. Photo by Greg Stacey from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Although the Toronto Public Library possesses a number of controversial holdings, few people are outraged enough to demand that items be withdrawn from its collection: it’s reassuring to consider, especially during this Freedom to Read Week, that on the whole, Torontonians support the public’s right to access materials considered offensive, and to do so via a local TPL branch.

The TPL outlines its position on contentious items and the importance of free debate in its Materials Selection Policy:

The Library believes that a vital society encourages members of its community to actively participate in an open exchange of ideas and opinions. Material selectors consequently strive to provide the widest possible range of resources within Toronto Public Library collections.

The content or manner of expressing ideas in material that is purposely selected to fill the needs of some library users, may, on occasion, be considered to be offensive by other library users. The library recognizes the right of any individual or group to reject library material for personal use, but does not accord to any individual or group the right to restrict the freedom of others to make use of that same material.

Yet there are, inevitably, patrons who wish to restrict that freedom, or to prevent items containing inaccurate or outdated information from circulating freely. And for such patrons, the TPL has developed a formal process. So what do these patrons do if they want the library to take a book off the shelf?

First, they ask their local librarian for a “Request for Reconsideration of Library Material” form. Once they’ve filled it out, it goes to the Collection Development department, where the manager reviews the request and contacts them if any clarification is needed. Then, the request is sent on to a librarian committee for review, and a response is issued within 12 weeks.
Front page of the Toronto Public Library’s “Request for Reconsideration of Library Material” form.

Since 2000, around 100 requests for reconsideration have been filed—and only nine items have been removed. The most recent title to be pulled, Date Rape: A Violation of Trust, was withdrawn from the video collection in 2012 because it, “while well-intentioned, reinforces stereotypes and lacks diversity and is, therefore, not appropriate as an educational tool in Toronto’s multiracial and multicultural environment.”

Other titles have vanished for reasons including libel threats, unreliable accounts of Romanian history, bad advice on passing business accreditation exams, outdated information on dairy farming—and being poorly produced knockoffs of Pixar films made by the highly esteemed Video Brinquedo studio (What’s Up: Balloon to the Rescue).

Other reconsidered titles find new homes within the library system. Tintin in the Congo, for example, which features controversial depictions of Africans, was moved from the children’s collection to the adult graphic novel section in 2010. Not all suggestions from complainants can be acted upon: one 2003 complaint about eye weekly urged the library to provide copies sans escort ads. And in 2006, a patron requested that a rabbi review the content of Sarah Silverman’s film Jesus is Magic.

The most popular requests for consideration between 2000 and 2013? It’s a tie between Maxim magazine (2005 and 2006; one request suggested users be IDed lest it fall into the hands of innocent youth) and Robert Kaplow’s The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun, a raunchy parody of The Cat Who… mystery series (2005 and 2007).

Library staff have not noticed trends in the complaints, and are proud of how few requests for reconsideration come in. Vickery Bowles, director of Collections Management and City-Wide Services, feels this reflects Torontonians’ “appreciation for the breadth and depth of our collections and the fact we are living in a large urban setting.” She believes that the public senses that “intellectual freedom in the public library setting is very important” and that the widest variety of available materials should be offered.

Freedom to Read Week display at the Maria A. Shchuka branch. Photo by Jamie Bradburn/Torontoist.

Richview librarian Kara Miley notes that discussion with staff can calm angry patrons. “Half the time they just want to rant at somebody—they want to think that you’re listening to them. If you let them just rant, they tend to lose steam.” Miley’s interest in censorship issues led her to put together a presentation as part of the library’s Freedom to Read Week activities. In “How to Ban a Book in 10 Easy Steps,” Miley focuses on the challenges libraries face elsewhere in North America, especially in the United States, where the merest hint of controversy damages an item’s acquisition chances. If you tackle topics like sex, racism, evolution, magic, and the Israel/Palestine conflict, be prepared.

What spares the TPL from many of the battles American librarians face are stronger protections via the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the anti-censorship policies of professional bodies like the Canadian Library Association. Plus, as Miley puts it, “I’d like to think we’re open and tolerant in Toronto.”


Check the TPL’s website for activities related to Freedom to Read Week, which runs through March 1.

from: Torontoist

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Rainbow Magic: loathed by parents, loved by children

Is it soulless to create a children's book by committee? And if it is, why are 'collaborative' fiction series such as Rainbow Magic so wildly popular? 
by: Clover Stroud

Within the taupe walls of a meeting room near Kings Cross, a group of men and women are brainstorming a children's fiction title. Half-drunk mugs of coffee sit on coasters, as ideas fly across the table. Bows and arrows and a compelling female protagonist suggest a nod to The Hunger Games, but it's little more than a nod, since the story's set in the Middle Ages.
"How about we take a semi-historical route?" someone asks, and the next 12 minutes involve a discussion about the exact decade in which the book should be set. Would a certain king be more suitable for this genre than another? How would the invention of gunpowder affect plot? "How about using magic?" someone sparks up, followed by a general murmur of approval. "Could the heroine be a horse whisperer?" "Has she had to track her parents down?" "Or is she an orphan?"

Welcome to the inner world of Working Partners, the company behind some of the bestselling series fiction in children's writing. With more than 1,000 books in 40 languages, their creations include Dinosaur Cove, Secret Unicorn and the phenomenally successful Rainbow Magic series, which has sold 20million copies. In 2007, the series was bought by HIT Entertainment, a preschool licensing company who also own Bob the Builder and Angelina Ballerina. Then there's Beast Quest, a bestselling series largely aimed at boys. With 72 books published last year, it's written by "Adam Blade", with a companion series called Sea Quest.

Not that the thrusting Adam Blade, or the prettily named author of the Rainbow Magic series, Daisy Meadows, actually exist. Titles are written by teams of authors under a single pseudonym. "We call it 'collegiate' fiction," says Chris Snowdon, the MD of Working Partners. "We're not interested in being approached with a single concept for a series. Developing ideas together is what makes our work exciting." Initial concepts are brainstormed by the larger team, and three or four writers and editors will then write a full treatment of several thousand words, which will get farmed out to writers to submit several chapters, before a final author is chosen for a single book.

Several writers will write books within a series, and writers and editors frequently swap roles. "No single person owns an idea, because ownership brings preciousness," declares Snowdon. "We'd have tension within the team if one person owned a concept or character."

While this manifesto might sound like a depressingly didactic, communist interpretation of fiction writing, it gets results, both in terms of sales and the devotion of little girls to a brand like Rainbow Magic. British library lending figures published last month showed that "Daisy Meadows" was the most popular children's author for 2011-12, the most recent year for which data is available.

Since 2003, 170 titles have been published, with each series running to seven books, and numerous specials; the latest - Georgie the Royal Prince Fairy - was published yesterday. And yet, while children adore Rainbow Magic, those two words are enough to strike fear into the hearts of many parents. "Rainbow Magic was put on Earth to punish me for my failings as a mother," says Rebecca, 37, whose daughters Emilie, eight, and Sophia, six, are "currently in the grip of a Rainbow Magic obsession so intense, it's driving me insane". She's not alone. "Rainbow Magic made me seriously regret naming my daughter Kirsty, since she's convinced every book is about her," says Josh, 44, referring to the heroine, Kirsty, who appears in each book. Josh is "ashamed to admit to having read 20 or 30 of those cursed fairy stories" to his daughters.

With pink glittery covers, and a huge cast of fairies, these are unashamedly gender-specific titles, with "real-life" themes such as the Olympics or pop culture. "Showtime Fairies" include Taylor the Talent Show Fairy and Darcey the Dance Diva Fairy, while Jessie the Lyrics Fairy and Adele the Singing Coach Fairy appear in the Popstar series. And back when Ms Cole was still the nation's sweetheart and an X Factor host, Cheryl the Christmas Tree Fairy sold 64,716 copies.

This plundering of pop culture is one reason parents accuse Rainbow Magic of cynicism. Many see them as poorly written books - as I learnt when my daughter read them, the verbs "gasped" and "grinned" appear with mindnumbing regularity - whose saccharine packaging and clever marketing exploit the predilections of little girls.

"The charge of cynicism is water off a duck's back for us. Giving children a world they're familiar with removes hurdles to early reading, and that's our goal," says Snowdon, who argues Rainbow Magic has democratised the children's market, bringing fiction to non-reading households, while enabling children of more literate parents to speed up as readers. "We love Philip Pullman as much as anyone else, but I don't know many children who could progress to them without having done grounding in repetitive reading." Children's writer Berlie Doherty, who has twice won the Carnegie Medal award for children's literature and is praised by Philip Pullman for her emotional honesty, begs to differ. "This sort of limited plot and simple characterisation is depressing," she told me. "Books like this don't develop a child's imagination. We need to have a bigger push for the life-affirming literature individual authors are producing." Doherty describes series fiction as "unstoppable", but concedes its value lies in making children confident readers. "I hated reading Rupert to my children, but it helped them learn."

And even if series fiction can feel like a cynical marketing ploy intended to shift millions of books, it's hardly new. Collaborative series fiction created by the Stratemeyer Syndicate dominated the children's market in America throughout the last century, with multi-million-copy-selling series like The Hardy Boys and the fearless girl detective Nancy Drew. Born during the American Civil War, Edward Stratemeyer was himself a prolific writer who brought together a stable of writers to churn out children's novels based on his own storylines. According to Marilyn S Greenwald, author of The Secret of the Hardy Boys, he was a ferocious taskmaster who paid writers as little as $85 for a 45,000-word novel.

Writing under the pen name Franklin W Dixon, Leslie McFarlane was one such writer milked by the syndicate, completing over 100 titles in The Hardy Boys series, something he loathed. McFarlane despaired at the formulaic nature of the books, and as he succumbed to alcoholism he poured out his woes in his diaries: "Whacked away at the accursed book. The ghastly job appalls me." Despite being one of the bestselling authors of the last century, he was virtually penniless, forced to raid his children's piggy to feed his family. When Stratemeyer ordered him to keep his true identity secret, he was more than happy to do so.

The creation of Nancy Drew was no more harmonious, as revealed by Melanie Rehak in Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women who Created Her. First published in 1930, Nancy was nothing like the subservient female characters that preceded her. Unlike the wooden Hardy Boys, Nancy was a three dimensional heroine. While Stratemeyer wrote the earliest Nancy Drew plots, Mildred A Wirt Benson penned them into novels under the name Carolyn Keene; Stratemeyer himself never knew of Nancy's success, dying a month after the first book was published, when his daughters Harriet and Edna took on responsibility for the girl detective. Adams wrote the outlines after her father's death, and entire books from the Fifties onwards, but there was always tension between the sisters. Adams championed a less wilful version of Nancy, while simplifying plot and writing out her racism.

Controversy seems to follow series fiction; James Frey, provocative author of A Million Little Pieces, has his own series fiction agency, Full Fathom Five, selling 12 books in three series, including The Lorien Legacies. But Frey became entangled in controversy when the New York Times ran a piece accusing him of exploiting young talent.

And yet, unlike poor Leslie McFarlane, those series fiction authors I contacted loved their jobs, since they tend to be prolific writers who use series fiction as a way of exercising their writing muscles. "As a writer I bring colour and description to the original story idea," says Michael Ford, an editor at Working Partners who's written 25 Beast Quest books, and likens his training with the company to "constantly being in a creative-writing class. Brain-storming sessions are brilliant for writing, as they're both highly creative and very efficient. They've taught me to think acrobatically."

Ford creates novels from a detailed synopsis of 10 well-developed chapters with cliffhanger endings. "If it becomes repetitive, I bring in some filmic knowledge, like details from Star Trek, to save my sanity."

"It might be frustrating if this was my only writing but it's just one part of what I do," says author Rachel Elliot. "And if the end result is that a child loves reading, enjoyment in my work is the same whatever the genesis of the story."

Rainbow Magic author Narinder Dhami has 200 books under her belt. She was a literacy teacher until 1998, and the skills she learnt then are ingrained in her style. "I know how to write books children will love reading. But if I don't think a brief will work, I suggest how to redo it."

While the concept itself isn't exactly ground-breaking, Megan Larkin, publishing director of Orchard Books, who worked on the Rainbow Magic series for two years, believes simplicity is key to its success. A decade after first publication, they still receive fan mail. "Many publishers have tried and failed to reproduce Rainbow Magic, but there's real skill to packaging an idea like this.

We know from fan mail the fairy names really matter to the children, as does the collectable nature of the books." An educational specialist checks the right vocabulary has been used for the age range, and the design of each book is as carefully planned as the writing; designers use the Next catalogue to choose suitable outfits for the characters that will appeal to the average six to eight-year-old reader. As Megan says "For publisher and children, everyone's a winner."

At the annual Reading Agency Lecture, Neil Gaiman argued there's "no bad fiction for kids". Speaking about the civilising effects of literature, he dismissed the "foolishness" of declaring any literature a "bad book", arguing we should encourage children to read any book they enjoy. "Well-meaning adults can destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books you like. You'll wind up with a generation convinced reading is uncool and, worse, unpleasant." He asked adults not to "discourage children from reading because you feel they're reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is the gateway to books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste."

"Series fiction has been heavily criticised, but is a key element in children's reading, whether it's Nancy Drew or Rainbow Magic," says Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust. "Of course adults find it boring, but it's not created for them. The lack of originality and repetition is part of the attraction, and the patterns are psychologically reassuring, especially for children whose lives are increasingly stressful."

Instilling a love of fiction is probably the most compelling argument for series fiction. Perhaps parents should just grit their teeth and endure it, safe in the knowledge that those plodding building blocks will lead to literary strides.

I think of this one evening, as I lie in bed with my children, all of us quietly reading. Jimmy is devouring I am Number Four, thanks to James Frey's anonymous writer, having just finished The Great Gatsby. Dolly is now released from the sugary shackles of Rainbow Magic and is working her way through Lemony Snicket. And me? I lie between them, lost in Casting Off, number four in the five-part Cazalet series. Written by Elizabeth Jane Howard, I've devoured the Cazalets, and with engaging plot and familiar characters, they're not a million miles from the idea of adult series fiction, either.

We're all completely engaged by our individual books, but if we swapped, we'd probably be very bored. Does it matter we're all reading a version of series fiction? I don't think so. The point is: we're reading.

from: Independent

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

What is a Library?

by: Katie Gilbert

Harlem Shake in a library? Yes!” cries the caption of a YouTube video uploaded this spring by the regulars of the Queens Library for Teens.

The Harlem Shake at the Queens Library for Teens.

While watching dozens of teenagers decked out in parrot masks and Bugs Bunny costumes dancing, jumping and spinning on rolling chairs across the frame, anyone is likely to wonder: This was allowed in a library? And upon entering the space where the clip was filmed, many people do ask: This is a library? Aside from a few small shelves of test-prep materials, this 3,000-square-foot room holds no books.

The teen library sits at the corner of Cornaga Avenue and Beach 20th Street in Far Rockaway. It opened in a former retail space in 2007 to resolve the mounting complaints from patrons at the Far Rockaway library branch a block away, who grumbled that the horde of teens descending on the facility every day after school was just too disruptive. The teen library is open from two-thirty p.m. to six p.m. Monday through Friday and admits only twelve- to nineteen-year-olds—not their younger siblings, and not even their parents.

Kim McNeil Capers, the teen library’s director, laughs when she says, “Kids don’t come in here to find books. They come here to find a girlfriend!” That’s only partially true. Capers is a certified mental health counselor, and before she joined the library she supervised mental health programs for teens and children. Her face straightens when she adds: “When they come in here, we’re going to get them the help they need.”

It’s a common refrain among those working in New York’s public libraries these days: Because it’s increasingly difficult to pin down exactly what kind of help they’re supposed to offer, librarians have tried to make their mission pliable, and to offer whatever help people need, in whatever realm it may be. They’re hardly limiting their offerings to intellectual pursuits.

In fact, no librarians work at the teen library—youth counselors run the place. And though it’s devoid of books, the room holds plenty else. After the orange-sherbet walls, the rows of forty computers are likely to be the first thing you notice. On the opposite wall, magazine racks house seventy subscriptions, and interspersed with those are salmon-and-green padded chairs. Upon entering one recent afternoon, a group of about ten boys immediately pulled them into a circle to facilitate their noisy Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game.

When you get to the back of the room, you’ll come upon the teens’ most prized possession: a $70,000 recording studio, flanked by three editing stations. To one side of that is the gaming lounge, and to the other side a pool table, which will soon shift roles to serve as the foundation for a model town with a working model railroad. When the teens start to stream in, the air swells with friendly yelling, B.O. and the scent of fast food, but they aren’t chided for shouting or snacking. This is a place for hanging out.

However, what the teen library hopes to offer its young patrons is heftier than that. Far Rockaway struggles with high unemployment and the social issues common to areas with many low-income housing projects—problems that have only been compounded by the neighborhood’s isolated location on a remote barrier beach, not to mention Hurricane Sandy, which came through in 2012.

The teen library’s daily and monthly programs are tailored to this vulnerable population, hosting daily GED prep classes, an annual college fair, health classes, gang awareness programs, a chess club, CPR training, a Regents Exam prep club, a streaming radio station via the recording studio, an annual science fair, and scores of other activities.

The Queens Library for Teens is a reflection of what New York City’s libraries have come to believe about themselves: They are in a position to do more than just connect their patrons to books and content.

*   *   *

What is a library for?

That question has never been as difficult to answer as it is today. Just as the Internet has given way to identity crises within journalism, publishing, and music, movie and television distribution, it has also confused what used to be libraries’ central purpose: providing a singular portal to content for whomever cared to access it. With the World Wide Web blowing in and demanding recognition as the more singular portal to the world’s content, libraries’ painstaking cataloguing of information that is now largely Google-able is looking a bit less critical.

It’s an upheaval that calls for a more existential grappling than can be addressed by digitizing library content or installing rows and rows of new computers. Librarians have had to delve deeper and ask themselves fundamental questions about their role, such as, what can they offer that the Internet can’t?

“Libraries are aggressively moving into a range of services that aren’t necessarily related to book lending,” says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, a nonprofit research body that has published a series of reports about how technology is changing expectations of library offerings. “They are pretty radically rethinking their mission in the world,” he said. 

Major cities like New York may be the most progressive incubators for the trend. Rainie adds, “There’s clearly something special that has happened in urban libraries, where they are thinking very seriously about the new services mix that they should offer to their patrons.”

Library employees from each of New York City’s three systems—New York Public Library (with branches in Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx), Queens Borough Public Library, and Brooklyn Public Library—maintain that their institutions are in the midst of a role reappraisal.

“We’re evolving our service model,” says Thomas Galante, president and C.E.O. of the Queens Borough Public Library. He points to shifting budget priorities to illustrate. For example, when the libraries suffered deep funding slashes in the early 1990s and again in 2001, Galante and his colleagues delegated cuts based on where they’d have the least impact on circulation. Library locations with the most in-and-out book traffic stayed open six days a week, while those with more anemic circulations only opened their doors two or three.

But by the time libraries saw funding pull back again in 2008, priorities had reversed. The system’s directors wanted to ensure that each of its sixty-two branches would open at least five days a week, so the books budget bore the brunt of the cutbacks as it was snipped in half.

“We know there are all sorts of other reasons why people walk through our doors—for programs, for computer access, for a place to get out of the heat,” Galante says. “We thought that was more important than having twice as many new books on the shelves.”

Brooklyn Public Library chief librarian Richard Reyes-Gavilan notes similar changes pervading his system. “I’d love to say we’ve made this conscious decision to sort of reevaluate our role in people’s lives, but really all we’re doing is responding to community needs,” he says. “Our physical spaces are situated across the borough to deliver informal, nontraditional educational experiences, and that’s what we’re really moving into.”

Reyes-Gavilan explains that when making hiring decisions, “we’re not necessarily asking people anymore, 'Tell us what experience you’ve had with reader advisory or cataloguing.’” Instead, he asserts, the system’s higher-ups are more apt to value experience in education or social services.

All three of New York City’s library systems are in the process of building out new departments and positions that more readily evoke a social worker’s job description than that of a traditional librarian. In September, BPL launched its new Outreach Services Department, which will eventually consist of five full-time staff members tasked with expanding services for immigrants, senior citizens and prison populations. In October, NYPL began hiring for the new role of “intake managers,” library employees who will help patrons sift through the growing number of programs, and who will maintain a hands-on role after doing so, contacting patrons when, for example, they miss classes for which they’ve registered. For its part, the Queens system has six full-time and two part-time case managers—all hired since 2009—who help visitors navigate the murky waters of government programs and services.

In the decade between 2002 and 2011, the number of programs offered across the city’s 206 branches jumped twenty-four percent, and the number of attendees at those programs shot up by forty percent, to 2.3 million, according to a Center for an Urban Future report.

These changes are making for an altogether different library experience. Galante says they have designated quiet rooms recently because “the rest of the library isn’t as quiet.”

“People tend to think of the libraries they grew up in,” he adds. “But those are very different than walking into a public library today.”

*   *   *

Over the past five years, Madlyn Schneider has helped transform Mail-A-Book—a library program based in the Queens Village branch that delivers books and other materials to New Yorkers unable to leave their homes because of age or disability—from a straightforward delivery service into the teleconferenced social life of dozens of Queens’ homebound residents.

Bonnie Sue Pokorny was just looking for something to read when she first contacted Mail-A-Book in the early 1990s. At that time, Pokorny, now sixty-eight, had recently been diagnosed with a rare neurological autoimmune disorder that came on quickly and brought with it frequent bouts of dizziness, fainting and overheating. She had always been active and independent; she’d raised three children by herself, worked full time managing the claims department of an insurance brokerage house in Nassau County, and ran a large late-summer street festival in Queens for thirteen years. But when her illness hit, it cost her almost more effort than she could bear just to sit up. Her doctors told her she’d never work or drive again.

But she had always been an avid reader, and at least that was something she wouldn’t have to relinquish. She learned that Mail-A-Book could help with that, and for the majority of the intervening twenty-three years she’s been bound to her Forest Hills apartment, it has.

But things started to change for Pokorny when Schneider took over Mail-A-Book in 2008. Schneider had previously worked in an administrative role at the library, which required her to spend hours sitting in boardrooms on conference calls and staring at Polycom teleconferencing technology in the center of the room. In her new role, she started to wonder: What else might the library be able to do for the roughly four hundred socially isolated patrons receiving book deliveries from her staff? She applied for a small grant from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation and used it to purchase teleconferencing equipment. The library system agreed to foot the monthly bills for an 800 number.

At first, the Mail-A-Book teleconference chats happened only on Friday mornings, and were strictly book-related. Mail-A-Book users could call the 800 number to chat with other patrons about the books they’d read that week. As demand grew, the library added a Tuesday afternoon session. As New Year’s Eve approached, a woman on one of the calls complained that she dreaded the holiday for how lonely it made her feel—a sentiment shared by many on the call. So Schneider convened a telephonic New Year’s Eve gathering from home that year, and another the next day.

Schneider kept coming up with new possibilities for the library teleconferences: art lectures from docents at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art; collaborating on crossword puzzles via Skype; performances over the phone from musicians and comedians; emailed newsletters with patrons’ own art, poetry, recipes and book reviews; and, eventually, occasional in-person lunches in Queens diners for those Mail-A-Book members who could venture out.

Over the past few years, Pokorny’s phone-based social world has ratcheted to a level that might be more normal for a patron of the teen library—her Mail-A-Book commitments generally call for her several times a day. “Before, I was always trying to make sure I had a lot of projects in the house to keep busy, so the four walls weren’t climbing on me,” she says. “Now I don’t have time for my own projects. There’s always something going on.”

Pokorny got something else out of Mail-A-Book she hadn’t expected the program could provide: a new friend. She was introduced to Margo during a Mail-A-Book teleconference, and although they never met in person, the two of them were soon calling each other up three or four times a day. They took online classes together that they’d learned about through Mail-A-Book, and helped one another with the homework. “We 
had the same sense of humor, the same interests,” Pokorny says. “A lot of our experiences were similar.”

Margo passed away last December at seventy-seven.

“We became very, very close,” Pokorny says. “I had Margo in my life for maybe a year and a half before she died. I consider that year and a half very lucky, because you don’t make friends when you’re homebound. You might have acquaintances, but Margo and I were fast friends.”

Today, Pokorny is more tied up than ever in Mail-A-Book, and at this point, most of the services she receives from the library have little to do with books.

“With all the activities in Mail-A-Book,” she says, “I don’t have time to read.”

*   *   *

The consensus among New York City library employees about what exactly has happened within their institutions over the past decade starts to crumble when they acknowledge that the library is no longer the book-and-reading-centered body it used to be.

What, then, is the library becoming? QPL’s Galante rejects the suggestion that his libraries are becoming indistinguishable from social service agencies.

“People come to the library today to find a new job, learn a skill, take a GED class. These are all things that someone could dub as social services, but they’re not,” Galante says. “A public library today has information to improve people’s lives. We are an enabler; we are a connector. When it comes to social services, a lot of what we do is help people by referring them to places they can go.”

Sandra Michele Echols, interim manager for QPL’s adult literacy program, is of another opinion. She’s in the midst of writing an article about the direction public libraries are headed, and its working title aptly summarizes where she stands: “I Could Tell You Stories: Am I a Librarian or a Social Services Manager?”

Echols joined QPL in 2009 as the system’s first case manager, screening and referring library patrons to nonprofits and government organizations that could help meet their needs. She says the role of a designated case manager had been made necessary by the passage of the E-Government Act of 2002, a federal law that sought to allow citizens access to a wide range of government information and services via the Internet. The act was widely hailed as a boon to the working class, who’d now be less likely to have to miss a day of work for a visit to the DMV. But others, including Echols, complain that an unintended consequence of the act was that it put significant pressure on public libraries—particularly in a place like New York City, where, as a report from Comptroller John Liu’s office noted in April, nearly a quarter of households don’t have a computer.

“Now that the E-Government Act has been passed, it helps the working class do things really easily, but it alienated the poor and furthered the digital divide,” Echols says. “And now, social service agencies are telling individuals, ‘Go to your public library and have them help you print out your child support, or the application for housing.’ So that’s becoming a real specialty for librarians.”

The Far Rockaway branch brought in a case manager who set up her own office in the library building in early November. Sharon Anderson, the branch manager since 2008, says she had become so overwhelmed with requests for help filling out government forms, assisting with job applications, calling battered women’s shelters, and, in one case, finding a rape hotline, that it became necessary to situate a case manager in the building.

Anderson’s branch doesn’t exactly greet its visitors with the enforced hush most expect of a library, but it doesn’t shriek with chaos, either. The buzz of activity falls somewhere in between—it’s the sound of a space being utilized in layers. Bookshelves line the perimeter of the 6,300-square-foot library, allowing ample room for about twenty computers (all in use on a recent weekday afternoon); a set of gleaming white cubicles that house the Workforce1 Career Center, a job placement service run by the NYC Department of Small Business Services; a kiosk with information about the branch’s new Google Tablet lending program; and several tables where dozens of students cluster each afternoon for an after-school tutoring program funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative.

“People walk in here and say, ‘This isn’t a library anymore!’ Well, you know what’s funny?” Anderson says, pausing to laugh. “It’s really not!”

She says that sometimes people complain about the level of activity in the building, but she hasn’t been surprised to discover that much of her job description requires her to raise her voice above a whisper.

When Anderson earned her master’s degree in library science from Queens College in 2004, she presented her thesis on what she saw to be a blurring line between librarians and social workers. “I started to see an evolution where librarians were getting away from sitting at a desk and checking out books,” she says. “I knew I was going to be taking on more of a social services role.”

As we talk, a woman in a red sweater and Iris Apfel glasses approaches Anderson’s desk and, pointing her cane in the direction of the street, complains that she’s been wrongfully stuck with a parking ticket. Anderson listens, then explains how the woman can contest the ticket by mail.

When the woman walks away, Anderson says she believes the changes in her library have been driven by “too many social issues and not enough social agencies,” combined with her institution’s broad mandate and its eagerness to adapt. “Part of our mission is to help people,” she says. “We’re just responding to the environment, and continuing to say, ‘Whatever your needs are, we’ll help you.’”

Of course, changes within libraries aren’t met with blanket acceptance. In a Pew Research Center survey of Americans’ expectations of libraries in the coming years, respondents were generally supportive of new technologies, apps and lending programs, but they weren’t sold on the idea that “libraries should move some printed books and stacks out of public locations to free up space for tech centers, reading rooms, meeting rooms, and cultural events.” Thirty-six percent of respondents said libraries should “definitely not” push books aside for these other types of programs, while thirty-nine percent answered that “maybe” they should. Only twenty percent were “definitely” on board with such changes.

Little surprise, then, that NYPL kicked up such fervent controversy when it announced its plans to renovate its flagship research library, the lion-guarded Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Forty-Second Street. The plans are Pew’s hypothetical made literal: in order to combine services from the Mid-Manhattan Library and the Science, Industry and Business Library into the building, books and other research materials will be shipped to a storage facility in Princeton, N.J., to make way for not only a new circulating library, but additional computers, group work spaces, an expanded children’s room with new programming, and the building’s first-ever teen room.

“Will Forty-Second Street remain a serene environment for scholars, serious readers, intellectuals and book lovers, or will it be converted into a noisy, tumultuous branch library?” Scott Sherman wondered in The Nation, in one of a series of articles that criticized the renovation plans.

John Lundquist, a former chief librarian of the NYPL’s Asian and Middle Eastern Division, was forced to retire in 2009, a year after the division was closed. Lundquist is concerned about the main branch’s renovation plans, but he stresses that he draws a strong distinction between the mandate of the city’s research libraries and its branch libraries.

“I feel that the branch libraries, and public libraries in general, are totally right to go in directions [in which they assume a] much broader social mandate,” he says. But the changes shouldn’t extend to research libraries, he says. The relocating of research collections to make way for other types of library spaces constitutes, he believes, “the tragedy of the dumbing-down of the research collections of NYPL.”

*  *  *

It’s the Monday evening before Thanksgiving, and the Far Rockaway branch is throwing a party. The tables that would have otherwise been host to after-school tutoring are pushed out of the way to make room for a few dozen chairs facing a makeshift stage where one-man-band Peter J. LaRosa regales the crowd of roughly fifty with big-band classics.

Behind the chairs where concertgoers sit, a line of volunteers scoop steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and turkey out of tinfoil pans onto the line of plates moving past.

Two middle-age women in the audience, Shirley and Debbie (both declined to share their last names), have come to the library to see LaRosa, whom they once saw perform at a nursing home. They marvel that such a noisy event would be held in a library.

“I’m surprised they’d allow food in here with the books!” Shirley says.

Debbie nods in the direction of a group of youngsters jump-dancing to a Tony Bennett tune and chortles. “These kids don’t look like they’ll be looking at books after this.”

A woman shrouded in long dark hair, sunglasses, and wine-colored lipstick chimes in, telling me about the free jewelry classes she took at this library branch the week before. “And it’s not with the plastic stuff—they give you nice stones,” she says. “And you get to keep it.” She adds that the library’s programs are good for Far Rockaway. “Thank goodness they think of this stuff, because there’s not a whole lot else out here.”

But, she adds—and now she’s shouting to be heard over a tangle of teenagers wrestling over a cell phone—she misses having a quiet library where she can just go to read.

So what’s more important, I ask: A library that excels in the programs, or one that has mastered the quiet?

“Both,” she says, without missing a beat. “A library should be both.”

*   *    *


Katie Gilbert is a freelance writer based in New York City. She has written for TheAtlantic.com, Psychology Today, Institutional Investor, Willamette Week, and others.

from: Narratively

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Tiny Mobile Library Travels Italian Countryside

I-libri-mettono-le-ruote-il-Bibliomotocarro_h_partb


It is a beautiful Italian story of the retired teacher Antonio La Cava from Ferrandina (Italy) that runs the villages of Basilicata on his “Bibliomotocarro” to promote reading. And the kids are waiting for him with enthusiasm. Antonio, bought a used Ape motorbike from Piaggio, he has modified it, filled it with books and called Bibliomotocarro. Every week he turn the villages of Basilicata and announce his arriving by the sound of an organ. In the squares  children are waiting for him. “They borrow books and sit on a step to browse. It creates a magical atmosphere. “Before leaving, he opened his own “White Paper Book “. Children write inside whatever they want, stories or personal narratives. “When I return it, the book falls into the hands of other children that continue the story or write others. And they are always wonderful stories. “Each month Antonio runs about 500 kilometers and transmits to the smaller the passion for reading. Our Congratulations Antonio!

Bibliomotocarro5

from: 5election

Monday, February 24, 2014

Our growing appetite for 'chick noir'

As a new novel offers ways to cook and eat your husband, we look at 'chick noir', a new genre of toxic marriage thriller 
by: Jon Stock

There’s no health warning on Season To Taste, a new novel by Natalie Young, but the subtitle sets the tone: How to Eat Your Husband. “Always let the meat rest under foil for at least ten minutes before carving,” Lizzie Prain, the book’s protagonist, offers helpfully. An interesting thought when the meat in question is her late husband’s lower left leg joint, carefully preserved in the freezer along with 15 other body parts after she clubbed him to death with a spade in the garden. “It’s very Waitrose,” Young says. “Lots of best quality olive oil and good salt – cannibalism in the Surrey Hills.”

The book, published on January 16, is the latest example of a new genre that publishers are calling ‘chick noir’ – no pink jackets, no happily-ever-after endings, just chilling narratives charting the breakdown of domestic intimacy and trust. This trend for toxic marriage thrillers began with Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn, the phenomenally successful American thriller about a cheating husband and AWOL wife. The book dominated the bestseller charts in America and Britain last year and is soon to be a film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.

January 16 also sees the publication of Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse, a psychological suspense novel that’s being billed as Britain’s answer to Gone Girl. “A whirlwind romance,” the book blurb begins. “A Perfect marriage. Hannah Reilly has seized her chance at happiness. Until the day her husband fails to come home…”

“I'd define 'chick noir' as psychological thrillers that explore the fears and anxieties experienced by many women,” Whitehouse says. “They deal in the dark side of relationships, intimate danger, the idea that you can never really know your husband or partner or that your home and relationship is threatened. In these books, danger sleeps next to you. Marriage is catnip for writers of psychological suspense because it's such a private, intimate relationship.”

Whitehouse credits the 2012 novel, Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson, as well as Gone Girl, for starting the trend, and she also cites last November’s psychological thriller The Silent Wife by the late ASA Harrison. It tells the story of a couple whose happy twenty-year relationship (they are not married) is based on denial and begins to disintegrate. You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, out in April, is another thriller in a similar vein: a devoted wife and mother, and a husband who suddenly goes missing.

“I think there's always been a tradition of psychological suspense emerging from the domestic sphere – from the secrets concealed in marriages and relationships,” says literary agent Will Francis of Janklow & Nesbit, who represents Natalie Young. “It’s not a new thing: Patricia Highsmith, Daphne Du Maurier, Charlotte Bronte if you go back far enough.

"The market is always there, but because they are character rather than concept driven, they are hard to write and it takes an author as skillful as a Gillian Flynn to breathe new life into the genre. Season to Taste is really just an anatomy of a marriage. It's a character study, but written from the strangest and most disturbing viewpoint imaginable.”

A particularly disturbing viewpoint if you happen to be the author’s ex-husband. Young was divorcing him when she began writing Season To Taste, but she claims that their relationship is good and that he loves the book. “He thinks it’s an absolute cracker,” she says, adding that he has searched in vain for evidence of himself in Jacob, the (much older) fictitious husband. “I think it’s hidden very well.”

When contacted by the Telegraph, Young’s ex-husband, Peter Sandison, was certainly on message. “I am very proud of her,” he says, apparently not through gritted teeth. “For me it’s a wickedly black comedy and a clever, gripping thriller. I’m telling everyone I know about it – I’ve never read anything like it.”

Charterhouse-educated Young, who took a first in English Literature at Bristol University, says that she didn’t consciously set out to write a chick noir novel, but is happy to be part of the new trend. “Many women can’t cope with chick lit, in which a woman’s happiness depends on her finding a good man. So many women out there don’t want their lives to be like that. We have also just been through a major recession. I think books are going to reflect the dark and despair of that. The last thing we need is the literary equivalent of a tea-cosy.”

Season to Taste may be nausea-inducing in places and, er, tasteless, but it can’t be accused of being twee. In between flashbacks of Lizzie’s repressed marriage, the reader learns how to oven-cook hands (best served with new potatoes and mange tout), how to make a spaghetti dish with the heart, and that the tastiest accompaniment to slow-roasted thighs is smashed up rosemary, anchovy and garlic.

Cannibalism has a rich literary heritage because it works on a symbolic level as a means of addressing numerous social anxieties,” Young claims. “In this case, with a woman eating her husband in the Home Counties, I have found a way of gently poking fun at middle classiness, capitalism, foodie culture, and power relations between men and women.”

It remains to be seen if the public will swallow it.

Five chick noir books:

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

The Silent Wife, by ASA Harrison

Season to Taste, by Natalie Young

Before We Met, by Lucie Whitehouse

You Should Have Known, by Jean Hanff Korelitz
from: Telegraph

Friday, February 21, 2014

New Ideas for Book Displays

by: Nancy Dowd

Last year Kate Spade set up a cool pilot program in NYC during the holiday season that combined online shopping with a live window shopping experience. People could order directly from the window display and it would be delivered within an hour to any location in the city.




The idea of libraries utilizing retail window space for interactive book displays is very compelling to me.  

Malls always have those free standing windows where a store has closed or under renovation. You could go low tech and set up an amazing interactive book display with video loops of the author talking about the book, a few book trailers or one of some of your librarians giving a video taped book talk. A QR code sticker will let people connect to your catalog and download the ebook. Keep it simple and borrow from King County's "Take Time to Read" campaign and put up posters all around the mall with a QR code that leads them to a book talk.

Pop Up Libraries?   
It might seem too much to consider hauling your entire collection to a temporary space but why not consider creating themed outreach activities that extend for a couple of weeks and rename it a Pop Up Library?
 
Take it a step further and partner with a retailer. Create a themed campaign that is relevant to their mission and pull together a series of programs that make sense, create a space at the store for a mini two week Pop Up Library with resources around the theme- maybe even consider conducting a program at the store. The store might love getting a "live performance" by a popular author or other personality. When I was at Ocean County Library, NJ the special events coordinator brought a popular soap opera star to the mall for a book signing and the lines wrapped around the building.



The New Zealand publisher PQ Blackwell opened two LOVE AND CARE pop-up bookstores in Manhattan over the holidays. Don't worry about taking over an entire store, think in terms of creating an amazing space. I love using painted horses for a display table.  

from: M Word

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Connection failed: internet still a luxury for many Americans

As schools put emphasis on computer use in class, school-age children without internet access at home suffer.
by: Jana Kasperkevic

Whenever homework was assigned in school, Destinyjoy Balgobin would be filled with anxiety. Not because she wasn't familiar with the material or that she had better things to do. Rather, it was that she had no way to do it.

As with most homework assignments today, Balgobin’s often required the use of a computer and internet, whether it be to do light research, read material, or type up an essay. With no computer or internet at home, Balgobin, who recently graduated high school, had to rely on publicly available resources to complete her homework. Often, she would end up doing it with the internet on her cellphone.

Among households with incomes of $30,000 and less, only 54% have access to broadband at home, says Kathryn Zickuhr, a research associate with Pew Research Center’s Internet Project. Members of these households are most likely to use internet access outside home – at work, school or a public library. Similar to Balgobin, about 13% of these household report accessing the internet on their cellphones.

A further look into poverty reveals more and more unconnected Americans. According to Pew Research, one-third of those making less than $20,000 a year do not go online at all. Another third go online, but do not have internet access at home. Of those making $30,000 or less, 45% of mobile internet users go online mostly with their cellphones.

The lower-income population that lacks internet access can be divided into two main groups: the elderly and the young, says Zickuhr. While the elderly deem internet irrelevant or feel that it's too late and too difficult to adapt, those in the younger generation like Balgobin struggle to keep up with their peers.


internet phone blackberry
About 15% of 18 to 29 year olds have a smartphone, but no internet at home. Photograph: Michael Melia/Alamy



Just consider President Barack Obama's goal to bring internet to schools nationwide.
[I]n an age when the world’s information is a just click away, it demands that we bring our schools and libraries into the 21st century. We can't be stuck in the 19th century when we're living in a 21st century economy.
Even as some schools forge ahead by incorporating computers, many students are left behind due to the lack of connection at home. In a February 2013 survey conducted by Pew Research, College Board Advanced Placement program and National Reading project, 54% of teachers said that all or almost all of their students had access to digital tools such as computer and internet connection at school. Only 18% said the students had similar access to such tools at home. More than half of the teachers of the lowest income students, at 56%, said that students' lack of resources presents a major challenge to incorporating computers into their teaching. For teachers of students from mostly lower-middle income, that number was 48%.

Despite understanding that students face limited access, 79% of teachers said they have their students access or download assignments from an online site and 76% have students submit those assignments the same way. Other ways teachers ask their students to use internet include posting their work to a website or a blog (40%), participating in online discussions (39%), and editing their classmates' work through web-enabled sharing tools such as Google Docs (29%).

It’s difficult to make people understand how important internet access is when they aren’t without it, says Balgobin. In order to complete her homework, she often used the computer lab at school or at the public library.

Overall, two-thirds of those using internet at public library said that they did research for school or work, revealed a survey conducted by Pew Research. Out of all age groups surveyed, 16 to 17 year olds were the group to access the internet the most. About 39% of them said that they had used a library computer or Wi-Fi in the last 12 months. For 18 to 29 year olds, that number was 38%. For 30 to 49, it was 31%. For parents of minors, that number was 34%.

There are, however, limitations when it comes to using computers and internet at library. Oftentimes, the demand for computers in the library exceeds the number of devices available. As a result, public libraries require members to sign up for 30-minute windows in which they can use the computer. When it comes to completing certain homework assignments, 30-minute windows are hard to navigate and might not be enough time to actually complete the assignment, says Balgobin.

With some libraries closing as early as 6pm, parents and students have had to come up with alternate places to access internet. For those who have access to a computer, but lack internet connection at home, coffee shops like Starbucks and even fast-food restaurants like McDonald's have become after-school haunts. Other parents use their cellphones to create Wi-Fi hot-spots at home.

McDonald's internet wifi
Do you want Wi-Fi with that? As early as July 2003, many McDonald's restaurants in San Francisco began providing high-speed wireless access. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Unwilling to leave unconnected students behind, some schools have chosen to only assign homework that does not require use of computers and internet. Yet such policies are challenging, says Danielle Kehl, a policy analyst in the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation. By cutting out these tools from part of their homework, kids are losing out on valuable education.

Keeping up with Mooresville ...

So, how should the US handle this predicament? Are there proven policies that could be replicated nationwide?

“I wish there was a simple answer,” said Kehl.

Local efforts on a municipal level might prove more effective than a nationwide campaign. “Some communities have decided to make [connectivity] a priority,” said Kehl, pointing to Mooresville as a perfect example.

Mooresville came into national spotlight after it was highlighted by President Obama. Out of 115 school districts in North Carolina, Mooresville ranked in the bottom 10 when it came to spending but ranked second in student achievement. “You’re spending less money getting better outcomes,” said Obama, noting that “there is no reason why we can’t replicate the success you've found here.”

Yet keeping up with Mooresville won’t be easy. Thanks to a partnership with One-to-One institute, a national non-profit dedicated to implementing one-to-one technology in K-12 settings, the district began implementing a six-year digital conversion plan. By fall of 2009, all students in grades four through 12 received laptops for their use 24/7. By fall of 2010, the program was expanded to include third grade as well. In February of 2012, the New York Times declared Mooresville “a shining example” – a laptop success story.
Obama internet wifi school
Obama was shown digital learning programs during a visit to Mooresville, North Carolina. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
When speaking at Mooresville last year, President Obama laid out a lofty goal in the form of a ConnectED initiative, promising that in five years’ time, FCC will have connected 99% of US students to high-speed broadband internet. According to Kehl, other lawmakers like West Virginia senator John D Rockefeller IV, California congresswoman Anna Eshoo and FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel have previously called for providing schools nationwide with one gigabit connection, something that almost none of the school have right now.

... and South Korea

“Only around 20% of our students have access to true high-speed internet in their classroom,” said Obama.
By comparison, South Korea has 100% of its kids with high-speed Internet. We've got 20%; South Korea 100%. In countries where – in a country where we expect free Wi-Fi with our coffee, why shouldn’t we have it in our schools?
If catching up to Mooresville seems difficult, catching up to South Korea might be impossible. More densely populated than the US, South Korea faced much lower costs in setting up its internet infrastructure, according to CNN. Furthermore, the country made internet connection its priority as early as 1990s.

One of the main obstacles facing US in its effort to catch up to South Korea is the funding necessary to make ConnectED a reality. The low-end estimates for the cost of the program are $4bn, according to The Washington Post. The White House has suggested raising the funds through imposing higher cellphone service fees, a plan that does not sit well with Republicans.

It's not just South Korea that seems to have a leg up on the US. Compared to the most cities around the world, US cities provide slower-speed internet for higher prices, says Kehl. According to her research, "the best deal for a 150 Mbps home broadband connection from cable and phone companies is $130/month, offered by Verizon FiOS. By contrast, the international cities we surveyed offer comparable speeds for less than $80/month, with most coming in at about $50/month." Same goes for mobile data plans, which cost twice as much in US as they do in UK. With prices like these, it's no surprise that many low income families opt to go without internet.

Ultimately, getting better internet access in schools won't make things easier for students like Balgobin, who have no access to computers and internet at home.

In fact, putting emphasis on digital tools in classrooms makes it even more likely that we will see likes of her in our local library, coffee shop or McDonald’s attempting to do the homework that many can and do at home.

from: Guardian

Should potty-mouthed children's books come with a PG rating?

A new novel called When Mr Dog Bites, which contains lots of profanity, raises the question of whether we need proper warning labels on young adult and children's books.
Bloomsbury published When Mr Dog Bites simultaneously on its YA and adult books list

by: Martin Chilton

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS FREQUENT USE OF STRONG LANGUAGE

Swearing in Young Adult (YA) fiction is a controversial and complex issue. A new novel – When Mr Dog Bites, written by a Dublin-based teacher called Brian Conaghan – set me thinking. What are the rules governing profanity in books for children? Should there be classifications, as there are with films?


When Mr Dog Bites is not a sensationalist novel. It is an interesting, thought-provoking and sometimes funny story about a 16 year-old named Dylan Mint. He has Tourette's syndrome and lives in near poverty in a single-parent family. The role of his (now absent) father, who was a drunken and abusive husband, is deftly handled. 

But the profanity in the book is overwhelming at times and troubling.

In a single chapter (called 'Argument'), during a scene in which two young louts are bullying Dylan in a park, you are hit, within the space of 16 pages, with the words “fucking” (used 10 times); “arse” (8), “c---” (6), “shite” (5), “fuck” (4), “piss” (3), “crap” (3), “twat” (3), “fuckers” (3), “shit” (1). There are also references to “balls”, “cock” and “dildo”(mentioned separately – together they sound like a firm of solicitors from a Carry On film…).

It is not as though publishers, Bloomsbury, are unaware of the novel’s content, which they have issued simultaneously on their YA and adult list (with different covers for the adult and teen market, above), because they are using the swearing to publicise the book. Charlie Higson's verdict (that the book is "funny and foul-mouthed") is included on the press release along with two ostensibly humorous promotional slogans:


"Welcome to the world of Dylan Mint. He's going to take you on one *#@! of a journey"

and

"When Mr Dog Bites is controversial, hilarious and #@!Δing brilliant!"


Using the swearing as a marketing gimmick makes me uncomfortable. Taken in isolation, the bad language is shocking. The author is dealing with characters in a special school in a deprived area of Glasgow ("Paki c---" is the sort of racist abuse hurled at a character called Amir) and aggressive and abusive language resounds.

The main girl in the book, a disabled teenager on dialysis called Michelle Malloy, is said to have a "megaphone potty mouth", but it's a description that seems coy given that her response to being asked out on a date is to say: "Mint, I'd rather wank a sheep."

Bah humbug, some might say. Swearing is part of teenage life, and this is just an author being realistic, portraying young adult characters in the most honest way possible and we should avoid being prudish. I would agree that it's better not to have a situation where focusing on the profanity in a book entitles 'gate-keepers' to deny publishing space to books with difficult subjects.

On the back of the YA dust jacket for When Mr Dog Bites there is a logo about 'Explicit Content' and a line that says: "WARNING: CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE. NOT FOR YOUNGER READERS."

This is all very well, but what does a "younger reader" mean? A well-read 14 year-old may have the maturity to cope with a challenging YA book in a better way than an immature 17 year-old. Many teenagers are capable of making adult choices about their reading material. But many are not. And many books are read and digested in solitude. Parents may not even know their children are reading such disturbing content. The ideal of a teenager reading a book and then discussing the contents with his teachers or parents may be just that: an ideal.

Many school librarians are wary about supplying books they believe are unsuitable, but they are also against anything that puts a barrier between a child and reading for pleasure. And that includes enjoying books where swear words are integral to the book, such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. And you have to accept, too, that we now live in an age where children have unmediated access to all kinds of information through the internet.


Swearing is not the only contentious issue in modern YA books, many of which are at the cutting edge of modern British writing. In the past decade, there has been a host of fine books dealing with terrible issues that blight the lives of some teenagers, such as eating disorders, sexual abuse, incest, mental illness, drug addiction, ritual abuse, self-harm, and so on. Sanitised fiction is not the answer. We obviously need to avoid censorship. Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government", said comedian Lenny Bruce; but this should not mean that a YA book has to be full of obscenities in order to be bold and challenging. Anne Cassidy's new YA novel Finding Jennifer Jones deals with contentious and powerful subjects but (unlike When Mr Dog Bites) it is a book I would recommend.

I'm not sure there is an easy answer, and authors, publishers and librarians have not been able to agree on the notion of recommended reader ages on the back of books. Opponents argue that this is prescriptive for pre-teen readers who are capable of exploring more adult concepts and making good choices about their books.

Perhaps there is a need to follow the example of the British Board of Film Classification, which weighs up the difference between a U, PG,12, 12A, 15, 18 and R18 movie. It can't be beyond the world of children's publishing – full of so many people who care so fundamentally about what the young minds of UK children are taking in – to come up with a wise panel or council of people to make these fine distinctions. But what is not satisfactory is having a book with obscene language and then a vague small-print warning for "younger readers".

Context, clearly, is an important part of the debate, and Conaghan told Bloomsbury that he has Tourette's Syndrome himself. Dylan suffers from the rarest form of Tourette’s syndrome, where the sufferer's swearing can be completely involuntary (even though this isn't a particularly common trait among those suffering from Tourette’s) and his story offers an interesting way to examine life for young teenagers in a tough environment.

But you would want the book to succeed or fail on its own merits, not because youngsters are enticed to read it in the expectation that there will be a lot of foul language. Does swearing have an impact on sales of a book, I wonder?

In July this year, the UK hosts its first YA Literature Convention, which will be overseen by the brilliant new children's Laureate Malorie Blackman. This is an issue that should be discussed at that event.

from: Telegraph