Maryland Libraries & Social Media

Here at the LATI Blog, we recently got a request to investigate how Maryland libraries are using social media and what success the libraries have had with it. Today we bring you the scoop on what the Harford County Public Library (HCPL) system is doing!

Dave McLaughlin, webmaster at the forefront of HCPL's official social media efforts had the following to share:

Harford County Public Library has recently started and ramped up a number of social networking initiatives. We have a Facebook page and Twitter account, both of which are used to broadcast updates from our website and special messages, such as closings, etc. We are also posting many photos from renovation projects, recent programs, etc. to Flickr and have started a YouTube channel that is currently used for advocacy videos and our iPhone app promotional video.

We will continue to expand these presences, but in the last month and a half (since the launch of our new website, on which we display a Facebook logo that links to our Facebook page) our number of fans on Facebook has quadrupled. Customers are commenting on our Facebook page and tweeting about us and we are able to engage them in discussions via both services.

One quick success story:

With all of the recent snow, we made sure to quickly post any information about closings to our social networking accounts. One day, shortly after posting that we would be closed, customers started a discussion on our Facebook page that went like this:

"So, if I have movies due tomorrow I won't get charged?"

"No - they said yesterday that no fines will be charged for items due when the library is closed - as long as they are returned the next day."

"are the parking lots cleared so we can at least drop them off when we are able to get out of our homes?"

"Abingdon was clear when I went by a couple hours ago"

"Do you need volunteers to help clear the backlog?"

While we are generally pretty quick at responding to comments and questions, our customers were answering other customers’ questions before we even had a chance. We followed up with more information, but I consider this a huge success!

Review Thursday: Fiction

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (2009)

Dr. Faraday is the son of lower class parents who have worked hard and sacrificed to give him the chance to become a doctor. His mother was once a maid at the grand mansion of Hundreds Hall. When he was a child she took him for a visit to the house, where he was struck with admiration for its richness and beauty, a symbol of the upper class and all that was unobtainable to him. Now working quite hard himself, he still lives on a tight budget and is very conscious of the gap between himself and those born to money.

When Dr. Faraday revisits Hundreds Hall to attend to a sick maid, he is shocked and dismayed at the house’s current state of decay. After the death of the head of the household, the fortunes of the survivors of the family declined to the point where only a portion of the home could be kept in a state fit for human habitation, the rest crumbling and disused. Dr. Faraday finds more occasions to call on the residents of the house - Mrs. Ayres, the still elegant widow, her daughter Caroline, a “brainy” woman who is considered likely to remain a spinster, and son Roderick, scarred by his experience in World War II and prone to moodiness and possible mental instability. He volunteers to treat Roderick’s war injury and becomes privy to Roderick’s carefully guarded concerns that there is a malevolent presence in the house. Faraday persists in holding a rational view of events, but as increasingly curious things occur at the house he finds his beliefs challenged.

This is a portrait of a family in decline for those who like character-driven historical fiction as well as classic ghost stories. Because Waters’ descriptions of the haunting are both subtle and ambiguous, this book stay in your head long after you read it.

Do you have any readers’ advisory recommendations for reluctant elementary male readers – other than guysread.org?

Apparently, reports of the death of reading among boys have not been exaggerated. According to Guys Read, self-described as “a web-based literacy program for boys, ”research shows that boys are having trouble reading and that boys are getting worse at reading.” The problem is one of image. Reading, an erstwhile hairy-chested, two-fisted pastime, is viewed by today’s (male) youth as an irrelevant activity for girls. Boys would be voracious readers if books didn’t seem so contemptibly lacking in vigor.

Apart from Guys Read, where should a librarian performing readers’ advisory work for boys turn to find gravel-in-the-gut, grit-in-the-eye free voluntary reading material? As it happens, there are a number of print and electronic resources to aid in readers’ advisory work. These resources include:
Print

• Best Books for Children by Catherine Barr and John Gillespie. Libraries Unlimited, 2007.
  
  
• Historical Fiction for Young Readers by John Gillespie. Libraries Unlimited, 2008.
  
  
• The Big Book of Children's Reading Lists: 100 Great, Ready-to-Use Book Lists for Educators, Librarians, Parents, and Children by Nancy Keane. Libraries Unlimited, 2006.
  
  
• A to Zoo by Carolyn and John Lima. Libraries Unlimited, 2008.
  
  
• Best Books for Boys: A Resource for Educators by Matthew Zbaracki. Libraries Unlimited, 2008.

Websites

• Read, Kiddo, Read
  
  
• Book Hive
  
  
• Planet Esme

Databases

• Books & Authors

Review Thursday: Fiber Gathering

Fiber Gathering by Joanne Seiff is a celebration of the fiber arts. Rather than simply offering patterns for knitting or crocheting, Seiff introduces the reader to fiber festivals around the country. Traveling coast to coast from Maryland Sheep and Wool, one of the oldest and largest in the country, to the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene Oregon, the reader gets a picture of the vibrant culture of the fiber community. Each festival has its own character where Seiff met “warm, kind people who rushed to embrace this idea of festival as much more than just buying and selling.”(xi) She made me want to pack my bags and spend a year going from festival to festival. If you can’t do that, she tells you how to build your own.

This book is not just a travelogue. Each festival provides inspiration with patterns to try or instructions to follow. Seiff has included a wide range of fiber activities for you to try. For example, have you ever wanted to paint your own yarn? Detailed instructions are here. Or, what on earth do people do with the fleece as it comes off the sheep? This book will show you. Knitting, crocheting and rug hooking are not forgotten either. So, whether you are just curious about the fiber arts or if you are an experienced artist, there is something in this book for you.

Is there a source which recommends books for adults who are very poor readers (primary level readers with adult interests)?

These kinds of books, known as hi/lo (high interest/low reading level) are useful for people with learning disabilities, new readers of English, and reluctant readers, among others. There are numerous websites that provide lists of books that fall into this category. For example:

Resource Room
A list of more than a dozen sites, most of them belonging to publishers. Two are especially handy: Michelle Stimson (see information about her firm Wegottaread.com which offers free short stories to download) who writes urban contemporary Christian fiction; and
L_MNet the international school media specialists’ listserv which offers lists of hi/low books through its archives.

YALSA
The Young Adult Services Association of ALA compiles an annual list of recommended fiction and nonfiction for reluctant teen readers. Many of the titles will appeal to adults as well.

The Center for Adult Literacy
Based at Georgia State University, the Center offers a broad spectrum of information, including an extensive list of annotated hi/lo books divided into more than fifteen subject areas.

Madison (WI) Public Library
This annotated list, created by staff of this excellent public library, covers choices for both middle and high school reluctant readers. There are quite a few of the latter that would engage adults.

High Noon Books
This publisher specializes in hi/lo materials and has a useful website listing the books by readability levels and by subjects.

Reader and Language Arts Center, Inc.
Like High Noon Books, this is a publisher specializing in providing materials for teachers, tutors, and students of all ages to help the latter reach their potential as readers.

Review Thursday: New Nonfiction

Daughters of Aquarius: Women of the Sixties Counterculture by Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo (2009)

The images are familiar: Janis Joplin wails to the strains of “Ball and Chain” on the stage at the Monterey Pop Festival. Grace Slick with the Jefferson Airplane adjures the crowd to “feed your head” in her acid-drenched rendition of “White Rabbit.” With all the attention focused on the anniversary of Woodstock, there has been a renewal of interest in the whole countercultural movement of the 1960s. How did women fit into this movement? Where did they come from? What did they experience? And was there any lasting effect from their involvement? These are all questions that Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, Professor of History at St. Mary’s College of California tries to address.

It’s easy to think in stereotypes: the sexually-uninhibited, wide-eyed “hippie chick;” the earth mother; the guitar-strumming, sandal-wearing protestor. Professor Lemke-Santangelo gives us the reality based on meticulous research and interviews. For the most part, the women of the counterculture came from middle and upper class families. They joined the counterculture to escape from social strictures and expectations and in search of richer life experiences. The book’s in-depth interviews provide the reader with an opportunity to understand the appeal of sex and psychedelic drugs for these women in their journey to self-knowledge.

One of the interesting discoveries that she reveals is that, notwithstanding the exploratory dynamics of the Aquarian Age, many communes consigned women to traditional roles such as cooking, housekeeping, and raising children. However, as time went on, the women took on the primary responsibility for sustaining the communes. Many of these women explored various religions and philosophies, developing a new, feminist-centered spirituality. Professor Lemke-Santangelo traces many of the manifestations of contemporary New Age culture to these second-wave feminists. Although this book is primarily intended for a scholarly audience, it is definitely worth reading if you want to truly understand these pioneering and brave daughters of Aquarius.

What special resources are available to inmate patrons and/or prison librarians?

We posed this question to Glennor Shirley, Library Coordinator for the Correctional Education Libraries in Maryland. Her answer was:

Detention Centers house prisoners with short sentences and are run by the local government, sometimes in collaboration with local public libraries.

Prisons are run by the state government and house inmates with sentences ranging from 2 years to life. Prison libraries try to model public library services and aim to meet the informational, educational, popular reading, and lifelong learning needs of the inmates.

They strive to develop a core collection of reference and popular reading materials, but resources may vary depending on funding and commitment of the prison administration.

Inmates in maximum security prisons want sentence reduction so information needs center around legal resources. The libraries have legal databases and core legal collections to meet the constitutional mandate of “access to the court.” In medium, minimum, and pre release prisons, libraries have fewer legal resources and a wider range of materials to help the inmate for a successful transition back to society.

Special collections include, legal resources, books on the trade, career information, family relations, anger management, how to write resume and cover letters, interview for jobs, and lots of directories. Directory information includes access to legal help, homeless shelters, county resources, drug addiction centers , food stamps, government funding, health providers, family counseling centers, where and how to get GED. In the women’s prisons, women are interested in regaining custody of their children so there is information on Family Law, custody, and visitation issues.

Some colleges offer post secondary courses in some prisons. The library will collaborate with the instructors who provide special materials for the course, by stocking and shelving the materials. Prison Librarians may work with the state or county law libraries to obtain photocopies or materials that are housed in the law libraries but would be too costly for the prison libraries to purchase. They also make use of the resources of the State Library Resource Center for training, interlibrary loan, and photocopies.

A great resource for potential prison librarians is Library Services to the Incarcerated: Applying the Public Library Model in Correctional Facility Libraries by Sheila Clark and Erica MacCreaigh. Libraries Unlimited, 2006.

To learn more about prison libraries, Glennor Shirley has a blog called Prison Librarian.