August 3, 2007

Question: When is a YA Librarian Like an iPhone?

Answer: when she's as hip and cool as our new Young Adult Librarian, Irene Winkler! Not only is she cool, but she's intelligent, curious, interesting, eager to learn, tech savvy and hilariously funny. If you don't know her, please come in and introduce yourself and your teens. Congratulations to Irene and the community of Roslyn on this fantastic new partnership!

What does a Young Adult Librarian do anyway? There are several elements to this position: the books (ordering, weeding and reading), the teens themselves (assignment and book selection help and programming), and outreach to the community (developing a relationship with the school librarians and teachers, parents, etc.) These tasks are all interactive, involve social networking and communication. Now, consider the iPhone... A YA Librarian has to be up on popular culture - the latest books, music, movies, tv, and webtrends. The iPhone is the ultimate in pop culture. A YA Librarian's ultimate goal is to reach out and bring and keep teens into the library by being so dynamic that they wouldn't consider going anywhere else for their information and entertainment needs. Have you ever seen someone who owns an iPhone leave home without one? I rest my case. Although I must admit, I think that Irene will be around way longer than the iPhone!!

The best news of all is that while Susan Owens is retiring, she will still be at Bryant part-time as Young Adult Librarian Emeritus. So, while many libraries have only one YA Librarian, we have Suzi, Irene, Michele (me) and Beth, who have all specialized in teen services. Yea, Roslyn!

Posted by Michele at 11:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 26, 2007

Fiction by Color

A little story on the news caught my attention the other night. It turns out that it's not a new issue, either. Some of the large bookstore chains, like Borders, maintain a separate section for fiction written by African American authors. That's right, they're separating their fiction by skin color. My initial, gut reaction was that it was a racist practice. But, I have to say that the news report that I saw, raised compelling arguments on both sides of the issue.

One African American woman (bookstore owner) explained that as a culture unto itself, it deserved it's own section. "Terry McMillan, best-selling author of Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back: "I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, you don't have Jewish American sections or Irish American sections. So it's insulting and flattering at the same time that we get our own special section. On the other hand, since we are trying hard to eliminate color lines, we should all just be included in [general] literature."

Spokespeople from Borders explained that it makes it easier for people who enjoy this particular "genre" to find new African American authors. While that may be true, it also prevents customers of all colors, who aren't specifically looking for literature by African American authors from finding them by browsing.

It's so easy now to find books by genre, using our Electronic Resources. There are two that are particularly good -- Books in Print and Novelist. You can't search by the color of the author, but you can use either of these databases to generate a list of books written about African American life and culture. Although interesting points were raised on the other side, I still don't think it's necessary to separate general fiction like that. In a library, fiction is organized alphabetically by the last name of the author -- regardless of gender, race or subject --we plan to keep it that way.

Posted by Michele at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 25, 2006

Long Island Sports

I know about as much about sports as I do about music, but... this just came across my desk -- Newsday now publishes "up to the minute news and information on ALL high school sports, plus video, photos, podcasts, columnists, trivia quizzes and more." If you are a sports fanatic, and professional and college sports just aren't enough anymore, and you want to be totally up to date, then Newsday's new high school pages are for you!

Posted by Michele at 4:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 23, 2006

Henna Hysteria!

The Bryant Library patio was the scene this afternoon, of our almost end of summer Henna Workshop. All teens got to pick from awesome designs and our instructor, Gulshan did a meticulous job applying the henna. It was absolutely fab!!

Tomorrow night, join us for a concert by Marlon Bishop. JAZZ FUNK JAM, FUNK JAZZ, instrumentalist and composer, Marlon fell for music after playing in various rock bands in New York in his teens. He led former funk outfit Mugwump to reguarly pack NYC venues such as the Lion's Den and the Knitting Factory with their devoted fans. Since going away to study at Wesleyan University, he has switched gears to concentrate on jazz and composition, aspiring to a career in film scoring. Drawing from a wide array of influences ranging from argentine tango to underground hip-hop, he hopes to continue striving to break musical barriers and make original music centered on improvisation. -- it's at 7:30 p.m. -- Don't miss it!

Posted by Michele at 11:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 10, 2006

Thanks, Benihana!

The YA Sushi Workshop was yesterday and what a success it was! We were lucky to have Mr. Pine, the manager of Benihana in Manhasset and Mr. Joseph, the chef at Benihana in Westbury lead the workshop. They not only taught us how to make sushi, but tested our knowledge of Japanese language and gave out great prizes! What a treat -- and, they said that they'd come back next year!! You can see photos from Sushi and the rest of the summer workshops on our new Flickr badge -- right on the blog! How cool is that?!! Keep checking in -- there are lots of changes in store for our blog...

Posted by Michele at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 30, 2006

Filmmaking Workshop a Success

Josh Roth, President of the Roslyn High School Film Society, led the BLTeens Filmmaking Workshop this past week. He explained that his experience in film started slowly. He described at age 8, making a 3 minute film about nothing, then he moved on to making 5, 8 and 10 minute films about nothing... now he's learned how to write scripts and his films are actually about something! I learned a lot about directing and filmmaking from Josh, as I know the students in the class did as well. Here are my notes:

* Josh uses Final Cut Pro, but if you use a Mac, you can also use iMovie Motion for visual effects
* He recommends Avid Express, Pinnacle or Movie Maker for PC users
* use music, but don't overdo it
* definitely start with a script, before you begin filming
* if you want to direct, you have to know how to act
* learn about films by watching a lot of films -- find a director whose work you find visually appealing and run with it -- see all of their movies! Josh particularly enjoys Terry Gilliam. Use Internet Movie Database (imdb) to find out everything about movies!
* use camera angles as a tool in cinema
* when you see a movie, think about how it was made. Take note of camera angles, use of color and lighting
* shoot with a tripod when you can

And, what do you do with a film that you've created? Josh recommends uploading them to youtube -- there it will be seen by many people and you'll get feedback from others. Or, you can submit it to Film Society to have it viewed on a big screen and get feedback from RHS fim experts!

Thanks, Josh for an enlightening and entertaining afternoon! Look for Josh's Photoshop Workshop this coming Wednesday afternoon!

Posted by Michele at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 20, 2006

Chocolicious

Yesterday afternoon, a very happy bunch of teens created delicious chocolate treats! It's always great to see kids who often didn't know each other before, come to interact over a creative project like this one.

Bryant teens are so lucky that we offer so many great programs during the summer. Coming up are: filmmaking (which is next Wed.), Adobe Photoshop, sushi making, henna and more! Sign up at the Reference Desk or call us at 621-2240 to reserve your spot now!

Posted by Michele at 10:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack