Digital Content – The Hub

Black History is American History – Classroom Connections

This month, as we honor and celebrate Black History, we also recognize that Black History is not a box to be checked during the month of February alone. Black History is American History, and these resources are critical to the conversation, this month and every month of the year.

YALSA’s 2021 Excellence in Nonfiction Celebration is tonight (click here to register), and a booktalk event featuring the full list of nominated titles will take place on February 24. On that list is the excellent Lifting as we Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box by Evette Dionne.

This Coretta Scott King honoree focuses on the vital and often overlooked role of Black Women in the Suffrage Movement and connects the dots from the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage, on to the civil rights movement and today’s activism, where women were and continue to be necessary and significant leaders.

The Library of Congress Born in Slavery collection offers digitized narratives collected as part of the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) in the New Deal-era Work Projects Administration (WPA). These oral histories and photographs preserve the first person accounts of formerly enslaved people.

What the Dang Heck Is a Webcomic??

Screenshot of Sarah Andersen’s website as viewed on my phone.

Webcomics aren’t typically given much attention by library professionals — possibly because they can’t be owned or lent; nevertheless, we should be familiar with them. After all, our goal should be to connect people with materials they love, not just materials the library owns. Additionally, if we want to be deft, resourceful readers’ advisers, we need to be familiar with all kinds of reading materials, especially the kinds of things our patrons are reading.

If you’re brand new to webcomics, this post will give you a foothold in their vast, wild world. If you’re familiar with webcomics, please leave your favorites in the comments as well as any resources you find helpful!

Continue reading What the Dang Heck Is a Webcomic??

#WontBeErased: Transgender Awareness Week and Day of Remembrance

This November, Transgender Awareness Week (November 11-17) and Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 20) comes on the heels of our current administration’s ban on military service for transgender individuals, along with his latest efforts to remove legal protections afforded by federal civil rights law. Raising visibility of the issues facing transgender people is even more important now, as transgender kids are increasingly vulnerable to bullying, violence, self-harm, and suicide; and library staff and educators working with young people can and should be aware of how to support them.

For many of us, this means exploring our own biases and rethinking some of our ingrained ideas about sex and gender identity, which can be a difficult task. I’ve gathered some resources below–books, videos, websites, and even a webcomic–that can help adults working with youth become more knowledgeable and understanding, and therefore better able to offer support, resources, and empathy to our transgender patrons. For excellent fiction and nonfiction to offer to transgender, nonbinary, and questioning teens, follow these two links to past YALSA Hub articles.

Continue reading #WontBeErased: Transgender Awareness Week and Day of Remembrance

Five Podcasts to Try for Fans of “Welcome to Night Vale”

Audio fiction podcasts are finally getting their comeuppance thanks largely to the success of the Welcome to Night Vale podcast. Serialized fiction podcasts are an engaging storytelling medium that is drawing the attention of teens and listeners of all ages. Since its start in June of 2012, this darkly funny podcast with its premise of local radio news show has been enchanting listeners. Set in the sleepy desert town of Night Vale, it has all the government conspiracies and unexplained phenomena of X Files, but are explored with a “News from Lake Wobegon” flavor ala Prairie Home Companion.

Welcome to Night Vale logo

The 2015 book Welcome to Night Vale debuted in the top ten on the New York Time’s best seller list and continues to be a teen favorite. The podcast was first produced by Commonplace Books, but is now being produced by the creators own company Night Vale Presents. Night Vale Presents also produces other podcasts “both from the Night Vale artistic team and from other artists with a similar vision for independent, original podcasting.” Be sure to check out Alice Isn’t Dead, The Orbiting Human Circus, and Within the Wires. Continue reading Five Podcasts to Try for Fans of “Welcome to Night Vale”

Do You Know All You Should About “News” Feeds, Click Bait, and Credible Sources?

We’ve all seen it. The article on social media that declares “OMG! You will never believe what [politician, celebrity, reality star] did?” And the truth is we won’t believe it, because most likely it never happened. Such over-the-top statements are teasers to make even the most responsible internet user stop reading to click on the story. Click bait is only one method used to lure the reader.

Digital Literacy has become its own news worthy topic in the world of social media and online anonymity. Whereas print journalism allowed the reader to have some assurance of professionalism with the review of editors, online information allows anyone to voice an opinion. Every internet user needs to have the skills to evaluate and interpret online sources. It is reported by the Pew Research and Media Center (2016) that 66% of adults polled reported to reading news from Facebook so this skill to navigate online news sources is clearly needed throughout adulthood as well.

The need to educate internet users goes beyond students. Google and Facebook declared this past November and December, respectively, that they will work with fact checkers to find fake news on their sites and change how they report news. They will also change how they place ads among news stories, admitting that how they portray the news is important since click bait tactics earned more money for these fake news sites.

blue-vs-red

While this is a proactive step, individuals still must know how to evaluate web sources, navigate online tools, and whether or not their own searches and social media profile are limiting their news exposure. For example, The Wall Street Journal’s article showing the Blue Feed vs Red Feed results indicate that users of Facebook are limiting their news sources, but perhaps more troubling is that it shows that fake news is a growing problem. Based on “likes” and “shares”, Facebook users inflict a self-censorship to the stories that show up on their feeds as well as the likelihood of being subjected to fake news if they have “liked” or “shared” a fake news story in the past.

For anyone interested in teaching teens how to successfully evaluate the news there are already numerous tools available. School Journalism provides News and Media Literary lesson plans for how to approach this topic. Lesson plans are both for Middle School and for older students. Sources have been consolidated from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation Why News Matters initiative, the Journalism Education Association, The News Literacy Project, The Center for News Literacy at Stonybrook University, and Columbia Links.

But we can all help educate on digital literacy without memorizing a lesson plan. I mention it whenever a student is working on finding sources for a research project or researching current events.

Media Literacy Tips (from me) That You Can Do In 5 Minutes:

Look closely at the URL. Websites can be created or bought by anyone. News websites will most likely be very short and clear on their URL. For instance, abcnews.com is the real ABC website, whereas abcnews.com.co is not. That final “co” after the “.com” is a tell. Similarly, look closely if there is a random number in the middle of a URL or any sign you are not directed to the main URL, but a local news site or random page.
Find the author. Read the About Us section or search for the organization that has posted the story. Take the name of the group and complete a new search on the group – are they a for-profit business, nonprofit, government funded, of supported by more legitimate groups? Do they name the staff, Board of Trustees, or Owner?
What is the purpose of the article? This expands from the author to truly look into what the story’s message is really saying. If it seems extreme, it probably is. Consider looking for a similar story from other sources, especially from the global community. How are other news sources or organizations, not owned by businesses that have an opinion on the topic, covering the story? Groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the BBC, and NPR will cover an issue and its global significance.
Is the story supported? Does the news story refer to experts in the field (check their credentials), link to legitimate organizations, or connect you to similar stories from other sources? If there are quotes in the article, who are they from? Are they experts in the field, a witness to the story, or a statement listed in the “comments” section?
- Snopes Websites like Snopes are now frequently visited to check the latest news story on credibility. In fact, this month they joined Facebook to be a 3^rd party fact checker (with no financial incentives).
Who created the website? Websites are cheap, even “.org” sites. Savvy internet users must know where they are getting the information. If I am unsure, I trace the website with the previous listed options or with easywhois.com where you can enter a URL and find out the creator of the website. Many websites that appear to be political can be traced to groups which sell domains, that is a warning that the original creator may not be what it appears. If it is credible, an author and legitimate creator/organization would be listed, such as National Public Radio, Inc. for npr.org.
Image verification & Statistics. Snopes will sometimes work for images as well. Besides that, inquisitive minds should reverse check the image on Google to see its original posting or if it is often used for various people or groups. Libraries might also subscribe to Image databases. While this is more import for school projects than evaluating the media, it teaches students that verifying images should be a constant thought in online searching. Likewise, graphs can be deceiving or distorted and teenagers need to know how to critically evaluate statistics and images illustrating statistics. Just because something appears to have similarities, it does not imply they are linked together. Correlation is different than causation.
Thanks to Imgur.com for the image

Digital Literacy goes beyond evaluating news sources and social media, yet with the ease of sharing stories online the importance is ageless. If the majority of readers rely on only one or two sources of information, they are both limiting themselves on the understanding of a topic and also, more importantly, they are validating their already set belief. The danger is that readers do not realize they are inflicting self-censorship. To truly understand a topic various sources need to be read and understood. In the 21^st century our skills of understanding and critiquing what we read must be taught, updated, and used whether beginning a Google search, clicking on that popular article on Facebook, or retweeting. Social Media and online news outlets offer many ways to be informed. Just remember, before you “share” it with that one touch or click, double checking its validity can often be done within a few minutes.

– Sarah Carnahan, currently reading Spontaneous by Aaron Starmer

Self-Care Resources for Teens

As part of our month of posts around the topic of social justice, today we’re rounding up some tips and resources to help teens practice good self-care. I am using the term “self-care” to mean general actions that an individual can take to maintain or improve their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Engaging with issues of social justice can bring up many difficult emotions, trigger or exacerbate mental health concerns, and otherwise prompt symptoms of distress. Stories and coverage of injustice, violence, and violations of civil and human rights are inherently troubling to encounter. Learning to acknowledge and manage this distress can help teens – and adults! – to not feel entirely overwhelmed when confronting issues of social justice. Learning to recognize our individual limits and needs, and developing ways to meet them, are critical tools against feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, or consumed by anger, despair, or helplessness. I am not a health care professional, and self-care strategies and choices are highly personal; your ideas and feedback are encouraged and appreciated in the comments!

One critical level of self-care is taking care of our immediate physical needs: eating nutritious foods, staying hydrated, and, in an era of constant access to the media and the ability to binge on screen-time, taking time away from devices to shower, get dressed, and make sure we’re spending time off the internet.

Taking a few deep breaths, perhaps in sync with this viral and effective GIF, is also a first-line self-care action. These could all be considered self-care strategies to implement right-this-minute in the face of feeling overwhelmed. It’s just a little easier to face the enormity of social justice issues when you’re freshly shampooed and you’ve got going-out-in-public clothes on. Some resources to encourage good habits for these immediate needs: basic health guides (especially those directly addressing the teen years), cookbooks, etc.

The next level of self-care involves building in or learning activities and practices to help us feel centered, calm, and positive. These could include: Continue reading Self-Care Resources for Teens

App Review: Serial Reader

Every year around this time, I’m faced with the same problem: Dozens of high school students are flocking to my library in search of their required reading for AP English classes, and even though I’m lucky enough to have two sets of shelves in my teen space set aside for these books, there never seem to be enough copies. When print copies run out, I can always direct the teens to electronic collections, but what happens when those copies are also checked out?

serialreaderapp

Last month, an article presented a potential solution when it introduced me to an app called Serial Reader. I interested in the claim that Serial Reader would let me “conquer the classics in ten minutes a day.” To get started, I downloaded the free version of the app to my iPad to try. I was then prompted to subscribe to a book from their extensive list of classic and public domain titles and set a daily delivery time. I chose Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and for the next ten days, Serial Reader sent me a section of the book that I could read in an average of ten minutes (some sections took a bit longer, but none were longer than fifteen minutes). The app synced my progress across my devices, so I could start a section during a break at work on my smartphone and finish it later on my tablet at home. By the end of ten days, I had read all of Common Sense. Continue reading App Review: Serial Reader

Racial and Social Justice Podcasts for Teens

This presidential campaign season and recent current events have brought many social issues to the forefront. Teens (and adults) are trying to navigate many of these around racial equity, Islamophobia, and immigration. Often as library staff we try to help teens delve into issues, interests, concerns or questions they are experiencing with bibliotherapy, which can serve as a great tool, but published books don’t always capture to immediacy of what is happening right now.

News media channels are often the sources where we are encountering these subjects, but little segments don’t, or can’t, take the time to fully unpack particular aspects around these issues. The following is a list of current podcasts, podcasts that have teen appeal, that we can all be listening to that explore racial and social justice in the United States, and especially during a time where politics are front and center.

Racial Justice Podcasts for Teens-1

Here are six podcast to listen to and share with teens right now:

Politically Re-Active

Comedians and W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu come together to discuss some the most current hot-button topics that are arising during the current political campaign season. The podcast premiered at the end of June and will carry on through the election in November. Each week they have a guest on their show, and they get in deep to current issues such as private prisons, third-wave feminism, and dog-whistling politics – all issues of interest to teens. They also talk to other journalist of color and social justice leaders as they discuss the current political process and how it intersects with social justice issues.

Also check out Bell’s other podcast Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period that he does with Kevin Avery and Kondabolu’s interview with NPR’s Nerdette Podcast from August 5, 2016, where he talks about the power of youth and how important it is to be reaching out to teens because this is when they are forming their opinions. Kondabolu gets teens and knows that humor and comedy is the best way to reach them.

Code Switch

An NPR Podcast about race and identity that is comprised of wide-array of journalists of color discussing the “overlapping themes of race, ethnicity and culture, and how they play out in our lives and communities.” The podcast began in late May 2016 and has covered topics from the killing of Philando Castile and how LGBTQ people of color were dealing with the Orlando shootings to people of color and their relationship to the great outdoors and the stress of how people of color are being portrayed on TV and in the movies. A must listen is their debut podcast from May 31, 2016 “Can We Talk About Whiteness.”

#GoodMuslimBadMuslim

Activist, storyteller, and politico Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed and writer, actor and comedian Zahra Noorbakhsh started #GoodMuslimBadMuslim in January 2015 to discuss the constant flips they have to make being Muslim in American culture and the ways they choose to live and create art. As they put it, “To the Muslim community, we are ‘bad’ Muslims” and “To non-Muslims, we are ‘good.’” Through humor and satire they take hard look at what is going on politically, pop culture, and the current rise of Islamophobia. Continue reading Racial and Social Justice Podcasts for Teens

Vidcon Special: Youtuber and YA Book Crossovers

While librarians will be arriving in droves in Orlando for the 2016 American Library Association Annual Conference in the next few days, across the continent in Anaheim, another theme-parked arena, flocks of digital content fans and creators will be swarming for the 7th annual Vidcon, June 23-25, and many of these attendees will be teens. Studies are showing that a majority of teens are big consumers of online video. Short Vines are grabbing interest, but Youtube is still where a lot of time is being spent watching favorite Youtubers, and for some of the Youtube stars, the fandoms run deep. Youtuber-YA Crossover-2

In honor of Vidcon, here are a handful of Youtubers with huge fan bases that have recently published books, and some YA book suggestion crossovers that might have some of the same appeals and feels.

tyler oakley Binge by Tyler Oakley

Tyler Oakley – 8+ million subscribers

Book – Binge

Oakley began making videos in 2007, and is a leading youth voice for LGBTQ+ rights and teen suicide prevention. Binge can be laugh out loud funny and turn around and be deeply heartfelt and inspiring. Aside from his Youtube channel, he also has a podcast: Psychobabble Tyler Oakley.

simon 9780525428848_HoldMeCloser_BOM_CV.indd Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens by Becky Albertalli (2016 Morris Award Winner, 2016 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults)

Character-driven, heartfelt, and authentic, this will appeal to Oakley fans with both its humor and feels. Not-so-openly-gay Simon Spier is falling in love with an online friend whose identity he is uncertain of, but is pretty sure that he goes to his school. When a classmate uncovers his secret relationship, he blackmails Simon into helping him try to win over one of Simon’s best friends. Simon fears of being outed are less about being ostracized, and more about what will change once everyone knows. Though on one side this is a light-hearted and romantic novel it also deals with the difficulty of change, complexity of identity, and the importance of growth

Hold Me Closer: the Tiny Cooper Story by David Levithan

Written in play format, the larger-than-life Tiny Cooper is telling his life story as a musical. A hopeless romantic with a witty take on life, Tiny hits the issues head-on. Both Tiny and Oakley serve as positive role models and cheerleaders, each with a charming sense of humor. Tiny also has real depth in his autobiographical play that Oakley fans will resonate with as he looks at the sober side of the nature of love.

Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle (2014 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults)

This book parallels Binges as a book of self discovery, and of finding and managing the Diva within. Equally filled with hysterical hijinks, Better Nate is the story of a small town 8th-grade boy running away to New York City to follow his dreams of being on Broadway in a musical production of E.T. As Nate gradually falls in love with the city, issues bubble up around sexuality, family, and of who you are, and can be, in the world. Continue reading Vidcon Special: Youtuber and YA Book Crossovers

Podcasts: Resources for Listening and Recording

It started with an addiction tothe Serial podcast hosted by Sarah Koenig created by those of This American Life. It was a true-crime story of the murder of a high school girl in 1999 in Baltimore. The presumed killer is her ex-boyfriend. Over the course of each episode, Koenig’s voice pulls listeners into the story, only to have to wait for the next installment. But it’s better than waiting a year or more for your favorite series book to come out. That’s the best part of podcasting, there can be a quicker turnaround than the process of publishing a book. And with the right tools, any teen can create a podcast and any youth services librarian can help with it.

The addiction to Serial then led to the second season about Bowe Bergdahl and wanting to hear more. Sometimes there isn’t time to watch and listen, you just want to listen: while running, while doing a mundane task, while riding public transportation. So I wanted a place that was able to pull these podcasts together on my device, so I downloaded Stitcher, an app that provides “radio on demand”, allowing you to add podcasts microphone to your playlist, listening now or later, with my new favorite being The Moth Radio Hour, which has helped scientists map out the brain in this article by the LA Times. Others include Radiolab or iTunes or directly on sites where you can listen from your PC or that provide the RSS like NPR.

The suggestion like getting your feet wet with Twitter is that you lurk for a while. So queue up podcasts that interest you, whether it’s fitness tips from personal trainers to new TED talk topics, see what’s out there. Really listen to them. What do you like about the broadcast? Does it have some great theme music or does the person have a fantastic voice that is slow enough to understand? Does the podcast interview others or is it one person talking? Does it seem like it has a focus or is it unscripted? When I was listening, I would think about whether I could create a podcast and would anyone listen? What would I talk about? If you already know the answers to these questions, get started with your teens. It might be that you’re creating a new avenue for delivering school news and information and the podcast is created weekly by teen journalists. Or maybe your teen book group just finished reading dystopian novels and want to review their favorites. Continue reading Podcasts: Resources for Listening and Recording