Sorry, this post is a little later than I had planned. I am currently posting from the hospital as my wife went into labor a little eariler than expected and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl yesterday afternoon. Mom and baby are doing great, but forgive me if I keep my thoughts short this week.
My biggest philosophy as a librarian is that librarians should always promote literacy. Literacy is a broad term that encompasses many things. Literacy is not just promoting the classics. It is not something that only applies to children. Literacy should be the goal of every librarian for the patrons they serve regardless of age. So what does that mean?
Well, if many different things encourage literacy (and for the purposes of this post, I will focus on graphic novels, street lit, and YA lit), then they should all be included in the library. These different genres help promote literacy because people are reading, period. That is what we want. It doesn't matter what people read. It only matters that they are reading and learning. It all supports literacy. If reading a graphic novel is enjoyable for you, then you are more apt to read something else regardless of your age. Literacy can impact nearly every area of our lives. Check out this site: Literacy Benefits
So how do we embrace these emerging genres? First of all, we have to accept the fact that all reading is good reading from the standpoint of literacy. (I'm not saying that we have to like everything our patrons read, because I know I don't). Then we need to make the effort to promote these new types of literature the same way we would promote other genres. My library has recently created a graphic novel section in Adult Fiction. It is enormously popular. You would be amazed at how many adults check these out compared to when the only graphic novel section was housed in our YA room. Just this simple form of encouragement said "Hey, adults can enjoy this too." It is this type of promotion that we need to have accross the board in libraries if we want to maintain relevancy in today's changing culture. If we don't, we aren't only hurting ourselves but the literacy of our patrons.
The mission statement of Indy PL is as follows:
ReplyDeleteThe Indianapolis Public Library is the community's place to access essential information resources, technology, programs and services; foster reading and learning and promote the social, economic, recreational and lifelong learning interests of its diverse population. --
Mission Statement, as adopted by the Library Board November 20, 2008 (http://www.imcpl.org/about/).
Or, snipping a bit, we seek to "...foster reading... and promote the... recreational.. interests of its diverse population." In that case a graphic novel is doubly good. It's reading AND recreation.
My congratulations to you both!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! Best wishes for you all!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the new edition to your family.
ReplyDeleteI agree that literacy is very important in a library and we should promote literacy no matter what the type of item a patron is reading, even magazines. I have had parents say that they don't know why their child is reading graphic novels and I am thinking that at least they are reading. I think is great when a child that doesn't really like to read picks up a graphic novel. The same goes for adults. There are adults that don't like to read novels but love graphic novels, they are reading. I feel the same way about newspapers and magazines. I love to read and could never imagine not being able to read but there are people out there that don't like it for whatever reason but they will read a newspaper. This is my brother. He never goes a day without reading his newspaper and there are patrons like this at the library. They will come in to read the newspaper but never checkout books.
Welcome to your new little reader! I wish you all the joy that Dr. Seuss and Winnie the Pooh will bring. Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to you and your growing family Cody!
ReplyDelete