Future Shock!

When I became a librarian, I wasn't particularly scared about the arrival of e-technologies: libraries would survive, they had a point of difference (paper, relaxation) and the exisiting digital competitors were cumbersome and the antithesis of what a library could offer.

But now everyone has an iPhone, iPad, Kindle or other portable device. Books can be downloaded in less than a minute, and you can carry hundereds (thousands!) of them away with you on holiday.

A whole generation is growing up portable and on the move. Downloading is the first step, not the last resort.

Is there a role for libraries in this new paradigm, which has altered terrifically since the release of the first iPad and the saturation achieved by Amazon and its Kindle?
Perhaps - as giant, one stop, legal store houses for e-books and other digital information. Libraries with authorized music downloads; libraries with legitimate access to streaming sports; libraries with huge e-book stocks; libraries as Flickr. Places you plug into, and pull information out of.

But places you go and sit quietly and read a paperback? Tick tick tick...

Kitty chan!

Ok, we don't actually have this book... yet!
But we are so going to get it for the library.

What is this amazing and wonderful book called?
Hello Kitty's guide to Japan in English and Japanese.

You can use it to practice your English!
You can use it to practice your Japanese!
You can learn all about Japanese culture in English or Japanese!
This book sounds like it would be a useful (and popular) addition to our collection. Especially given the addition of Sanrio's well known and loved Kitty-Chan!

The English does look a little clunky, but it's still technically correct. And although it's not super elegant, the text makes sense.
We have many students here whose first language is Japanese, and lots who are studying Japanese.
And as if we needed another reason to buy it, it's Hello Kitty.

This morning I was trying to decide whether or not my own love of cuteness was stopping me from being objective. Then I found this review.

My reaction to this book was interesting. It showed me how much advertising can suck us in.
Even when you think that it doesn't. My instant reaction was 'Let's buy it, we need it now!' It was really tricky to take a deep breath and look to see if it is actually a good book to add to our collection.

When I get a class where all the kids only want Princess books (of the sparkly, Disney variety) or dinosaur books, I think about how marketing may have had a role. Let's face it, beautiful, interesting and carefully packaged things are much more intersting than the generic version.
There has been much discussion of 'the cult of cute' - just do a quick google search, you'll find heaps of stuff.

One of the articles talked about a company in Japan which offered Miffy bank cards to their customers. For adults as well as kids. Sounds pretty good to me. And with a Miffy ATM card, you can feel like you have a link with literature... or something.

When the maximum level of cuteness has been reached it all gets a bit overwhelming. Like you've eaten far too much candy floss. And then it's time to go for the grown up options.

Has Sanrio managed to suck me in? Maybe. So far I've resisted the Hello Kitty toaster. It is awfully cute though...

Finding your way in the world

Today we've been doing atlases with the year three, four and five classes.
And it got me thinking. When I was a kid, I loved looking at atlases. They had all kinds of interesting places, with exotic names. Most of them I'd never heard of.
New Zealand is pretty far away, being situated at the bottom of the world as it is. Anything other than Australia, Samoa, Fiji or the Cook Islands sounded amazing to me.
That was my local area (not that I'd been to those places...)

Now we have so many options. There are still atlases, but Google maps have revolutionised the way we look at the world. Having such a fantastic tool makes everything that much more accessible. In some ways, it's a little creepy. We can see images and maps of the whole world with the click of a mouse. Satellites float above every city, continent and town on earth, constantly capturing images. Everything from a mountain range to someone hanging out their washing.
If it wasn't used properly it could be a bit creepy.
But since it's usually used for good and is so useful, I'm all for Google maps.
How many times has it saved me from getting lost? Especially now I have an android phone. That thing is a life saver.

There is also a whole lot of other digital mapping technology. TomToms and other navigation devices are really popular now, and you can get so many different electronic and online sources to help you find your way. An electronic map can be updated way faster and cheaper than a paper map can be.

I hope that atlases survive this digital revolution. There's something nice about holding a thick volume in your hand and flicking through the pages till you find a place you want to visit or a place name that you've never heard of but just love.

Even though the new technology is awesome, finding places in an atlas is a different kind of skill. It's useful to be able to use both kinds of resources, digital and paper. For now at least, Google maps and atlases happily exsist side by side.

How things date...

Lately I've become interested in the way that references to technology, slang words or even the way people act puts books, movies and tv shows in a particular time.

Have you ever heard of a tv show called Daria? Maybe not, but it's a great example of how this happens. If you watch an episode of the show, you'll see the characters talking on the phone and using beepers... cellphones weren't really common yet.
The ideas behind the show itself haven't changed much, but the technology really places it.

This kind of thing happens a lot in books too.
I recently read The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan. It's a fantastic book. But some of the language and references to technology got me thinking. What will this book read like in 10 years? It's quite hard to write a story without mentioning stuff like technology if it's an important part of your plot. But at the same time, the lack of familiar technology is something which gives books like the Harry Potter series an edge. It's written in language which mostly trancends time. So it still seems like it could have been written today, even though the first book was published over 10 years ago.

Publishers know this too. The Famous Five have been rewritten for a newer audience with the language completely changed. No more jolly hockeysticks and lashings of gingerbeer for these 21st century kids. Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys have also morphed into something more modern, and Papercutz has even created a graphic novel range to tempt non-reading kids along for the ride. Other series have been edited and re-edited over the years to make them more palatable for the new reading public.

So it's kind of interesting to read books and think - what will this be like to read in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?

By the way, have you been wondering what a beeper was? 10 points if you didn't go away and Google it immediately. Yes, I linked to Wikipedia. But Beepers are now so uncommon outside of the critical messaging market that they don't really have many pages any more. Hmm...

Roald Dahl Funny Prize

Roald Dahl's books are famous enough for him to get an award named after him.
Yes, it's called the Roald Dahl Funny Prize.
And funnily enough, all of the books which are entered have to be funny!
Just like a good Roald Dahl story, these books should have you in stitches.

One of my favourite children's book author/illustrators - Ed Vere - has been nominated with his new book Bedtime for monsters (yay!) Ed has done a few great books now. One of my favourites is about a monkey and a banana - it always makes me smile. And pretty much every student who's seen it seems to like it too! The Getaway is also fun - an interesting take on robbery starring a cheese obsessed mouse.

Marshall Armstrong is new to our school by David Mackintosh is another of this year's nominations. It's a good choice - had me chuckling when I catalogued it. The illustrations and text work together well.

I love that there is an award for funny books. Sometimes it feels we're too serious about books. About life, about everything!
It's great to laugh. It makes you feel better and makes you and other people happy.
And sometimes, it's hard to find a truly funny book. Or for some reason, it's easy to forget the funny ones to focus on the more serious. Which is a shame.

So, why not celebrate new and funny books in the name of a master of children's book hilarity? I'm looking forward to reading all of the nominations!

Artistic license

Tuesday was Roald Dahl day.
Roald Dahl was a man so famous his garden shed will be put in a museum! Creator of masterpieces like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, George's Marvellous Medicine and James and the Giant Peach, Dahl's name means a lot to children (and adults!) all over the world.

When doing a bit of Roald Dahl themed research, I found a mention of how Roald Dahl really disliked the original film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. No, not the Johnny Depp version, the one starring Gene Wilder.

What kind of say do authors get when they sell the movie rights?
It probably all depends on the contract.
It's interesting to think about though - if you were a famous author, would you sell your book, even if it meant you would have no control over what the movie makers did to your story?

The life and times of the Harrow Library...

There are lots of different things that us librarians love. As one of the students pointed out today when we watched the Cookie Monster video - "the library has more than just books. We have other things too! What about DVDs and all that other stuff over there?"

And that's only the physical sources you can see in the Library. We also have some great electronic resources like Tumblebooks, EBSCO and Encyclopaedia Britannica.
You can access these through the library part of the Harrow website.
Just click on Harrow Bangkok, School Life, The Library and choose Electronic Resources.

You will be prompted for a login - if you don't know what it is please ask one of our Library team.

And of course, there's also the internet.
It's a magical place. It can be full of shonky information though. If you're not sure how to search it to find the best results, please let us know. We can help. We're librarians, it's what we do.

You can find so much more information than you could only a few years ago.
It's also good for ridiculous diversions. One of my favourites being LOL cats.
You can also see other LOL animals here.
For those of you who don't know what LOL means (where have you been?!)maybe you could ask the Oxford English Dictionary! (Wow, that's pretty impressive - one little piece of internet slang making it into one of the world's most well known dictionaries!)

One picture book and a box of cookies please!

This is the most awesome video I've seen in ages!
It's Cookie Monster on a trip to his local library.
The library is pretty old school - and the librarian says they only have books. (These days we'd say we only have books, DVDs, CDs, book and CD sets, Kindles, Ipads...) But unfortunately, we still don't have cookies. (In our school library at least!)

Enjoy! :)

Things to remember...

This week we are reminding everyone about the library and our library golden rules.
It gets a bit boring after a while, and we have a new projector... so thanks to Xtranormal we now have a movie to explain some of it for our Lower School students.

Here are the golden rules which are on our wall and in this movie.

1. Please look after your library books
2. Please be kind to other people
3. Please walk in the library



p.s Want to know what a tambourine is?

Happy new year!!

Happy new school year to you! Hope you are enjoying it so far...
We have been having a fantastic time here in the library.
It has been super busy and fun and we are well under way with our classes.

If you were here last term, welcome back! And if you are a new student or parent, welcome to Harrow Bangkok!

As a member of the Harrow International School community, you can borrow from the library. Just come in and see one of our friendly staff if you have any questions.
Parents - you can borrow too! We have an excellent selection of books in our secondary library which you may like to read. And of course, kids books are always great to read no matter how old you are.

So come in and use your school library - it's here especially for you!
If we don't have a book you want to read, please fill out one of our suggestion forms and we will try to get hold of it for our collection.

Put on your seatbelts kids, and get ready for an exciting new school year!
T Mobile made this video called 'Welcome back'. How amazing would it be to walk into a scene like this on the first day at school? Just saying...

Ah, serendipity

Every now and then when you're looking for something you find something else entirely.
Some people call it serendipity.

Last week, this amazing book almost literally jumped out at me.
It was tucked away in the shelves, just sitting there - until I had to take it out to weed.
And when my hand went towards it, it fell out of the shelf. Am not sure how this happened, but it felt a bit like magic. It was definitely one of those random moments.

The name of the book is The Conch bearer. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has written some great books for adults, but it turns out she's also responsible for this fantastic book for kids.

No one had borrowed it for a while. But it was in good condition and still looked fairly attractive. So, it was time to take it home and see what it was like.

After Anand's father disappears everything changes. His family is forced to leave their beautiful apartment to live in a shack in the nearby shanty town. His sister has been struck down by a mysterious illness and his mother barely earns enough for them to get by. Luckily for the family, the boy is able to get a job at a local tea stall.

One day, when the boy has faced a particularly cruel day, he wishes hard for a better life.
For even though he knows a lot of people who don't, Anand believes in magic.
It is almost at that very moment he meets an interesting old man who asks him to go on a dark and dangerous journey...

It's an amazing story and well worth a read. Will definitely not be weeding it.

You can find this book in the primary library - it would be good for kids who are already in secondary and prep too. And all you teachers and parents out there might enjoy it too!

The Pasta Detectives

We buy books for the school library in many different ways... student and staff requests, reading library publications, book shop handouts, browsing in book shops, reading blogs and choosing books from popular authors knowing that everyone will most likely want to read their newest offering. These are only some of the tools that we use. So of course, reviews are incredibly important to us. Because we don't just want a good library, we want a great one. So we need to pay careful attention to what we put on the shelves.

Lately two things seem to have popped up a lot. One is Angry birds - which appears to mentioned in numerous magazine articles, blogs, and probably soon in a book (for some reason you can buy Angry Birds hats outside MBK - everyone needs a plush, red, fake fur hat in 30 degree heat!) and the other is The Pasta Detectives by Andreas Steinhofel.

A lot of people are talking about The Pasta Detectives. And the reviews have been incredibly positive. It sounded good, so it was time to try it out for myself.

Rico finds a piece of pasta on the footpath outside his house. And then he decides to find out how it got there. It's a 'Who cares?' kind of moment. A piece of pasta? But strangely enough, the way that Rico puts it, you do want to find out where the story is going.

Interwoven with the pasta detective work is the story of Mr 2000 - a kidnapper who takes children and then demands 2000 Euros for their safe return. Add themes of friendship, solo parenting, being different and you have a pretty awesome story.

Rico has some kind of something about him that makes him different from other kids (it's either a mental or learning disability), but you never really find out what it is. It doesn't matter. It is Rico's attention to detail that is the key to the story.

If Angry Birds turns out to be as good as this book, I will be very happy.

What makes a great picture book?

Remember this guy?

Thinking back, you can probably remember some great children's picture books.
If you're still in Primary school there might be some that you love and read right now. If you're older, you might have given them up in favour of novels, graphic novels, magazines or a whole bunch of other things (Wii, Xbox, Nintendogs...)

But hopefully when you were small you got to read (or had read to you) some amazing and memorable picture books.

A good picture book is not easy to create. You need the right amount of words on each page, with just the right font. The text needs to work with the pictures so that when you look at the story it all blends together like magic. A good writer can make or break the whole experience. So can an illustrator. A good picture book relies on balance of the whole.

There are many, many wonderful picture books out there. Stories like Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, William Steig's Shrek, the Meg and Mog books by Helen Nicoll and Jan Pienkowski, Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg... you get the picture. Chances are you have heard of, remember reading or have watched movie versions of these stories. Actually, when writing this post one of our secondary students asked me for a picture book from his childhood - The Tiger who came to tea by Judith Kerr. He is hoping to adapt it for a school project.

Every country has their own favourite picture books. Some classic NZ ones are Lynley Dodd's Hairy MacLary books, The Witch in the Cherry Tree by Margaret Mahy and Greedy Cat by Joy Cowley... but there are many others! Not sure what the Thai ones are - will have to ask around!

It's really fun to wonder which new stories will become tomorrow's classics.

When pondering the idea of a successful picture book, it makes sense to consult with the experts about what exactly makes a good picture book great.
Anthony Browne (an amazing picture book artist himself) talks here about the Best New Illustrators award from Booktrust in the UK and his ideas about picture book illustration in this Guardian slide show.

Selection, deselection and awful library books

It has come around to the end of the school year, which means it's time to do a bit of weeding. Weeding in a library is similar to weeding in a garden. You go through the collection carefully looking for any books which may once have been a beautiful hibiscus, but which have now become a dried up old thistle... Maybe that's a bit of a stretch but you never quite know what you will find tucked away in a forgotten corner.

While some books are lovely and only get more charming with age, this doesn't mean they will always be appropriate for a modern school library collection.
We also need to look at books for currency - information can quickly go out of date. The overall condition of a specimen is important. Who wants to read a spotty, smelly old book with a cover which looks like 1990's finest (but 2011's lamest)?
Ok some people would (like maybe me in a whimsical mood) but whimsy is not a good reason to keep something that is manky. Neither is the 'it's old so it must be good' idea. But at the same time, it's essential to keep older books which are still in ok condition and appropriate for the curriculum and student needs. Some of the books we weed are still great books, they are just no longer appropriate.

Careful management of library collections is essential for presenting students with the best possible library experience.

The collection is already in pretty awesome shape, so only a little careful weeding is required. But it's important to keep on top of it. If you don't, you could easily end up with a collection that actually puts people off books and libraries. Looking through the collection to find books which need to be removed also highlights gaps - so we will know what we need to buy for the coming school year.

There's a fantastic library blog called Awful Library books. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) there's nothing here that we can submit to them! Random old books do have a certain charm... In the meantime, I'll keep looking!

At the moment there is a trolley of books available on the second floor of the library. These are for staff and students to take home and keep. The ones which are not snapped up will be donated to charity book sales. Come along and grab a few for yourself - you could just end up with a hidden gem!

Making masks in the library

Today was one of the best Primary lunch time 'Making Stuff Day' craft sessions so far.
Around 40 students came along to make themselves a superhero mask.
It was so good to see lots of kids come along and be creative. Everyone did a fantastic job with their masks!

We have two more craft sessions left for this year. What will we make? Not sure yet, but it's going to be a lot of fun!