bookgazing (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bookgazing) wrote2012-04-18 10:27 am
bookgazing) wrote2012-04-18 10:27 am
Guys Lit Wire Book Fair 2012
It’s time again for the Guys Lit Wire book fair. Each year the blog team behind Guys Lit Wire find a school, or a project for young readers, that may need a little financial assistance procuring books and creates an online wish list of books that the organisation would love to be able to give to the young people they work with. Anyone on the web (who can afford to participate in these hard times) can buy specific books off the wish list and send these donations directly to the project.
This year the team are sticking with Ballou High School, as they build their library’s book collection up from scratch, with incredibly limited funds. Guys Lit Wire started working with Ballou last year when they saw a video Ballou’s librarian Melissa Jackson had made about the low number of books available at Ballou. Thanks to the efforts of everyone involved in the first two book fairs Guys Lit Wire ran, Ballou now has two books for each student (there are 1,200 students in total), which is fantastic, but as the American Library Association recommends that there should be a minimum of eleven books per student in a school library there’s plenty more work to do. If you can help then please check out the full instructions for donating at the Guys Lit Wire launch post.
I wanted to talk about why I think the methodology behind the book fair makes it an especially good project to support:
1.) Both the librarians and the students at the school work with the Guys Lit Wire team to select the books that go on the wish list. The importance of involving the people a project actually impacts, in the creation and development of that project is widely recognised, as these people tend to know what is actually needed and their input allows a project to be more effective. I think it’s especially great that the students at the school are empowered to shape the library they’ll be using and have been given the opportunity to ask for types of books that adults might not automatically choose, like manga novels and contemporary teen series.
2.) People can purchase used and sale copies, to make sure that this project allows many people to contribute in what are difficult financial times. Buyers are further encouraged to check that the used copies are listed as ‘standard’, not ‘student owned’. This guidance is put in place to ensure that Ballou isn’t receiving tatty copies which will fall apart after a few reads. As Ballou has limited funds to procure replacement copies when books become unreadable, encouraging the purchase of better quality copies allows the library to be more sustainable. And again, the idea of giving books that the student will enjoy reading is key to this project. Clean used copies are often more appealing than underlined, dog earred student copies (and who doesn’t love the thrill of opening a completly new book?).
3.) The wish list is run through Powells, which I understand is the largest independent bookstore in the US. So, not only are you helping to build a library with any purchases you make, you’re also supporting an independent bookstore.
4.) You can watch the library being built before our very eyes, by checking the wish list and spotting the book requests that have been fulfilled at the Powell’s website. I find that watching that list get bought up is literally like watching the world change for the better. From a personal, maybe selfish donor point of view, at a time when I’m experiencing the kind of recurring frustration with “the way the world works” the Ballou project is a huge symbol of hope.
Hope is important.
This year the team are sticking with Ballou High School, as they build their library’s book collection up from scratch, with incredibly limited funds. Guys Lit Wire started working with Ballou last year when they saw a video Ballou’s librarian Melissa Jackson had made about the low number of books available at Ballou. Thanks to the efforts of everyone involved in the first two book fairs Guys Lit Wire ran, Ballou now has two books for each student (there are 1,200 students in total), which is fantastic, but as the American Library Association recommends that there should be a minimum of eleven books per student in a school library there’s plenty more work to do. If you can help then please check out the full instructions for donating at the Guys Lit Wire launch post.
I wanted to talk about why I think the methodology behind the book fair makes it an especially good project to support:
1.) Both the librarians and the students at the school work with the Guys Lit Wire team to select the books that go on the wish list. The importance of involving the people a project actually impacts, in the creation and development of that project is widely recognised, as these people tend to know what is actually needed and their input allows a project to be more effective. I think it’s especially great that the students at the school are empowered to shape the library they’ll be using and have been given the opportunity to ask for types of books that adults might not automatically choose, like manga novels and contemporary teen series.
2.) People can purchase used and sale copies, to make sure that this project allows many people to contribute in what are difficult financial times. Buyers are further encouraged to check that the used copies are listed as ‘standard’, not ‘student owned’. This guidance is put in place to ensure that Ballou isn’t receiving tatty copies which will fall apart after a few reads. As Ballou has limited funds to procure replacement copies when books become unreadable, encouraging the purchase of better quality copies allows the library to be more sustainable. And again, the idea of giving books that the student will enjoy reading is key to this project. Clean used copies are often more appealing than underlined, dog earred student copies (and who doesn’t love the thrill of opening a completly new book?).
3.) The wish list is run through Powells, which I understand is the largest independent bookstore in the US. So, not only are you helping to build a library with any purchases you make, you’re also supporting an independent bookstore.
4.) You can watch the library being built before our very eyes, by checking the wish list and spotting the book requests that have been fulfilled at the Powell’s website. I find that watching that list get bought up is literally like watching the world change for the better. From a personal, maybe selfish donor point of view, at a time when I’m experiencing the kind of recurring frustration with “the way the world works” the Ballou project is a huge symbol of hope.
Hope is important.