105 Ways to Give a Book

ForeWord and Booklights and ALSC

I’m so excited about the things I have to share with you today. Not in a braggy way (well, not entirely), but because they all would greatly benefit from your participation, contributions, and opinions. So rev up your commenting power to eleven and let’s go.

Yesterday I posted a new article at ForeWord about saving time, money, and energy at your library during this difficult economic climate. I’m psyched about this post for two reasons. First, because I think it represents an ultimate community venture, where the post will pick up more value as more people share their own saving tips in the comments. So please pass it on to your colleagues. The second reason I’m excited is that the article gave me one of those Magical Moments in writing. See, I had the bones of it for a week, but I couldn’t get happy about what I had written. Then I wrote a new opening paragraph, and it changed the whole feel of the piece. Now I totally love it and I’m reminded how cool writing is.

Now over at Booklights, I’m taking on the Color Me Brown Challenge with three picture books featuring children of color. If you’ve profiled a book for the younger set this month, leave a link in the comments at the post and add to the list. Since I wrote about the opportunities available by leaving comments, I realized that I myself was missing the opportunity to highlight other blogs of the kidlitosphere. I had been leaving that task to Jen because she does it so well. But from now on, I’ll be asking myself What Would Jen Do? and I’ll be working harder to showcase more of your work. So let’s say that we all learned something.

Last, but certainly not least, my proposal for a book blogs session at the ALA 2010 Summer Conference in Washington, DC, was accepted!!! The session will be within the track for Association for Library Services for Children. I was in a rush for a clever name, so went with Book Blogs: Not Just for Geeks Anymore. Honestly, I’m not crazy about the title and I’m pretty sure that I can change it. Do you have any suggestions? Keep in mind that the concept of the session is to introduce librarians to using book blogs in their collection development, reading selection, program planning, and book clubs. I’ll be talking more about it after...

KidLitCon 2009 - Washington DCKidlitosphere Conference! You didn’t really think we were getting out of this post without a mention of KidLitCon09, did you? I have to give a shout-out to Liz Burns for the best title, the best post I’ve seen on the grassroots nature of our gathering, but I’m so appreciative to all of you who’ve written about and promoted the Kidlitosphere Conference on your blogs. Our collaborative effort is what made the YA/KidLit bloggers the first group to be able to put together a book blogging conference three years ago, and now our continued support can make this year’s meeting another great success. With the extra posts and Twitter reminders, I’ve received some more registrations in the last few days, including one from the amazing Young Adult author Elizabeth Scott. Next week I’ll have an updated list of participants and activities. We need to get everyone signed up by the time we lose our fantastic hotel rate on September 16th. But since it is possible that we could fill up our available participant slots before then, please register for the conference soon. Or like, now.

So to summarize: saving tips for libraries, profiles of POC books, book blogging session names, and promotion of KidLitCon. Now go forth with your contributions, comments, opinions, and tweets.

15 comments:

GreenBeanTeenQueen said...

Awesome news about the ALA session! I am so excited other people are working to get blogs out there in libraries. I'm working on writing an article for VOYA on the same topics. I think librarians and bloggers can work together and they are great resources for collection development!

Anonymous said...

Check out ALA Tech_Source to see how OCLS in Orange Cty. Fl is using Tech sources to save money..written by our Director Mary Ann Hodel.

Anonymous said...

Sorry should have been ALA_TechSource

Liz B said...

Yay for the ALA Session!!

Abby said...

I'm so interested to know about the ALA session because I hope to do something like that for one of the Indiana Library Federation conferences if I'm brave enough. And if someone doesn't beat me to it. Congrats, Pam!

Terry Doherty said...

Thanks for all the news, Pam. That is great about the ALA session. I'll throw ALA in the hat for next year's conferences. As you say in your ALSC article: you can't beat local!

Jen Robinson said...

That's great news about the ALA session, Pam. I'm sure that you'll be great, and find us all lots of new librarian readers.

This morning I'm catching up on my Kidlitosphere "visits", and it's a bit overwhelming, because there is so much great stuff going on. Loved the Twitter vs. blog comments discussion (though I'm writing about it on my own blog, instead of commenting, which I think works, too).

The funny thing is that the KidLit links posts never generate very many comments (here or at Booklights). But hopefully that's because people are clicking through, and commenting on the original posts. I did get a smile out of "What Would Jen Do" (extra-helpful during a week filled with internet woes). Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I am hopeful to get to the ALA Conference in DC, and now I am extra-hopeful. You'll do a great session, I'm sure.

Color Online said...

Congratulations on your ALA news. I've attended ALA in the past and it is a blast meeting you librarians. I was on the publishing side. Sorry, can't help with a title. I like the one you have even if there is something better. I can't make the conference but I wish I could. Sending you all good vibes and wishing I were there.

Thanks so much for plugging our challenge.

Vivian Mahoney said...

Wow! Congrats on Book Blogs: Not Just for Geeks Anymore -- I really like the title!

Mary Ann Scheuer said...

Fantastic news about ALA! You're a perfect person to lead this presentation!

I loved your post on Booklights - great choice of books. I can't get over to it now (trouble loading the PBS site), so thought I'd leave a comment here...

I just reviewed 2 early readers with children of color as the main characters. Come by and take a look!
http://greatkidbooks.blogspot.com/2009/08/good-question-early-readers-with.html

Andromeda Jazmon said...

Congrats on the ALA session. It sounds great! I am thinking of starting a school library blog this year so I am really interested in this topic.

Glad to see you plug the Color Me Brown challenge. She is way past 100 now and so many great links to follow!!

Michelle said...

Congratulations on your proposal being accepted for ALA. I'm actually quite excited that it will be held in DC because I'm hoping that I'll be able to go for a couple of days.

I've got my registration for KidLitcon all filled out and submitted. I'm very much looking forward to learning with you all :)

Anonymous said...

Hey Pam, I clicked on your link for the ForeWord article you wrote and it came up as page not found. You might want to check the link. Could you maybe post the title of the article so we can search for it ourselves on the ForeWord website?

Hope all is well with you!

--your old deskmate from JM, now at CE-- :-)

Bill said...

It looks like ForeWord is in the process of revamping their database; right now, the article doesn't even show up in search.

For the moment, the article is available for a limited time in their "archival" format here — hopefully, it'll be back up on their main site soon.