Statewide My Favorite Book Contest

One of the new elements to the statewide Summer Reading Program this year is the My Favorite Book Contest. To participate, young readers come to the library and have their pictures taken with their favorite books. The contest is still ongoing and will be until SRP official ends. But several photos have already been sent in and uploaded. You gotta check these out, some of them are so creative, so adorable. Many brought in their own props and even dressed up as the character from the books they brought. I don't know about you all, but I'm anxiously awaiting additional photos, not to mention the announcement of the winner. However, with the risk of sounding cliche, regardless of who the winner is I just think this is a wonderful creative way for children/teens to get excited about books and express their tastes in reading.

And the literate towns in Oklahoma are...

All the cool internet kids on places Fark, Digg, and Lisnews are talking about the latest America's Most Literate Cities Rankings. For those not familiar with how this is determined:

This study attempts to capture one critical index of our nation’s social health—the literacy of its major cities (population of 250,000 and above). This study focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources.

This set of factors measures people's use of their literacy and thus presents a complex and nuanced portrait of our nation’s cultural vitality. From this data we can better perceive the extent and quality of the long-term literacy essential to individual economic success, civic participation, and the quality of life in a community and a nation....

And where do Oklahoma's cities rank? /insert drumroll

Tulsa, OK
2007 Rank: 16
2006 Rank: 19.5
2005 Rank: 24.5

Oklahoma City, OK
2007 Rank: 38.5
2006 Rank: 43
2005 Rank: 38

Very interesting....

My thoughts on Doris Lessing's thoughts

The Chronicle's Wired Campus has an editorial on Doris Lessing's Nobel Lecture--which the Chronicle writer found via ars technica.

The Chronicle's piece did intrigue me enough to track down the original speech. Perhaps because of the secondary headline "In Nobel Speech, Doris Lessing Blames the Internet for a Decline in Book Reading" And in fact, both articles seem to be dwelling on one particular small portion of Lessing's lecture -- although the Chronicle writer was snarkier. Lessing stated:

...What has happened to us is an amazing invention, computers and the internet and TV, a revolution. This is not the first revolution we, the human race, has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, changed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked "What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?" And just as we never once stopped to ask, How are we, our minds, going to change with the new internet, which has seduced a whole generation into its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging and blugging etc.

Very recently, anyone even mildly educated would respect learning, education, and owe respect to our great store of literature. Of course we all know that when this happy state was with us, people would pretend to read, would pretend respect for learning, but it is on record that working men and women longed for books, and this is evidenced by the working men's libraries, institutes, colleges of the 18th and 19th centuries.

But the thing that bothered me the most was the cattiness displayed by the Chronicle writer -- he couldn't debate why she was wrong -- he could only respond with:

...Even so, I never would have heard of her speech — and the other countless ideas I’m exposed to online each day — without all that “blogging and blugging.”...

He really seemed to have missed the point - that without the reading of literature he wouldn't be interested in knowing all the rest.

The Chronicle writer starts

Not long ago I attended a party at a house where there didn’t seem to be any books. It was a young couple that I didn’t know well, and there were plenty of new furnishings and decorations, and a large flat-screen TV — but no bookshelves....

As a person who has more books in her house than my mom/stepdad, dad/stepmom, father-in-law/step-mother-in-law, mother-in-law/step-father-in-law, and all the grandparents associated with the previously mentioned combined -- I say, BAH! Having books in your house isn't an indication of young or old (smart or dumb)-- it's an indication of 1) How much of a pack rat you are 2) Amount of dusting you are willing to do and/or 3) How paranoid you are that you may need that 1920 encyclopedia should the big one ever occur...

Perhaps the writer doesn't mean anything and I'm just being sensitive (especially after being encased in ice the past couple of days). After all he just wants to get people to the Chronicle site to read the other articles. But -- Lessing is the same age as my dad's parents and when I think of someone picking on them for something they say I get a bit miffed. My grandparents are at the other end of the culture/political spectrum than me -- but I realize that being born around the time or World War I and coming of age in or around the Depression -- gives people a different look at the world, education, literature and leisure. And I think the Chronicle author missed that...

Mind you - Lessing's view on leisure reading is a bit different than my grandparents'. I do not believe I have ever seen my grandparents pick a book up to read recreationaly (although I can tell you that my granpa told me Angela's Ashes was extremely depressing and he didn't need to be reminded on how the Irish were treated considering he lived it). When they were younger they didn't have time for that they had to work and raise a family - but they did foster in me a joy of learning (which was the gateway to reading literature).

I think Lessing is wanting to know is that the desire to learn and think creatively and compassionately still exists somewhere. It isn't necessarily the rant of an old luddite - since not all old people are luddites and not all luddites are old. For the compassion, creativity and learning to progress there has to be a certain level of in person interaction (I mean wouldn't the library vendors freaked if they didn't get to attend another conference?). After all compassion, creativity, and learning are things that have always gone hand in hand with reading literature - not blogs (like this one) or newspapers or magazines -- according to the NEA study

The decline in literary reading foreshadows an erosion in cultural and civic participation.
*Literary reading strongly correlates to other forms of active civic participation.
*Literary readers are more likely than non-literary readers to perform volunteer and charity work, visit art museums, attend performing arts events, and attend sporting events.

...so there you have it -- the ramblings of a frozen brain - are you all thawed out yet?

America ill of literacy?

Chronicle is reporting (subscription required)

Americans aren't just reading fewer books, but are reading less and less of everything, in any medium. That's the doleful conclusion of "To Read or Not to Read," a report scheduled for release today by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Subtitled "A Question of National Consequence," the report piles on the bad news delivered by "Reading at Risk," the NEA's 2004 warning about the nation's rapidly declining literacy...

"The story the data tell is simple, consistent, and alarming," writes Dana Gioia. the NEA's chairman, in the new report's preface. Elementary-school children have posted some gains in literacy, but "there is a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans."

"Most alarming," he continues, "both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates."

Unlike the 2004 study, "To Read or Not to Read" examined not just literary reading but all kinds of reading, including online. And it tapped a far wider range of sources, notably statistics from the Department of Education and the Department of Labor, as well as academic and corporate studies....

Visit the Chronicle for the entire article.

Adult writers @ your library

From the MuskogeePhoenix Literacy community celebrates special authors

It’s always cause for celebration when writers join the elite group of those having their work published.

When the author is an adult who is learning to read and write, the accomplishment is even more impressive.

Recently, 69 adult learners from 20 Oklahoma literacy programs had their stories published in the anthology “Celebrating Our Journey.” The statewide literacy project was sponsored by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries and the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services. The stories relate the struggles and triumphs of learning to read as adults and how these new skills have changed the lives of the authors.

The stories are powerful and inspirational and those associated with adult literacy are proud of all the individuals who took the time to write a story....

Student authors often write about the confidence, hope and pride that learning to read has given them. Others write about the struggles they encountered before learning to read. Joe Davidson, Muskogee resident, wrote the following story that was included in the anthology.

“I found myself in the position where I had to know how to read. But before I could, I had to admit to myself that I had a problem. Only then, could I take care of it. I went to the library to learn how to read and write and spell. I am getting better at it. To those that think they are better than you and want to prove it, but don't admit there is a problem, I say you can do something about the problem. You have to admit the problem like I did. My mother asked me to learn to read before she passed away. I made a promise to her that I would. I learned to read and spell. I kept my promise to her.”

Check out ODL Literacy services yourself.

Literacy Behind Bars

Literacy Behind Bars: Results From the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Prison Survey

The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) included the first assessment of the English literacy of incarcerated adults since 1992. The assessment was administered to approximately 1,200 adults (age 16 and older) incarcerated in state and federal prisons, as well as approximately 18,000 adults living in households. Three types of literacy were measured: Prose, Document, and Quantitative. Results were reported in terms of scale scores (on a 500-point scale) and four literacy levels—Below Basic, Basic, Intermediate, and Proficient. The findings in this report—Literacy Behind Bars—indicate the changes in literacy among incarcerated adults between 1992 and 2003. The report also compares the literacy of adults in the prison and household populations and across groups of prison inmates with different characteristics, including race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, age, language spoken before starting school, and parents’ educational attainment. The report looks at the relationship between literacy, education, and job training, including traditional academic education, vocational education, and skill certification. Additionally, the report examines the relationship between literacy and experiences in prison other than education, including prison work assignments, library use, computer use, and reading frequency. Finally, the report looks at the relationship between literacy, criminal history, and current offense. The results show how the relationship between literacy, type of offense, expected length of incarceration, expected date of release, and previous criminal history has changed since 1992.

Jenn2.0 makes Oklahoma Magazine's "40 Under 40"

TCCL's Literacy Coordinator Jennifer Greb has been featured in Oklahoma Magazine's list of 40 "up-and-comers, big dreamers, and can-doers" this year. In addition to her work with the Literacy department, Jennifer is a huge proponent of Library 2.0 (see her wiki at http://www.ambientlibrarian.org), a really fun person to hang around with, and a great mom to boot. She's one to watch!