When you read stories such as this one about 15 year old Joey Alisch, a sophomore student at Bishop Hendricken High School in Rhode Island, USA, that warm fuzzy feeling of inspiration is lit!
Having just completed his most recent trip – his seventh – to the Philippines, Joey has now collected and donated more than 10,000 books to schools across the Philippines.
It was some years ago when Joey noticed an ad on the Disney Channel encouraging youngsters to get involved in acts of charity. After a visit to his cousin’s school in Mindoro in the Philippines, Joey was shocked to see an empty room in the school which was the library. It was at this point that he decided that he should be collecting and donating books to schools in the Philippines. And so he has, ever since!
Joey’s character shines through a short video published on YouTube. He sums up his intent well by saying:
MY VISION: To help the Filipino Children MY MISSION: To continue helping build libraries in the Philippines. I hope they will enjoy reading & exploring the wonderful world of BOOKS
I’d like to say I was out of the country or something, but I guess I really have to come clean and admit that I didn’t see this installation which was held last June in my hometown of Melbourne. How I missed it, I’ll never know! And once I’d seen what was created, you should have heard my howls of disappointment.
Quoting from the Literatura website, the objective of this project was to create
a river of books overflowing into the physical pedestrian spaces and installed itself in the space allocated to cars, stealing precious space to the dense traffic in the area, in a symbolic gesture in which literature took control of the streets and became the conquerer of the public space, offering the citizens, a space (not as big as we would have liked) in which the traffic withdrew yielding ground to the modest power of the written word.”
Contrary to figures we constantly read in the press about the demise of book shops and the rise of eBooks, the book in France is alive and well!
Reporting that France has 2,500 book shops, Elaine Sciolino of the New York Times also reports that book sales from 2003-2011 increased by 6.5%. Propping up the French publishing industry, she reports, are state laws to protect the book. Passed back in 1981, the “Lang Law” (so named for the then Culture Minister Jack Lang) fixed prices for French-language books preventing the discounting of books by more than 5%.
Book publishers the world over are probably quite envious. Perhaps there needs to be moves by other countires to further explore French Government initiatives so as to ensure the future of the book industry.
Take a walk down memory lane with this Merry Melodies cartoon. Released in 1938 by Warner Bros, Have you got any castles? is a fabulous animation which reviews so many of the books which engaged and entranced an audience quite a while ago. Many of the books showcased have become classics and still grace the shelves of our libraries!
How coincidental it is when one has an idea that is the same as someone else on the other side of the world ’cause that’s kind of what happened to me just recently!
A few weeks ago, I noticed a post on FaceBook by the NYOR team promoting a Swap Box which had been established by someone or some organization somewhere in Australia. Regrettably I didn’t jot down the name of the person behind the idea. I did however keep a picture of it to share with my colleagues in our school library. The picture I saved was this:
Needless to say ….. it didn’t take too long to create a very similar box which now sits on display on our circulation desk. Filled with a starter bundle of books which library staff cobbled together, the Swap Box has been a source of interest since and is a really great way to promote an interest in that wonderful feeling of holding, reading and owning a book!
Soon after getting our box up and running, someone sent me a link to a newly established website: “Little Free Library”. Begun just a short while ago, these pop up libraries, first begun in Wisconsin in the USA, can be found in more than 40 states across the US as well as in 20+ countries around the world. Found predominantly decorating the front yards of homes or residential neighbourhoods, the Little Free Library looks like a box on a short post, much like a letter box. With the motto “Give a book ….. Return a book” the Little Free Library is a new way of inspiring and promoting a love of reading while building a sense of community.
The derivation of this creative piece about the wonders of ‘The Book’ alludes me, but variations of it can be found on numorous sites on the web. I can’t help thinking that the ideas presented would be great for book promotion posters.
As I searched for an author though, I came across this YouTube clip. Presented in Spanish with English subtitles, it really is very nice. Enjoy!
Inspiring kids to read is one of the joys of working in a School Library. Convincing them to take a book in hand that will hook them into hours of joy and discovery is so inspiring, so invigorating.
‘Read a book ….. learn about the world!’
This has to be one of my all time favourite signs to pin up in my Library displays. Chatting with kids, getting them on board with the joy of discovery ….. Wow ….. it’s so inspiring, so fulfilling. Having one of those bubbly
‘Have you read this?’ ‘What do you think of that?’ kinds of bookish conversations with kids is so much fun.
Reading, the joy of reading, sharing the passion I have for reading …. this has always been the icing on the cake for my work with kids in schools.
Discoveries of recent months though, in which my life has become so overwhelmed with all things web based has made me wonder ….. just for a fleeting second ….. whether all this ‘new stuff’: social networking, social media, Web 2.0 tools, embedding technology into the curriculum ….. whether all this ‘new stuff’ will challenge the previous status held by books in our schools. That heaven forbid, kids today will have no time to read books or explore the wonders they hold.
Just a few days ago, I was asked how I’d feel if all the books we currently have in our Library were removed.
A second of panic hit me ….. a gasp ….. the thought: ‘no ….. it’s just not possible’ reverberated through my head. Before I knew it, I blurted out my reply: No, it won’t happen, it couldn’t happen! I love to curl up with a book in my hand.
Then someone sent me this clip of Phillip Roth talking about the future of the novel:
Roth’s forlorn tone when he states that the book
can’t compete with the movie screen
can’t compete with the television screen and
can’t compete with the computer screen
nearly had me believing him. Throw into the mix, articles reporting the negative stats on book sales vs eBook sales and wow…. the traditional novel, the one you relax with on the couch, curl up with in bed, crave to read in between the daily routines, certainly does seem like it’s under a death sentence.
Take a look at our children though ….. the ones that sit wide eyed on our laps or in clusters at our feet in our classrooms or Libraries listening intently as we share the joy of a story. Are they not being inculcated from an early age into the joy of reading, the wonders of books?
Is the book about to disappear? Is it to become a relic of past life? Have a listen to this podcast Is the book Dead? a recorded discussion held at the State Library of Victoria on September 6th 2007, then let me know what you think about the future of the book!
The Community Bookshelf is a striking feature of Kansas City’s downtown. It runs along the south wall of the Central Library’s parking garage on 10th Street between Wyandotte Street and Baltimore Avenue. The book spines, which measure approximately 25 feet by 9 feet, are made of signboard mylar. The shelf showcases 22 titles reflecting a wide variety of reading interests as suggested by Kansas City readers and then selected by The Kansas City Public Library Board of Trustees.
