Unleashing a new project

Although I love writing up book reviews here, I started thinking a couple of weeks ago about how powerful a collaborative blog of reviews and review-like materials could be. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity for me to develop my knowledge of reading, publishing, and genres further, as well as introduce colleagues and blog readers to new and different materials. I envisioned something that didn’t just talk books but thought about literacy and reading in different, creative manners.

I took my idea to a couple of people I knew who were also interested in reading and reviewing, and STACKED was born. From our mission statement:

“STACKED, on the surface, is interested in reviewing books for readers while simultaneously enticing non-readers to think about reading in fun and interesting ways. That means we’re not just about reviewing books; we’re interested in providing reader advisory, reading adventures, interviews with writers, publishers, and other bloggers, round robin reviews, and exploring more aesthetically-driven aspects of reading, including cover reviews, bookish websites, blog roundups, and interesting digital libraries. As librarians, we are aware that literacy comes in many formats, so we strive to include not just physical book reviews, but also reviews of audio books, digital books, videos, music, zines, graphic novels, and other materials easily found in the stacks.

Reading’s still all the rage

I’m always skeptical when I hear about how the internet has changed people’s reading habits for the worse. Report after report claim that our attention spans have shrunk and that we no longer indulge in a good book.

The NEH, though, suggests that 84% of internet users are still reading books (with credit to library hero Stephen Abram for the report dissection). I’m constantly excited and pleased to see people engaging with great book-related websites, including LibraryThing, Good Reads, and Shelfari, among others.  Not only that, but there are hordes of book blogs, and as someone who loves reading other people’s reviews, I’m constantly surprised just how much these people can read in a week (let alone a month).

Although the report doesn’t speak specifically to non-fiction reading, I suspect that reading non-fiction is also high. Unlike literary or popular fiction, though, I think non-fiction often gets the wrap as not reading, since many readers read part of, and not necessarily all of, a non-fiction work (or they simply don’t see reading a book on how to crochet scarves as being reading in the same sense reading, say, Crime and Punishment is, even though all reading is reading).

Perhaps my favorite sign of people reading is the vast number of reading challenges in any given year. Google “reading challenges 2009″ and you will not believe the number of interesting, book-driven reading challenges. And it’s not just for hard cover books, either, as some of the challenges are specific to reading ebooks, listening to audio books, and other means of acquiring literary exposure.

Personally, I’m a Good Reads addict. I’m sad to say I’ve never done a book group outside my college’s literary society, but that’s something I certainly plan to seek out when we’ve settled in our new home town. As for challenges, I plan on participating in the 2009 classics challenge, wherein I plan to read 5 ‘classic’ novels between April 1 and December 31 (I’m a bit late to the game, but it’s better late than never, right?). I’m formulating my official list, which I’ll blog when I’ve got it, but so far, I’ve already finished my “bonus” book, The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dumus.

Are you participating in any challenges that are “officially” sanctioned by someone on the web? Are you participating in in-person or online book groups and discussions?

Taking a virtual road trip through food and politics

I’m a big fan of personal projects. We all have them — we say we’re going to to develop a web site dedicated to our favorite star or that we’re going to finally get around to making that digital scrapbook. Right now, I’m working on one myself that I’ll blog about soon; I want to make sure to give it a little more meat before showing it off.

That’s all to say that I wanted to talk about an awesome project a friend of mine from undergrad has been working on. Brian was [and, even as an alumni a few years out, still is] the web editor for our college’s newspaper, The Cornellian. So, needless to say, he’s a web savvy person. And he’s also a born and bred Iowan with incredible respect and fondness for the state.

So, over the last few years, Brian developed his own website to document some of the smaller, lesser known and off-the-beaten-path places in the great state of Iowa. Iowa Backroads is a project of showcasing a state that is too often merely considered flyover land for most people, even though there are places that get huge acclaim in major outlets (…and it’s worth mentioning that the Lincoln Cafe is indeed located in the same down as our alma mater, Cornell). Some of the cool places featured on Brian’s blog so far have included Mt. Vernon’s awesome Bijou Theatre, the world’s larged bull in Audubon, and the Amish Stringtown grocery store.

What strikes me as cool about the project is that it’s a living record. Many of these locations Brian documents are historical to their towns or are attractions to a particular town. In an era where rural states like Iowa are losing population at alarming rates and seeking to learn what and how they can maintain their young people, it’s refreshing to see these places can maintain themselves and these small towns can emerge as centers for local business and commerce. And these places don’t have to keep their businesses to the locals — Brian’s giving them exposure for people who may otherwise not understand that there is a lot of charm and life in the small state. He is, if you will, helping spread the word about the gems all over the state. I think beyond that, he’s helping promote the culture of appreciating local business. It’s a small part, much in the same way that spots for local culture in films like What Would Jesus Buy spread the word that rural life is not dead life, but instead, it is full of people and places with character and history hoping to keep their waning populations afloat. In fact, there was a wonderful post today courtesy of the Daily Yonder about a local Mexican restaurant in Denison, Iowa that made a great point about there still being a great multicultural population in small town Iowa.

Brian’s begun to work on another project at the same time he works on Iowa Backroads. He’s taking photographs of the county courthouses in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, as well as taking photographs of local post offices. And he doesn’t just limit it to Iowa, either. Brian has albums and entries in his Flickr and on his blog featuring sites in Illinois, South Dakota, and Minnesota, among others.

While he’s not quite sure where he’s going to go with these projects yet, they remind me a lot of what Stephen Bloom and Peter Feldstein did in their book The Oxford Project. I think that what is starting out as a one man project has the potential to get much more exposure — from a historical and digital collections standpoint, it seems to me there are a lot of opportunities to develop a historical portal.

There are two things that really stand out to me about Brian’s projects. The first is that it’s a nice comfort to remember a place that made me so happy and with which I have so many good memories. It gives me the opportunity to travel back to Iowa without ever leaving my seat or booking a ticket. Brian’s also done some minor marketing, sending postcards to some of his fans and to the places which he has spotlighted, letting us know about the site.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, it shows an initiative to not only think up a project but actually follow through on it. How many times have we all thought about how great it would be if we did _____ or we should do _____. It’s quite exciting to see someone do this on their own accord and know that they’re not only doing a cool project for himself and his friends, but also for the [digital] historical record.

I hope as more people dive into the digital world that more projects like this pop up. While state and local tourism boards can pour money into projects, I find that the personal approach to documenting what is cool about where they live or what they love is more real and authentic. I’m more inspired to print out a page from someone’s blog than I am to hop onto the state or local tourism website.

It’s also inspiring me to get on with getting on about my own [and much, much smaller] project. But while I continue to procrastinate on that, I’ll spend a few more hours in my virtual road trip. If nothing else, I’m building a repository of great places to set future stories or in which stories I read may themselves be set.

No, not forgotten

Yes, I know.
No, I did not.
Yes, I do.
Yes, I will.

These should answer any of the potential questions about where I’ve been lately. I’ve been doing so much reading, thanks to a huge pick up of great titles from my local library and the deluge of ARCs from ALA.

Besides that, I’ve been developing a huge list of things I am excited to blog about here. Everything from the job hunt, to my love affair for Twitter, to some more book reviews and maybe even a give away. Gear up for some real syndication.

Future of student news

This morning, I got this great article, courtesy of The Kept-Up Academic Librarian. If you don’t click, the jist of the story is that Rutgers’s independent student newspaper, The Daily Targum, is in the midst of a university debate — there is a referendum up to allow students the option to opt out of the $10/semester fee for the publication. Of course, this option could harm the paper significantly, as revenue will fall (and as a former small college newspaper editor, I am aware of how every $10 helps) and circulation statistics will fall, impacting advertisers. This then furthers the cycle of funding.

Although I sympathize with the student editors and writers on this issue, it brings up a lot of thoughts. First and foremost, it’s worth reading the petitition that the staff began here. What stands out to me in this petition is the following line:

“The future of an independent and daily campus newspaper lies solely in the hands of our president.”

This is wrong on so many levels. The truth is that the student fee-funded future of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of the president. The future of the independent newspaper lies solely in the hands of those who pour their blood, sweat, and tears into the paper on its regular basis (I believe The Targum is a six day a week paper). Yes, this is a terrible time for newspapers, as we’ve seen paper after paper filing for bankruptcy, but here’s the time that those in charge need to begin rethinking their service, delivery, and marketing strategies. Although I am dear to the print publication and see it as an important aspect of culture and history, I’m also highly acute to the fact that services like Twitter and newspapers that make all of their content available freely online are bringing the news in more timely, unique, and individualized manners.

Cornell College’s newspaper, the one in which I was charged with the task of co-editing, moved into the online sector my sophomore year of college (2004-2005). To this day, the digital edition is not entirely accessible, as it is a one man operation and hosted (FOR FREE) on an alumni’s web space. He has taken the responsibility to uploading it on a biweekly basis as his because he enjoys it and he sees the value in putting the news online, even if it is only minimal in content. Putting the entire paper online would definitely be possible, though it would run the paper some money in hosting and perhaps a little more in the time it takes for the web editor to upload it. Or maybe it would require that the editors of the paper actually learn how to publish for an online newspaper, rather than continue to hone their skills in products that are meant for print publication.

Other student newspapers, though, are completely online on a daily basis, and they are available freely! Updates are made throughout the day, and news is fresh, timely, and student centered. Of course, these are larger operations, such as the University of Texas’s Daily Texan, but it happens. While students pay a blanket student activity fee, it covers the cost of the operation. Students who want to work for the paper assumedly get a small stipend and/or credit for their work, and they get experience in producing news and content for a digital world.

Although it’s been a couple of years since I attended the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) conference, I’m fairly confident that discussions there are centering around social media as the new model for delivering content and marketing. If libraries are doing it, most certainly the media itself is thinking about it. Personally, I get my news updates from two awesome newspaper Twitter accounts — Colonial Tribune (for my hometown news) and the Statesman (for my local news). I get the overview, and if the story merits more attention, I click the link they provide or I take the time to go to their well-developed websites to find more in-depth coverage. Moreover, the more journalism job descriptions I read, the more they are seeking candidates who know how to use these new tools or people interested in trying them out. The two years I did attend the ACP conference (spring and fall of 2006) each session and each speaker emphasized the need to know how to go digital because the jobs of our collective futures would not be in papers. We needed to think differently.

And now, three years later, the Daily Targum stands on the ground that the future of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of the president of Rutgers University.

The truth is, the future lies in their hands. A little research and networking, as well as a spirit of experimentation would be the lifeblood to save this paper. First, student editors and writers need to remove the idea from their mindsets that newspapers are print publications. Surprisingly, advertisers will still advertise, even in different service models, provided you can work with them on acquiring visitor demographics, which can be done easily through freely available tools like Google Analytics. As more students exist digitally (and by that I mean, their information is out there and they live out there in any number of different sites and services) it’s the responsibility of the news staff to think about how to find their audience and figure out what their audience is interested in actually reading. If there’s a big news event, it should be covered. But do students want yet another opinion on the awful cafeteria food? Likely not.

Watch what students/faculty/alumni/locals are doing and work to develop news and stories around things they’re doing or are interested in. Since the digital footprints are easier and easier to follow, do it! Move to new service models, such as Twittering, Blogging, or Wiki’ing on areas of interest. How about going to a student event and capturing digital video to entice people to come (or to entice people to go to your website!). Bonus points for archiving it digitally, too. Keep your online content fresh and regularly updated. Maintain ties with alumni who are invested in the survival of independent student news, as well as those who were once involved in the newspaper. Talk with advertisers about how much wider the potential audience is for digital content, and convince them that by going digital, they automatically increase their revenue through click throughs — in print, students have to type in a web address or Google it. Online, they can click. And let’s face it: we’re lazy and would much rather click than we would type. Additionally, advertising can be done through non-traditional means, too, as no longer are student newspapers bound by their geography.

Of course, this all requires work on the part of student news editors to think outside of the box. They have to think beyond what they are (or aren’t) taught in college classrooms or by former student editors. It requires substantial time investment but very little monetary investment. It might require moving away from the six day a week production full-scale production to three or four day production. But it would require regular updating, consistent movement, and a keen eye and ear for student interest. It would force upon students regular research and regular networking with other students and with professionals in the field.

Most importantly, it requires an end to the thought that one person or entity is responsible for the demise of the newspaper. The demise is in the traditional method of delivering content and services and in apathy. To gain real experience in the field, which is the cry of those circulating this petititon, then it’s time for these students to do their research, talk with their peers both on campus and on other campuses, and it’s time for them to consider taking risks in new methods of being “with the newspaper.” If — and this is highly, highly unlikely — all 3,690 Rutgers undergraduate students said they would absolutely not pay $10 for a newspaper, the paper is out only $36,900. That money can easily be attained through a little creative thinking, a willingness to take risks, stopping or abating the six day a week PRINT publication, and — at worst — a cut in the amount those working on the paper probably make (it’s pennies, I know, and as students it’s millions, but those dedicated to the causes which they claim to be will work for nothing).

But to throw a major bone to the students who likely do work tirelessly on the Daily Targum, this entire thing is quite a ridiculous proposal by the school. It’d be nearly impossible to monitor who does and does not receive the paper on a daily basis or to ensure those cheapskates not paying $10/semester do not access the paper online or pick one up left on a dining hall table. The proposition is perposterious. Likewise, in the grand scheme of the cost of college, the $10 fee is so small, most would likely still pay it. And if this passes, it’ll be interesting to see what other services the school will put up as optional fees — and for most students, I suspect there would be a great rally around optional fees that continue to float funds into the already huge budgets of university athletics that they either are not involved in, do not care about, nor wish to continue sponsoring. I suspect if that were the case, though, athletic directors would pull from their alumni base and show how they are somehow an asset to an entire student body in ways that a student newspaper could EVER be (and if you don’t sense my sarcasm there, I’ll be clear in stating I am 100% into the value a student paper that is forward thinking brings to any college/university campus).

I hope this issue is actually a service to the paper. It gets them press, and it gets them thinking about how to ensure their goals and purpose as a paper remain. I hope it causes them to think about the culturally and historically important role they and the newspaper play in a community, particularly such a niche community such that a university campus is.  As the second oldest student newspaper in the country, I think they have. Here’s an opportunity to stop thinking the future of independent student news lies in the hands of a heartless, money-hungry administrator but instead lies in future-thinking student leaders.