I thought the Hoffert article was pretty much a slam dunk in that I didn't disagree with anything and felt enthusiastically about it. I love book groups and hope that leading them will be a big part of my work in the future--imagine, getting to discuss literature (including non-fiction) without even having had to get a tenure track job in the cutthroat world of English! And no grading! I think the idea of having book clubs be thematic, with a wide range of possible items to discuss is a cool idea, and has the potential for great conversations. I would also say restricting things to a particular book of interest to the community also has its merits though--I'd look at "thematic book discussions" as an option, not a revolution. It's also great where institutions have limited copies of something--spreading things out means the library can provide something for everyone to read. Expanding things to media like movies or non-traditional discussions like poetry or graphic novels is another slam dunk, and I for one plan to propose some sort of weekly or monthly film discussion at whatever library I work at.
I guess the one thing I must say "meh" to is teleconferencing. I think it's an awesome idea in the sense that it's a way for authors to be involved when they otherwise couldn't be. But I'm not personally geeked about the idea of having all discussers do so remotely...but that may just be because I've never had a terribly positive teleconference experience, at least compared to face-to-face. Still, something to think about for the digital library world.
Oh and last week's class. I loved the animated visuals and old time valentine cards (they're so edgy and so relatively product placement free!) My mostly positive thoughts on the idea of transfer as something libraries can and should do can be found in my earlier posts. I will say, it might have been better to have had these readings on book clubs and Socratic seminars before being prompted to think about something to discuss for the assignment. I happened to do much of my thinking before doing the readings and after having done them I think I would have looked at things differently and been a bit more efficient with my time? But still it's been fun looking through things. I'm glad my group make Karmen and I anticipated the idea of book clubs becoming more "multimedia" a bit by suggesting poems or graphic novels. I'll be interested to see the sorts of things different groups choose and how discussions go.
This was my favorite of the readings for this week, but since I read it last and was tired of blogging, I didn't give it the attention it deserved. I think you're right about videoconferencing-- if you can find an author willing to try it who might not otherwise be able to be at your book club, its better than nothing, but I wouldn't enjoy meeting like that continuously. I also really liked the idea that Hoffert brought up about reading non-fiction, and some of the resistance to that from more entrenched book club-type people. Like Prof. Fontichiaro is always saying, we form preferences for fiction and non-fiction pretty early on and opening up this forum to people who don't necessarily like reading stories will make book clubs much more viable and relevant.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting. I was pretty irritated by Hoffert's article 'cause I don't really think most of that stuff is even a little important. All you need are books and people. If you don't like books, and/or you don't like people, you won't like book clubs, ever.
ReplyDelete-Joanna