The Windsor Star: With 10,699 books printed, Windsor library’s self-publishing machine is a hit

Sharon Hill | July 20th, 2015

Sue Perry likens her role at the Windsor Public Library to that of a midwife.

Perry runs the main library’s self-publishing Espresso Book Machine which has produced 10,699 books in three years and she hopes to be even busier delivering professionally-bound paperback books into the hands of local authors.

Windsor was the first public library in Canada to install such a machine in 2012 so it wasn’t clear how well it would be received. Three years later, the service isn’t a money-maker but its growing popularity and a proposed fee increase could help it break even.

Perry said it’s not about turning a profit but providing a service that, in this case, led to the birth of a writer’s group and gave people a way to publish their work even if they only want one book.

“These people have worked on this work for months and years and years and they bring me this file on a flash drive and I plug it into the machine and (these) Willy Wonka noises happen and out pops a book. And you hand the book to them and it’s still warm,” Perry said Monday of a moment that often involves tears of joy.

“They hold what they’ve been working on forever in their hands and you just see their face change. Their dream is now in their hands.”

The machine is growing in popularity. In its first half year, the machine pumped out 986 books. So far this year, it has printed more than 4,000 books.

There have been more than 248 individual titles produced, books in English, Arabic, Polish, Spanish and French, and authors from teenagers to writers in their 80s. Although people can make a copy of an out-of-print book, 98 per cent of the customers are self publishing, she said. There are children’s books, textbooks, memoirs, fiction novels, how-to manuals and genealogy books.

“It’s just taken off exponentially,” Perry said.

A report to the library board Tuesday includes a proposed price increase which Perry called reasonable. The fees are $15 for set up plus a few dollars for a cover and loading each title and then five cents a page for black and white or 50 cents a page for colour. The report suggests increasing the setup fees, keeping the cost per page the same, and offering a bulk discount at 50 or more copies instead of 30 copies.  It costs almost $319 for 50 copies of a soft-cover book and under the proposed new pricing it would cost about $361, she said.

Dorothy Mahoney, a published poet, used the machine to self-publish a 40-page book of her mother-in-law’s memories and recipes for her mother-in-law’s 90th birthday.

“The end result is super professional looking,” Mahoney said.

Karen Kilbride, a St. Clair College English teacher, published a draft of her fiction novel Dead Weight which she hopes to launch in November.

“It was really so inspiring and so wonderful to have a physical copy of something you worked on looking like an actual book that you would pick up at a bookstore,” Kilbride said.

Some of the books produced at the library are sold in book stores.

Library board chairman Peter Frise said libraries are about access to information and ideas and part of that is not just taking what others have created but creating your own things.

“I think it’s just amazing,” Frise said.

To view the original article, please visit The Windsor Star.

PC Magazine: How the NY Public Library Crowdsources Digital Innovation

William Fenton | July 23, 2015

 Like most public institutions, the New York Public Library is chronically underfunded. However, shoestring staffing has not slowed the breakneck pace at which NYPL Labs releases new digital projects. NYPL Labs offers a model for public institutions around the country: Trust your patrons. Thanks to shrewd application of crowdsourcing initiatives, NYPL Labs has produced innovative online projects ranging from maps to menus.

Maps

NYPL Labs is perhaps best known for its work with the NYPL Map Division on the Map Warper suite. Eventually, the project will produce a virtual atlas of New York City, through which researchers will be able to geospatially explore photographs, newspapers, manuscripts, and other holdings from the library's collections. Tens of thousands of maps and atlases from the past 500 years must be stitched together into historical layers that can be "rectified" (aligned) with contemporary digital maps. It's an ambitious undertaking, and one NYPL wouldn't finish this century if they relied upon their staff alone.

Instead, NYPL Labs opened the project to researchers. To begin "rectifying" maps, patrons create free accounts. (I signed in using my Twitter account.) There's a four-minute tutorial on using the tool, though the process can be as simple as adding pins (Control Points) to maps. Patrons can also review one another's work, crop maps, and post comments. At last check, more than 6,000 maps have been rectified.

The groups' latest collaboration arose from a MAPHACK event, during which contributors developed a process that identified buildings in geo-rectified sheets from Map Warper. NYPL describes it as "OCR for maps." Patrons can quality-control that OCR using Building Inspector.

If Map Warper caters to cartographers, Building Inspector is best for bite-sized contributions. Patrons don't need accounts, desktop computers (the site is mobile-compatible), or more than a few minutes at a clip. Checking building footprints or entering addresses, colors, or place names can be accomplished in a lunch break, and patrons can take pride in the fact that they contributed to the NYC Space/Time Directory, which will serve as a searchable atlas of NYC history and a code base with which other libraries may launch similar initiatives.

Menus

With menus dating back to the 1850s, NYPL boasts one of the world's largest culinary archives. The problem is that the lovely lettering that makes these menus objects of art also makes them illegible to computers. Once again, there's no way for library staff to transcribe all of them. NYPL provides patrons with a tool, What's on the Menu?, through which they can view and transcribe dishes and pricing.

Using the tool is as simple as following your nose. While there are more than 17,000 menus digitized, patrons can winnow options by decade. For example, there are 1,500 menus from the 1890s but just 21 from the 1860s. Menus and dishes can also be browsed by date, name, popularity, or obscurity. I would not have expected radishes to be more popular than apple pie (by a two-to-one margin across all menus), or that something called "Nesselrode Pudding" was all the rage in the 1890s (gracing 481 menus).

Remarkably, there weren't any new menus available for review at last check, and the menus under review appeared accurately transcribed—a testament to the popularity and utility of NYPL's crowdsourcing scheme. Moreover, all data generated via crowdsourcing is available for download (as a CSV file) and public API.

Trust

Maps and menus are just a couple of areas where the New York Public Library has produced digital projects that use crowdsourcing to expand the possibilities of the public library. (Theater lovers will hope that Ensemble, a collaborative transcription project with the Billy Rose Theatre Division, will do for playbills what Menu has done for dishes).

NYPL Lab's approach to online projects is effective because it relies upon reciprocal trust. Library staff trust that visitors will contribute meaningfully to digital projects, which they encourage by scaffolding crowdsourcing with clear guidelines and peer review. Where possible, staff improve upon previous projects. While this approach results in heterogeneous design, it also means that each initiative assumes the form its function dictates. In return, patrons trust that contributing to NYPL projects will not be onerous—each tool will function as a complement to the research they conduct. Patrons expect that the data they contribute will be publically available and that it will be richer collectively than what they could achieve individually.

A philosophy that unites 21st century tools with a social contract has sparked something of a digital renaissance at the New York Public Library, and it could enable beleaguered public institutions elsewhere to expand electronic outreach and strengthen ties with patrons.

To view the original article, please visit PC Magazine. 

GoodEreader.com: Why Do Libraries Pay More Money for e-books?

GoodEreader.com: Why Do Libraries Pay More Money for e-books?

By Michael Kozlowski | June 20, 2015 

Libraries in Canada and the United States have been quite enamored with establishing digital collections. This includes audiobooks e-books, magazines, newspapers and video. 95% of all libraries in these two countries have an e-book collection and the costs are starting to add up. Predatory pricing by major publishers are pricing their e-books almost 500% more than the Kindle edition and libraries have had enough.

The simple truth is that there is no uniform landscape of e-book pricing for libraries. Some publishers only allow for an e-book to be borrowed 26 times before the library has to purchase it again. Others opt for the digital license to expire after a single year. Random House and Hachette charge between 100% and 500% more for an e-book over the Kindle or Nook edition.

The Toronto Public Library have been providing some very illuminating figures that really drive home how expensive e-books really are. The new Michael Connelly novel Burning Room costs $14.99 on Amazon, but they are paying $106.00 per copy. John Grisham’s Grey Mountain costs $15.99 for anyone wanting to buy the Nook version, but libraries pay $85.00. Interested in checking out the new David Baldacci novel The Escape? You can purchase the Kobo digital edition for $14.99 and libraries are gouged $106.00.

Why are e-book prices so expensive for libraries? Well to answer that question we have to look at the fundamental difference between print and an e-book.

When a publisher sells a book directly to a library or from a distributor such as Ingram it abides by the first sale doctrine. Libraries can do whatever they want with the title, including loaning it out without restriction or selling it in a book drive.

e-Books on the other hand do not abide by the first sale doctrine because they are licensed out to the library, there is no clear and defined path of ownership. This allows any publisher to basically establish their own parameters, some are quite perplexing.

Simon & Schuster started offering bestselling frontlist e-books to libraries in 2014. Part of the condition of them making their collection available was to force the e-book distribution companies to implement a Buy it Now button on the libraries websites. Anyone who did not want to be number #891 on the waiting list on a very popular new book, could purchase it and the library got a small commission. In order for libraries to get a hold of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson or The Wright Brothers by David McCullough, they had to all agree to S&S weird policies.

I have talked extensively to the administration of the American Library Association about their efforts to get more favorable e-book pricing and they told me that “The reason why publishers are so hostile to libraries is because the e-Books are loaned out to people who might otherwise be customers, they the publishers need to compensate for those perceived losses.”

How can libraries get more favorable pricing on e-books? A new coalition has just been established in Canada, which comprises of The Toronto Public Library, Canadian Library Council, Ontario Library Association and the Canadian Library Association. They are getting the word out that they are mad as hell and aren’t going to stand for it anymore.

Toronto Librarian Vickery Bowles was promoting the new working group in an  interview to the Toronto Star, she said “In 2009, the Toronto City Library spent under $200,000 on its electronic collection, 1.1% of total spending. That figure is expected to be more than $3 million for this year, almost 20% of the entire collections budget. E-books are now growing faster than the library’s ability to provide them, causing wait times longer than four months as six people wait for a single book.”

Will this organization have meaningful impact in Canada? Well, its the first time a group like this has been put together, so there’s that. In reality, they can get some media attention, but nothing will happen unless there is new government legislation. Something has to be done to compel the publishers to enact a unilateral e-book pricing strategy.

In the end, I don’t think that e-book pricing will change anytime soon. Publishers have only been doing the whole e-book thing with libraries since around, some of them as late as last year. I think everyone is trying to figure the whole e-book thing out, but for profit publishers can’t do it on their own. There needs to be a concentrated effort by consortium’s, library associations, and government to establish common operating parameters for publishers.

From: GoodEreader

Library Journal: The Art of Weeding | Collection Management

Library Journal: The Art of Weeding | Collection Management

By Ian Chant | June 23, 2015

Getting rid of books can feel uncomfortable and look bad to community members, but careful weeding is key to the health of a collection.

There’s an uncomfortable truth about library stacks that most librarians know but many don’t like to admit: those shelves hold a lot of junk that has to make way for the new titles getting published every day. Considering the volume of material libraries deal with, and the span of time over which those titles have been acquired, it’s not surprising.

Pulling that chaff from the collection can be time-consuming for librarians with no dearth of other projects needing their attention. Also, weeding—removing items from the collection—can seem counterintuitive. It’s by and large a thankless task as well. Patrons don’t walk in saying, “Thanks for getting rid of all of those books!” Some may even drag library staff over the coals, furious about what looks, to them, like useful books being destroyed or funds being wasted.

So why go to the trouble? Because in a library, just as in a garden, taking out unwanted items makes those left behind stand out. Circulation frequently rises after a weeding project, however counterintuitive that may seem: when people can browse the shelves (or the online catalog) without having to sift through older material they’re not interested in, they’re more likely to find something they are looking for—or something they didn’t know they were looking for.

Meanwhile, freeing up physical space devoted to books that never leave the stacks makes more room to buy new materials that will circulate—and sometimes cash to do so, when weeded materials are resold. As more room is devoted to shared resources other than materials, such as Maker spaces and community meeting rooms, space for collections may be contracting altogether—and that means clearing out books that don’t circulate the way they used to (and maybe a few that never did).

SLOW AND STEADY

Holly Hibner, adult services coordinator at the Plymouth District Library, MI, and coauthor of the blog Awful Library Books, recommends thinking about weeding as a normal part of collection management rather than waiting to do it all at once. Taking a few minutes every day to look through the collection and pull titles that don’t belong anymore can save library staff from having to undertake a major project.

“There’s no reason to load up a cart with hundreds of items once a year when you can pull a few things here and there all year round,” says Hibner.

Not letting weeding turn into a large effort can help prevent a lot of the headaches associated with it, says librarian Mary Kelly, who coauthored with Hibner the textbook Making a Collection Count: A Holistic Approach to Library Collection Management (Chandos). Major weeding programs can cause anxiety and misunderstanding among library staffers and community members alike.

Examples of libraries throwing out thousands of titles in one fell swoop, and losing a lot of public goodwill right along with those titles, are not hard to find. In the UK, the destruction of nearly a quarter of a million old, damaged, or irrelevant titles during the renovation of the Manchester Central Library was described by opponents as “morally reprehensible,” according to an article in the Guardian last February.

DUMPSTER DISMAY

Also in February, Alameda County Library (ACL) in northern California came under fire when thousands of titles turned up in the dumpsters of its Fremont branch. “My stomach went into a knot,” Fremont resident Dorothea Dorenz told a local CBS affiliate. After several months of negative publicity, the ACL Advisory Committee agreed to work with Discover Books, a for-profit company that will sell the weeded books through eBay and Amazon, with a portion of the sales going to the ACL Foundation.

Maybe the biggest shame of these controversies is that folks like Dorenz—who belongs to a group named Library Book Savers of Alameda County—have the best of intentions and the library’s interests at heart. These advocate groups should be natural allies, but miscommunication can turn them into enemies. In Hennepin County, MN, the whistle-blower was an anonymous library employee who went to the press, telling KMSP-TV that “hundreds of thousands of perfectly good books” were being thrown into the library’s recycling bins.

“Even if all the weeded books meet the weeding criteria, the sheer volume can get people worked up,” says Hibner. “Large-scale weeding is what gets libraries into trouble and [is] where mistakes can happen. Going slowly and carefully is better for the collection and better for users.”

Hibner says it can be helpful to keep a couple of noncontroversial titles on hand to illustrate why collections need pruning. “Hold up a copy of How To Get More Fun Out of Smoking (Ram, 1941),” she recommends, “and say, ‘This is why we weed.’ ”

NECESSARY SACRIFICES

All the same, sometimes a huge cull of titles is necessary. At the University of Missouri, library director Jim Cogswell oversaw the destruction of nearly 190,000 titles from the collection after they had been damaged by mold in 2013 and were no longer fit for circulation. Even though more than twice as many titles were saved by cleaning since the problem was discovered, a faculty committee described the destruction of the damaged titles as an “egregious violation” of trust between the library and faculty members.

“We should have done better in saying that the only books that were going to be destroyed were duplicates,” Cogswell told local paper Lee’s Summit Journal. “But I make no apologies for the outcome.”

Renovations or moves to a new location, or simply a change of policy can also trigger larger deaccession projects.

When a lot of titles need to be weeded at once, communication is key. Being transparent about the decisions being made and the thought process behind them—and getting ahead of the story—can help prevent a library’s otherwise supportive public from becoming upset when a number of books need to go.

Even in the course of regular weeding, transparency and openness are important, says Mindy Reed, managing librarian at Recycled Reads in Austin, TX, and a 2015 LJ Mover & Shaker. Recycled Reads operates a retail space that sells and recycles books discarded from the Austin Public Library’s 23 branches, upward of 60,000 books every month.

“We’re totally transparent. If someone wants to come in the back to use the restroom, they will see us sorting books,” says Reed. More formal tours are available, too, of course, as a way of opening the process and winning trust in the community.

“We’ve built credibility, but that takes time,” Reed says. “It can’t be just a matter of ‘Trust me, I know what I’m doing, don’t look in that bin.’ ”

WEEDING BY NUMBERS

What makes a book a good candidate for weeding? How much use a book sees is obviously a major factor. Running an integrated library system (ILS) usage report can return an objective list of titles that can safely be culled to make space in the stacks for new blood. For those whose libraries subscribe, specific collection analytics software, such as Baker & Taylor’s Collection HQ, DecisionCenter by Innovative Interfaces, and on the academic side Intota Assessment can take the library’s data and turn it into user-friendly weeding and branch distribution reports.

However, even the most accurate algorithm’s list can benefit from a double check from a trained librarian’s eye, as certain titles (classics, local interest, backlist for authors about to release a new title after a long hiatus) may be worth keeping on the shelves in spite of low-traffic track records—especially if yours is the only library in your consortium or interlibrary loan pool to retain a copy.

Spending time in the stacks with the titles is a must. It’s also a great way to get, and stay, familiar with the collection—good, bad, and ugly. Making a habit of roaming regularly will make sure a librarian always has a feel for what’s on the shelves.
“You can’t make weeding decisions based solely off of paper. Things circulate that shouldn’t. Things don’t circulate that should,” Hibner says. “Old things should be considered on an individual basis, not weeded simply because they are old.”

AGING OUT

Age is a factor to consider in weeding, though. That’s especially true for subjects in which staying current is important, such as law, medicine, or technology. When patrons see titles on how to make the most of Windows XP, they may question the reliability not only of that book but the institution that loans it. Out-of-date works can be worse than simply embarrassing, however. They can keep information that’s been proven incorrect, or even harmful, in circulation.

Jennifer LaGarde, educator on loan for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and a 2012 LJ Mover & Shaker, recalls a title she came across while thinning out a reference section during her first year as a school librarian. The book stated confidently that “scientists do not believe HIV is transmitted through sexual content.”

“I ended up giving that book to a science teacher who wanted to use it as a tool when discussing the learning curve associated with contagious diseases. In that situation, that book was an awesome resource,” LaGarde wrote on her blog. “But on a library shelf, it’s like a loaded gun. That kind of misinformation can do serious harm.”

Condition matters as well. Even if a title is relatively new, if it’s a hot read that is showing signs of its heavy use, it could be time to take a book out of circulation—and order a replacement copy.
Not every library will need the same kind of weeding. For instance, in school libraries, out-of-date materials can be even more of a problem for students who need the most current information as they prepare for reports, papers, and tests. Academic libraries and special collections such as film and music archives will also need weeding attention, though the criteria may be different.

In a university setting, for instance, physical archives of journals and other publications that students have access to online may be taking up space that could be used more effectively. “Stacks and stacks of bound periodicals generally do not make sense anymore [for] the off chance a student might browse the section,” Carroll University, Waukesha, WI, reference and instruction librarian Joe Hardenbrook wrote on his blog, Mr. Library Dude. Duplicate print material, he says, “can’t compete—nor should it—with 24/7 perpetual access to resources such as JSTOR—available from the library website from anywhere in the world.” On the other hand, history students may need access to out-of-date material for the insight it brings to the mind-set current at the time it was published.

WHERE TO?

Once weeded titles are off of the shelves, the question remains: What we do with them? Tossing books into dumpsters can rile up the public and cause ill will among patrons and civic leaders, as discussed above. Friends of the Library groups can be a great resource, stepping up to run that tried-and-true event, the library book sale.

“A friend calls weeding ‘selecting for the book sale,’ and I think that’s one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever heard,” says Hibner. “It’s a positive message.”

Other services, such as online bookseller Better World Books, will buy loads of titles in bulk and sell them on commission. Titles that don’t sell are an opportunity to get creative as well, as books can be upcycled into creative furniture or works of art for your branch, as well as raw materials for book art crafting programs. That’s something that Reed, her staff, and volunteers at Recycled Reads are becoming proficient at out of necessity.

“When I first got this opportunity, I had this idea of a bookstore like Meg Ryan’s in [the movie] You’ve Got Mail,” she recalls, a cute little space filled with great books and knowledgeable staff helping people find the titles they love. “Then [we] started getting dropoffs [donations], and it became very clear very quickly that if we couldn’t do something with the books we couldn’t sell, we weren’t going to last more than a few months.”

The retail space just celebrated its sixth anniversary, and while many titles that can’t be saved are recycled into pulp, others get a new lease on life as artwork. From used book piñatas to crafty collaborations with Austin’s Maker community, the Recycled Reads crew are always looking for ways to repurpose titles they can’t sell. Lately, they have been experimenting with a growing business turning discarded books into custom-designed table centerpieces for corporate dinners, charity lunches, and similar events—they’re even considering branching out into wedding decor in the near future.

DIGITAL DISCARDS

Even items that don’t take up physical space still need weeding attention. When readers browse ebook collections, they don’t want to have to sift through titles that no one checks out. After the hype around a newly released title fades, a library can stop paying for multiple digital copies as demand trails off.

“Materials can get lost in a vast digital collection just as they can in a large library. Easy accessibility in the key,” says Ashley Eklof, head librarian at Bibliotech, San Antonio’s bookless, all- digital public library. “This is why I weed—it’s certainly not because of lack of space.”

Eklof reports that the process of weeding an all-digital collection is different. When the license on a title expires, Eklof reviews the usage it has seen over the two years Bibliotech has been open—or in the case of a title that expired after reaching a download threshold, how long it took to hit that mark. Then she analyzes how many copies of the title she purchased initially and either downsizes the number of copies or weeds it altogether. (In an academic setting, where the rising price of journals is claiming an increasing share of library budgets, cost per circulation is an essential weeding metric, along with impact factor and a variety of alternative considerations.)

Of course, there are a few titles that will always have a place on Eklof’s shelves. “Classics, for example, are often a one-time purchase,” says Eklof, citing books by Dickens, Steinbeck, and Austen as examples. “It is great to have this core collection of materials that I don’t have to worry about…expiring.”

COLLECTION DNR

Since perpetual licenses can be pricey, Eklof and her staff have to be judicious in forming the core of the collection. And that judiciousness, says Mindy Reed, is a lesson all libraries can take to the bank. After all, weeding can be a much easier task if it’s a consideration in the collection management process from the day a book arrives. When ordering material, having an end-of-life plan for it is essential, especially for content like encyclopedia sets and other reference titles that take up lots of shelf space—and, in the age of digital databases, may be out of date by the time they arrive. 

For Reed, success at Recycled Reads will be marked by having fewer and fewer titles come through the shelves. “That’s how we’ll know we’ve really thought through how we’re managing a collection through its whole life cycle,” she says.

PICTURE THIS

Not sure where to start with upcycling your weeded titles? Austin Public Library, TX, holds monthly craft nights called Upcycle This. Below, we reproduce, with permission, one of its upcycling projects for weeded books, how to make a book cover picture frame.

Supplies

Book cover (preferably with illustrations on the inside)

Box cutter

Glass from a picture frame

Hammer and nail

2 Screws (1”)

2 Screws (2”)

Wingnuts

Cardboard

Book pages

Glue

Step 1

Decide how big you want the window to your frame to be, and whether you want to display an illustration from inside the back cover. Use a box cutter to cut out the window.

Step 2

On the back side of the front cover, construct a mat to hold the glass in place. Cut your cardboard to the size of the book cover, cutting out a space for the glass. Make sure the cardboard is about the same thickness as the glass. Cover the cardboard mat with pages from the book. Glue the mat to the inside of the front book cover.

Step 3

Measure where screw holes should be located to hold front and back covers together. Drill these holes or hammer a nail through the covers.

Step 4

Stack the front book cover, glass, artwork, and back book cover together and insert screws, tightening the wingnuts in the back. 

About Ian Chant

Ian Chant is a former editor at LJ and a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Scientific American and Popular Mechanics and on NPR.

From: Library Journal

The Guardian: The joy of reading role-playing games

The joy of reading role-playing games

You don’t have to actually play a role-playing game for it to fire your imagination, so why don’t RPG manuals count as books?

Great flights of fantasy ... a still from the 2000 film Dungeons and Dragons. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/Cinetext Collection

Damien Walter

Friday 19 June 2015 07.00 BST Last modified on Friday 19 June 201507.03 BST

I’m a lifelong fan of role-playing games, but I rarely play them. Dungeons & Dragons. Call of Cthulhu. Vampire: The Masquerade. Cyberpunk 2013. Traveller. I’ve been enchanted by the words and illustrations, and drawn into the imaginary worlds of as many RPGs as novels. So I’m always surprised, and a little dismayed, when RPGs are left out of the popular discussion about books and reading.

Though the term didn’t exist back when I was a teenager, squatting on comic-book floors to thumb through expensive hardback editions, RPGs are an example of the kind of literature described by Espen J Aarseth as “ergodic”. These are books, like digital literature, computer-generated poetry and MUDs, where a“nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text”. And they are more common than you might think, especially in geek culture. Game books that allow you to “choose your own adventure” are ergodic, as are fantasy novels with extensive maps and world-building notes. But the RPG handbook pushes ergodic reading to its limit.

By putting aside simple narrative storytelling and replacing it with detailed description, the RPG offers the total immersion in an imaginary world so valued by geek readers. The elaboration of leading characters, political factions and major historical events is sometimes a very dry exercise in world building, but done with enough skill it can spark a deeply satisfying response.

For writers such as Junot Díaz, who often played Dungeon Master, RPGs were “a sort of storytelling apprenticeship”, where he “learned a lot of important essentials about storytelling, about giving the reader enough room to play”. 

China Miéville talks about a childhood playing RPGs – which gave him a “mania for cataloguing the fantastic” and a “weird fetish for systematisation”. For Miéville, the best weird fiction is at “the intersection of the traditions of surrealism with those of pulp”.

“I don’t start with the graph paper and the calculators like a particular kind of D&D dungeonmaster,” Miéville explains: “I start with an image, as unreal and affecting as possible, just like the surrealists. But then I systematise it, and move into a different kind of tradition.”

First published in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons became the first globally successful RPG because it encapsulated the genre of heroic fantasy. Stories of Robert E Howard, Fritz Lieber and Jack Vance were little-read in the 1970s, but Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson used them to provide the character archetypes and world for their game. In turn Dungeons & Dragons spawned a revival of heroic fantasy fiction and also inspired the video game makers who would create a swathe of massively successful computer RPGs.

Great RPG writers give players a sophisticated narrative framework, with which they too can be great storytellers. Epidiah Ravachol’s indie RPG Swords Without Master is a brilliant example of such expert game making. In just a few dozen pages Ravachol dissects the structure of heroic fantasy narrative into its archetypal parts. Swords Without Master is a very different game to D&D, reflecting the shift within RPG design away from rules and dice rolls, towards pure storytelling. As Ravachol says:

You do not take up sword and spell to tag along with someone else’s adventure. You do it to change the course of your destiny. To mould the world to your wants and desires.”

But the pleasures of reading Ravachol are not entirely abstract. The reader is drawn in to a world of “strange sorceries, brutal violence and astounding wonder” right from the first page:

Gather writing implements, scraps of paper, three or four of your cohorts, and two six-sided dice that you can easily tell apart to a table. A mahogany table adorned with thick, greasy candles and five human skulls. Failing that, a stout oaken table near a glowing hearth, replete with ale-filled steins and a succulent roast. Or, if you prefer, a tabletop chipped whole from a single obsidian stone, placed on the back of a coiled serpent of silver in a room high in a lonely tower shrouded in a prismatic fog.

You emerge from reading Swords Without Master not only convinced you understand every nuance of heroic fantasy, but also with the impression of having spent time in a world very different from our own.

Shock : Social Science Fiction by Joshua AC Newman performs a similar trick with the complex beast that is science fiction. Writers and critics of SF have argued for decades about what defines the genre, a Gordian Knot that Newman cuts through like a 21st-century Alexander the Great. Shock allows players to explore near future worlds which have been disrupted by “Shocks”. But what makes a shock a “Shock”?

It’s something big. Something that changes the world. It can be loud or quiet, but it can’t be meaningless. ‘Some people are androids’ is a Shock because, even though the world looks and sounds like the one we know, something different is going on that the players know about, whether or not the *Tagonists do. ‘Mind Transfer’ is a Shock because it’s a fundamental difference between the way we think of identity and the way it works in the story.

As players build *tagonists and conflicts are resolved, the reader’s head starts whirling with all the stories spinning off in every direction.

A gunfight breaks out. An emotional argument threatens a family. A worker decides whether to join the Revolution or feed his family. A priest’s faith is shaken.

It’s a fascinating, ambitious game I’d recommend to any SF fan, either to play or just to read.

These gems of indie RPG design are only the tip of what is now a very sizable industry. When the fifth edition of the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Guide was published in 2014 it took the No 1 spot on Amazon.com.

Pulp adventure RPG Planet Mercenary recently became the latest in a long line of RPG-related Kickstarters to achieve success on a similar scale. And of course, RPGs continue to dominate the world of video games, expanding their audience into billions, far beyond the scope of any single novel.

Can the novel itself learn a few lessons from RPGs? The ergodic reading experience broke into the literary mainstream with Mark Z Danielski’s House of Leaves. But the novel remains stubbornly attached to traditional narrative structure. For all their pop culture aesthetic and emphasis on escapism, in these days of the mega-novel innovative reading experiences are to be found in the mysterious worlds of the RPG.

From: The Guardian

National Post: Nick Hornby: To get boys to read, tell them books are ‘inappropriate’

Nick Hornby: To get boys to read, tell them books are ‘inappropriate’

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Sarah Hagi,  | July 9, 2015 11:05 AM ET

Someone must've told this kid that the book he's holding is rated R

About a Boy author Nick Hornby says, if you want boys to show an interest in literature reverse psychology might work best.

The British author will be a member of a panel discussing how to give children the inspiration to read by the Ministry of Stories. Though the United Kingdom’s Institute of Education suggests children are getting more creative, there does remain a gender gap in literacy between boys and girls worldwide. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Hornby remembered his days as a schoolteacher, noting that it’s difficult to strike a balance between “focused conversation and an atmosphere which prevents creativity and thought.”

Speaking about how some might conquer the problem when it comes to striking an interest in the literacy for boys, Hornby mentioned his own experiences with his sons. “I have boys, and boys are particularly resistant to reading books. I had some success recently with Sherman Alexie’s great young adult novel ‘The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian’ – I told my son it was highly inappropriate for him, and one of the most banned books in America. That got his attention, and he raced through it.”

Canada is also no stranger when it comes to a literacy gender gap. In 2013 a study conducted by economists Michael Baker and Kevin Milligan concluded that parents of millennials in Canada spend more time on early literacy activities with preschool daughters over sons. Another study conducted by the Council of ministers of Education Canada suggests differences in socialization might be to blame in the gender gap meaning reading is seen as “feminine”. Hornby might have a point: according to a guide created by the Ontario Ministry of Education to improve literacy in boys, studies show boys prefer stories that are “edgy or controversial”.

From: National Post

Teen Librarian Toolbox: Maker Bookshelf, the next step in our Maker journey at The Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County

Maker Bookshelf, the next step in our Maker journey at The Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County
By Robin Willis
June 25, 2015

A few weeks ago, I announced that we were organizing a Maker Collection of materials that we will circulate at The Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County. It is one of three things we are doing to better incorporate the Maker movement into our library.

This is the process we went through to establish the collection.

1. Collection Codes and Definitions

Before we began, we had to figure out the technical aspects of starting a new collection. This meant discussing things like collection codes, spine labels, circulation periods, etc. We use Polaris and it was pretty easy for our Tech Services staff to put together the necessary collection codes for us. We decided to label them MS for MakerSpace and TS created special spine labels for them. This first step was actually the easiest part of the entire process.
makerspace1

2. Evaluating the Current Collection

Next we began actually trying to build the collection. The first thing we did was to go through all the items we actually had on the shelves and decide if we wanted to keep them where they were or re-catalog them and move them to the MS collection. We discovered we had quite a few titles on hand that we felt could easily fit into this collection and we pulled them. As I type this TS in the process of re-cataloging them for us (thank you TS!)

3. Researching New Items

The next part of the process involved research, but since we are librarians we’re actually pretty good at this. We began with the recent SLJ Maker Shelf list and went from there. Another great resource are the books published by Make which you can find at Make Zine. I then created a very extensive wishlist of books using Amazon. It ended up being rather large. I printed off a copy of the list for multiple people and then the head of Children’s and I sat down and went through the list title by title to evaluate them. One of the first things we looked at was, of course, publication date. Beyond that we wanted to make sure we had a variety of topics covered. The topics we are looking to include in our Maker collection include: Coding, Electronics, Robotics, Engineering, Digital Photography, Movie Making, Making, Tinkering, etc.

4. Discussing Goals and Definitions, Again

We had a rather lengthy discussion about the crafting section and decided that due to it’s size, we would leave it for the time being where it was because the shelf space that we have for the Maker collection would not accommodate the number of titles we currently have in the J nonfiction collection that deal with arts and crafts. I personally am a big proponent of arts and crafts and feel like this is a valid part of the maker movement, but in the end we had to select some specific, targeted goals and boundaries because of the space we had available to us.

5. Building the New Collection

In the end, we ordered a pretty decent number of titles for this new collection (which I have conveniently shared with you below thanks in no small part to the kind generosity of TLTer Robin Willis – thank you Robin!).

Note: The list below includes items that we ordered for the Maker collection and items that we ordered to put into our Circulating Maker Kits (CMKs).

As you can tell, this is a work in progress. And if you ask me, it’s an exciting and very fulfilling work in progress. A lot of people have worked hard to try and make all this happen and it has been fun, informative, and very professionally fulfilling. I believe we are doing good things for our local community, and that basically rocks.

Maker Collection Booklist: [Ed note: See original post for links.]

Stopmotion Explosion: Animate Anything and Make Movies- Epic Films for $20 or Less by Nate Eckerson

Brick Flicks: A Comprehensive Guide to Making Your Own Stop-Motion LEGO Movies by Sarah Herman

The Kids’ Guide to Digital Photography: How to Shoot, Save, Play with & Print Your Digital Photos by Jenni Bidner

The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers by Hatch, Mark

Totally Awesome Rubber Band Jewelry: Make Bracelets, Rings, Belts & More with Rainbow Loom(R), Cra-Z-Loom(TM)​, or FunLoom(TM) by Colleen Dorsey

Robot Building for Teens by Behnam Salemi

Kids Inventing! A Handbook for Young Inventors by Susan Casey

Fundamentals of Robotics: Fun for parents and children (Robots For Children) (Volume 1) by Prof Charria

101 Mixed Media Techniques: Master the fundamental concepts of mixed media art by Cherril Doty, Suzette
Rosenthal, Isaac Anderson

Drawing Comics Lab: 52 Exercises on Characters, Panels, Storytelling, Publishing & P​rofessional

Practices (Lab Series) by Robyn Chapman

Creative Photography Lab: 52 Fun Exercises for Developing Self-Expressio​n with your Camera. Includes 6

Mixed-Media Projects (Lab Series) by Steve Sonheim, Carla Sonheim

Print & Stamp Lab: 52 Ideas for Handmade, Upcycled Print Tools (Lab Series) by Traci Bunkers

Collage Lab: Experiments, Investigations​, and Exploratory Projects (Lab Series) by Bee Shay

Art Lab for Little Kids: 52 Playful Projects for Preschoolers (Lab Series) by Susan Schwake, Rainer Schwake

Paint Lab: 52 Exercises inspired by Artists, Materials, Time, Place, and Method (Lab Series) by Deborah Forman

Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun (Lab Series) by Carla Sonheim

Art Lab for Kids: 52 Creative Adventures in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Paper, and Mixed Media-For

Budding Artists of All Ages (Lab Series) by Susan Schwake, Rainer Schwake

The Loomatic’s Interactive Guide to the Rainbow Loom by Suzanne M. Peterson

Loom Band It: 60 Rubberband Projects for the Budding Loomineer by Kat Roberts, Tessa Sillars-Powell

Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO (Brick…LEGO Series) by Warren Elsmore

The Art of LEGO Design: Creative Ways to Build Amazing Models by Jordan Schwartz

Brick Vehicles: Amazing Air, Land, and Sea Machines to Build from LEGO® by Warren Elsmore

The LEGO Adventure Book, Vol. 2: Spaceships, Pirates, Dragons & More​! by Megan H. Rothrock

The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide (Now in Color!) by Allan Bedford

The LEGO Adventure Book, Vol. 1: Cars, Castles, Dinosaurs & Mo​re! by Megan H. Rothrock

Make: The Makerspace Workbench: Tools, Technologies, and Techniques for Making by Adam Kemp

Zero to Maker: Learn (Just Enough) to Make (Just About) Anything by David Lang

Arduino for Beginners: Essential Skills Every Maker Needs by John Baichtal

The Best of Instructables Volume I: Do-It-Yourself Projects from the World’s Biggest Show & Tell (v. 1) by The editors at MAKE magazine and Instructables. com

Unscrewed: Salvage and Reuse Motors, Gears, Switches, and More from Your Old Electronics by Ed Sobey

Life Hacks: Any Procedure or Action That Solves a Problem, Simplifies a Task, Reduces Frustration, Etc. in One’s Everyday Life by Keith Bradford

The Big Book of Maker Skills (Popular Science): 200+ Tools & Techni​ques for Building Great Tech Projects by Chris Hackett

The Big Book of Maker Skills (Popular Science): Tools & Techni​ques for Building Great Tech Projects by Chris Hackett

The Big Book of Hacks: 264 Amazing DIY Tech Projects by Doug Cantor

62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer: (And Other Discarded Electronics) by Randy Sarafan

Boomerangs: How to Make and Throw Them by Bernard S. Mason

The Paper Boomerang Book: Build Them, Throw Them, and Get Them to Return Every Time (Science in Motion) by Mark Latno

Papertoy Monsters: 50 Cool Papertoys You Can Make Yourself! by Brian Castleforte, Netta Rabin, Robert James

Making Things Move DIY Mechanisms for Inventors, Hobbyists, and Artists by Dustyn Roberts

Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions: You Can Build Yourself (Build It Yourself) by Maxine Anderson

Karakuri: How to Make Mechanical Paper Models That Move by Keisuke Saka, Eri Hamaji

The Motorboat Book: Build & Launch 20 Jet Boats, Paddle-Wheeler​s, Electric Submarines & M​ore (Science in Motion) by Ed Sobey

The Art of Tinkering by Karen Wilkinson, Mike Petrich

LEGO Chain Reactions: Design and build amazing moving machines (Klutz S) by Pat Murphy and the
Scientists of Klutz Labs

Kinetic Contraptions: Build a Hovercraft, Airboat, and More with a Hobby Motor by Curt Gabrielson

Make: More Electronics: Journey Deep Into the World of Logic Chips, Amplifiers, Sensors, and
Randomicity by Charles Platt

Programming Arduino: Getting Started With Sketches by Monk Simon

Make: Getting Started with Adafruit FLORA: Making Wearables with an Arduino-Compat​ible Electronics
Platform by Becky Stern, Tyler Cooper

Make: Wearable Electronics: Design, prototype, and wear your own interactive garments by Kate Hartman
JunkBots, Bugbots, and Bots on Wheels: Building Simple Robots With BEAM Technology by David Hrynkiw,
Mark Tilden

Make an Arduino-Contro​lled Robot (Make: Projects) by Michael Margolis

Make a Raspberry Pi-Controlled Robot: Building a Rover with Python, Linux, Motors, and Sensors by Wolfram Donat

Robot Builder: The Beginner’s Guide to Building Robots by John Baichtal

Make: Basic Arduino Projects: 26 Experiments with Microcontrolle​rs and Electronics by Don Wilcher

The Best of Make: (Make 75 Projects from the pages of MAKE) by Mark Frauenfelder, Gareth Branwyn

Make: Electronics (Learning by Discovery) by Charles Platt

Make: Sensors: A Hands-On Primer for Monitoring the Real World with Arduino and Raspberry Pi by Tero Karvinen, Kimmo Karvinen, Ville Valtokari

Robot Builder’s Bonanza, 4th Edition by Gordon McComb

Make: The Maker’s Manual: A Practical Guide to the New Industrial Revolution by Paolo Aliverti, Andrea Maietta, Patrick Di Justo

Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of Innovation by AnnMarie Thomas

Make: Tinkering: Kids Learn by Making Stuff by Curt Gabrielson

Make: Getting Started with littleBits: Prototyping and Inventing with Modular Electronics by Ayah Bdeir, Matt Richardson

Making Simple Robots: Exploring Cutting-Edge Robotics with Everyday Stuff by Kathy Ceceri

Make: Getting Started with Sensors: Measure the World with Electronics, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi by Kimmo Karvinen, Tero Karvinen

Kodu for Kids: The Official Guide to Creating Your Own Video Games by James Floyd Kelly

Video Game Programming for Kids by Jonathan S. Harbour

Teach Your Kids to Code: A Parent-Friendl​y Guide to Python Programming by Bryson Payne

Super Scratch Programming Adventure! (Covers Version 2): Learn to Program by Making Cool Games by The LEAD Project

Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, 2nd Edition by Al Sweigart

Java Programming for Kids: Learn Java Step By Step and Build Your Own Interactive Calculator for Fun! (Java for Beginners) by R. Chandler Thompson

Adventures in Minecraft by David Whale, Martin O’Hanlon

Python for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Programming by Jason R. Briggs

Learn to Program with Scratch: A Visual Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math by Majed Marji

Source: Teen Librarian Toolbox

Los Angeles Public Library, Central Library Blog: LGBT Collections moving to new call number area

LGBT Collections moving to new call number area
By Linda Rudell-Betts, Senior Librarian, Social Science, Philosophy and Religion Department
June 16, 2015

A number of years ago, a young man came to the reference desk with a question for the Social Science, Philosophy & Religion department librarians. He asked me why books about gay men were next to the shelves with incest and sexual bondage books. He said that wasn't how he was at all. His face showed deep hurt and from his expression, I read that as a gay man who came of age in the 21st century, he had never experienced the kind of marginalization, ostracization and ridicule I had seen my friends fight when I was his age. It had likely never occurred to him that the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) itself would assign lesbians, gay men, bisexual people and transgender people (LGBT people) to a call number, 301.4157, as a kind of "abnormal sexual relations" (modified 14th edition of the DDC). But, as a librarian and classificationist, I knew that earlier call numbers had been more demeaning.

That patron encounter, one of thousands I've had in my fifteen years as a reference librarian LAPL, affected me deeply and I resolved that when the appropriate time came, I would do my best to implement reclassification of LAPL library materials to the current version of the Dewey Decimal Classification call numbers applicable to LGBT life. While we librarians can't take away the history of discrimination and neglect of civil rights of LGBT people, we can reflect the world increasingly made right and fair in how we group our books, DVDs and other materials on the library shelf.

Library catalogers, classificationists and LGBT academic community continue to debate how materials on LGBT life should be represented in libraries. The time may come when there is general agreement that sexual orientation does not adequately or appropriately represent the LGBT community and a new classification structure will be created. As progress is made on that front, LAPL will bring its collection into the currently agreed upon classification.

With that, I invite you to review the small, but growing, reclassified LGBT collection at Social Science, Philosophy & Religion department at Central Library and at your local branches. Thanks go to the heroic efforts of the LAPL Catalog department, the cooperation of Science & Technology department which collects works on sexuality, and the LAPL LGBT Services Committee. Our many dedicated clerks who affix new call number stickers, revise penciled entries and move the books from the old location to the new are also to be thanked in this venture.

And the new numbers from the 22nd edition of the DDC (with LAPL modifications) are
306.76 - Sexual orientation
306.762 – Asexuality
306.764 - Heterosexuality
306.765 - Bisexuality
306.766 - Homosexuality
306.7662 - Male homosexuality (gay men)
306.7663 - Lesbianism
306.768 - Transgenderism
306.7681 - Transsexualism

Source: Los Angeles Public Library, Central Library Blog

Times Colonist: Behind Bars, Books Make A Difference

Behind Bars, Books Make A Difference
by Amy Smart
June 28, 2015

Carl Cavanagh saw an immediate problem with the books available to inmates at Wilkinson Road jail on his first visit: About two-thirds of them were Harlequin romance novels.

“Some good-hearted person probably donated them,” the Greater Victoria Public Library outreach librarian said. “You can just imagine 300 guys sitting around and reading these romances.”

Cavanagh visited the provincial jail, officially called Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre, at the request of a chaplain interested in providing books on spirituality to the inmates. The facility houses both sentenced offenders and inmates on remand, such as those denied bail, while they await trial.

But as a librarian, he saw an opportunity to fill a wider need: Creating the first formalized library service at the correctional centre in 100 years.

The service is expected to begin in the coming weeks, and inmates will be able to take out GVPL books using a shared corporate account.

“There’s a lot of eager readers there. There’s only so much TV they can watch and there’s no Internet in there, so they don’t have a lot of access to information,” Cavanagh said.

It’s a project some say should be copied throughout the justice system, which often relies on volunteer initiative for literacy and education programs.



The project has been a work-in-progress since Cavanagh’s first visit, alongside Madeline Bakker of Literacy Victoria, in 2011.

During that visit, they found the “book room,” which looked more like a storage room, where clear plastic garbage bags filled with poor-quality paperbacks were kept alongside other material.

Cavanagh and Bakker volunteered to restore it.

“The guard thought it was a bit of a hopeless case,” he said. “We looked at each other and we said: ‘Well, we’d like to try.’ ”

Within four months, inmates had constructed bookshelves and Cavanagh had collected about 2,000 books — primarily taken from the GVPL’s surplus donations and the Times Colonist Book Sale. They sorted them into five genres — general fiction, mystery, sci-fi, literature and non-fiction — and began a rotation system.

Cavanagh quickly learned that when you deliver library services to inmates, there are a few extra restrictions.

No hardcovers, which could be used as weapons. No books by bank-robber-turned-author Stephen Reid, or anything that might glorify a life of crime. No inappropriate content like sexual violence. And don’t expect books to be returned in perfect conditions; every once in a while a cover would be torn up to make substitute poker chips.

“I often tell people they’re pretty sharp reviewers. If they didn’t like a book, they’d wreck it.”

By 2013, the program had evolved again. Inmates began making requests for certain books and, where possible, Cavanagh would find them.

For the most part, requests reflected the same trends as the library’s general readership, he said. Mysteries and non-fiction are particularly popular and you could tell when Game of Thrones became a cultural phenomenon, he said.

Law books were also popular among inmates hoping to learn about their own cases.

“In one case, I had a letter mailed to me directly at the Central Library with a request. The guy said he and his common-law wife were expecting a baby, and could I find them a baby-names book?” he said.



The GVPL library service at Wilkinson Road jail won’t be the only one in the region. Kim Rempel has served as librarian for 26 years at William Head Institution — the federal minimum-security facility sometimes derided as “Club Fed.”

Whatever your perspective on the purpose of the justice system, books should be part of it, said Rempel, who is an advocate for better prison libraries under the Association of Law Libraries.

“They challenge individual values and ideas and they do it in a very subtle, effective way. Why wouldn’t you put the best one you could in every prison?” he said.

At William Head, inmates nearing the end of life sentences can find everything from self-help and philosophy texts to gardening magazines.

A 39-year-old convicted of second-degree murder said reading has been an important part of his rehabilitation process.

“Reading gives us a different world, away from being locked up,” he said.

“This is that one-foot-in-the-door and one-foot-out place. It’s where we learn to get back into society.”

A 51-year-old serving a life sentence for first-degree murder said the library materials will make it easier for him to re-integrate into society, when the time comes.

“For me, it’s information,” he said. “I’ve been [incarcerated] for more than 30 years. I wouldn’t know much about computers if it weren’t for [library materials].”

Libraries are about more than hobbies or entertainment, Rempel said. Sixty per cent of federal inmates lack a high school education, and 30 per cent of those haven’t advanced beyond Grade 8, Rempel said.

“Forty per cent of the population is doing life sentences. This becomes their opportunity to work on themselves. You might as well facilitate that and really, this is one of the best ways,” he said.

“You’re giving them nothing, but you’re giving them everything.”



Libraries have been part of the Canadian prison system since the mid-19th century, when religious texts were brought into Kingston Penitentiary. And while they’ve received more support when some approaches to corrections are in vogue compared with others — like those emphasizing the value of educating inmates — libraries have never been treated as a priority, Rempel said.

“We bring information to inmates. That’s not a model that the prison system is used to. They are very much dedicated to the notion of penitence, isolation and removal from society,” Rempel said.

That said, there’s a wide range of what “library service” means. While all federal prisons have some form of library, few rival William Head’s 25,000 books, 48 magazine subscriptions and five computers for a population of as many as 180 inmates.

Provincial jails tend to have much poorer libraries, Rempel said, largely due to a more transient population with varying degrees of risk, who will spend a maximum of two years in the facility.

While the Ministry of Justice says all nine correctional centres have in-house libraries, it also counted Wilkinson’s pre-makeover book room. The books were not organized and sorted, but would be randomly selected and sent to living units for inmates to read, a spokeswoman said.

Rempel said that what Cavanagh is doing is particularly important for prisoners in remand who might not understand the charges against them. Without Internet access, it’s a way to educate themselves about their cases.

“I think it’s a human-rights issue,” he said.

In addition to Cavanagh, outreach librarians in Surrey and Nanaimo are working to co-ordinate library services to inmates, the Ministry of Justice said.

The jail program is just one of many outreach initiatives of the GVPL, including working with the Victoria Native Friendship Centre, Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society, the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria and other groups to meet the needs of what it identified as “underserved populations.”

Other organizations are also working to fill gaps for inmates. The READ Society is working with the Cowichan Valley School District to revitalize a program started by Literacy Victoria, which ended last August. The program involves literacy tutoring and allows inmates to obtain school credits.

The Ministry of Justice did not grant the Times Colonist’s request to visit Wilkinson Road jail or interview any inmates or staff directly.

It submitted a statement on behalf of warden Peter Fitzpatrick: “We are constantly looking for new opportunities to help inmates continue to learn and grow while they’re in custody. Expanding our library program through this partnership is one more way we can build their literacy skills and open their minds to behavioural change with the hope of improving their outcomes after release.”

David Johnson, executive director of the Victoria John Howard Society, said advocates and volunteers are crucial in a climate of cutbacks.

With all of the other expenses in correctional facilities, it’s easy to see how libraries can be pushed aside.

“It’s one of those programs where, while it’s very needed, when the going gets tough and the money gets tight, it’s much more difficult to continue the funding,” he said.

“With a library, whether it be at Wilkie or William Head, it needs those champions.”

Source: (BC) Times Colonist