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Sites We Like - April 2010

There have been some unusually lively topics this week in the library blogosphere. Makes me realize it's time to update the list of "sites we like."

Over at LibraryJournal.com, the Annoyed Librarian had a field day with the announcement last week that Library of Congress will archive every tweet on Twitter.  The "AL," as he/she is known to his/her readers, is an anonymous curmudgeon who rails against the weak-minded.

For example, regarding the value of Twitter to future historians:   "The problem with trying to find out what most people think is that most people don't really think."  The blog reliably fires up its readers, and the comments section is usually full of wildly varying opinions from both detractors and champions of the AL.

A hot topic over at the Librarianchat forum (run by another anonymous librarian) had to do with statistics published by long-time "librarian pundit" (if there is such a thing), Will Manley, on his blog, Will Unwound.  Manley has had a long and storied career in libraries, serving not only as director of the Tempe Arizona Public Library but also as that town's City Manager.  He's also authored 9 books and has written over 500 columns for Wilson Library Bulletin, Booklist, and American Libraries.  Recently, on his blog, he published the results of a "Librarians and Sex Survey" that he conducted 8 years ago while writing for Wilson.  Manley says he got 5,000 responses to his survey, but the results were never published -- until now.

The statistic probably stirring up the most discussion:  According to Manley, 20% of respondents -- librarians not patrons -- said they'd had sex in a library.

So I'm adding Annoyed Librarian, Library Chat, and Will Unwound to the list of "noteworthy sites" in the sidebar of this blog.  Suggestions for additional sites?  Leave a comment below.

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Posted by David Perrotta, MLIS
Playaway Senior Content Strategist
Twitter: david_perrotta

Mary Burkey on Audio Literacy

I've been bugging my friend Mary Burkey about whether anyone recorded her wonderful remarks on audio literacy during a panel discussion on "Multiple Literacies" at this summer's ALA annual meeting in Chicago. Unfortunately, no recording was made. (Mary's trusty digital recorder, which she often carries with her, was on loan to someone else who was capturing another session.)

From memory then, here are some of the points I recall her making from her perspective as an educator and a fan of audiobooks:

* Listening is not cheating -- it's an alternate way to experience a literary work.

* Audiobook listening expands listening skills. For most of human history, people lived in a "culture of orality". Storytelling, oral communication, and listening are central to our makeup as human beings. But not everyone is equally good at listening -- in fact, for some students it's really difficult. Like all skills, it requires practice.

* Audiobook listening increases language fluency for both struggling and proficient readers. The listener hears language as it is actually spoken, and, in the process, is exposed to correct pronunciation, new vocabulary, and new forms of speech. When you listen, you hear punctuation and enunciation being modeled. A great way to learn about the fluidity of written language is to listen to it.

* Audiobook listening can raise reading comprehension. Students can usually comprehend about 2 years beyond their reading level. English-language learners often hear and comprehend better than they can speak. By allowing struggling readers an alternate path into a book, an audiobook can help them take in its meaning. Listening gives struggling readers or readers of challenging material a helping hand, "carrying them across" the spots where they might stumble with the printed page (think of the many German phrases in The Book Thief).

* Gifted readers often devour books, but they don't necessarily remember the details. Some gifted kids like to listen to audio as a way to make themselves slow down and take in the details of what they gulped in print. ("Gulpers" don't necessarily learn to pronounce the words they read.)

* When we share literature with kids, what do we do?  We read to them. Often the works that are read to students are filtered through the voices of their predominantly female teachers. One way to get boys more engaged with the listening/reading experience is to give them characters that sound the way they were written to be -- voiced by professional narrators and even full casts.

* Listening can help build attention spans -- audiobooks teach "long-form listening in a snippet world."

Mary tells me that she made some of these same points during her remarks at yet another session in which she participated in Chicago, this one on "Evaluating Audiobooks for Children and Teens". She did record the audio for that session, and it can be found, along with the session PowerPoint, on her Audiobooker blog at:

     http://audiobooker.booklistonline.com/2009/07/20/evaluating-audiobooks-on-audio/