As library people, we want to share information. That’s pretty much our entire focus.

So having people ban books is not something we take lightly. Banned Books Week is a time to educate ourselves on books, and to be ready to talk about books with our communities.

Check out this article for some ideas:

“Celebrate Banned Books Week,
September 22-28, 2019

By: Jamie Gregory

Censorship leaves us in the dark. Keep the light on.

This is the American Library Association’s chosen theme for Banned Books Week, September 22-28, 2019.  

Banned Books Week is my favorite yearly celebration in the library because it offers so many learning opportunities to students, mostly importantly by opening the door to discussion about intellectual freedom and its role in a democratic, open society.

Different types of censorship create different types of darkness in our society. This year, offer the following topics for teens to consider:

• Self-imposed censorship
• Political speech censorship
• Academic censorship
• Book censorship
• Art censorship
• Music censorship
• Science censorship
• Internet censorship

Tips

• Students should learn the difference between a challenge and a ban.
• Avoid using terms interchangeably.
• Don’t create fear or paranoia. Use Banned Books Week to introduce students to their First Amendment rights in libraries and schools and how they can be proactive in protecting their rights.
• Present learning as an opportunity for students to form opinions and discuss/debate.
• Make learning interactive. We create trivia questions and a writing contest each year and offer challenged/banned books as prizes.

Activities

• Want students to learn about different types of censorship? Consider using the gallery walk format. Students form groups and spend a designated amount of time at each station, reading, viewing, and listening to materials pre-selected by the school librarian. Or groups spend time at one station, becoming “experts,” and then sharing their knowledge with the others. Consider using the following topics:
  • Should companies like Google comply with requests to remove material from the Internet?
  • What are the effects of violence and suffering when displayed on the Internet, in movies, television, and video games?
  • Should schools regulate or monitor student speech on social media off campus?
• Create an escape room or breakout box activity. Find an example here that we created and has been successful with students. Breakout boxes are an excellent way for students to actively participate in learning and work together to solve puzzles.
• A great place to start with students who haven’t studied censorship is the Library Bill of Rights. In my experience, it sparks some interesting discussions. For example, if public libraries open their meeting spaces to groups regardless of views or beliefs, does that include hate groups? Read an article here from School Library Journal for more information.(The ALA Council then voted to rescind that change. Read more on the OIF blog.) 
  • Library Bill of Rights (purchase a poster here)
  • ALA’s interpretation of meeting rooms

Indianapolis Public Library has a cool program with their bike, where they give away books!

“Josh Crain stood outside a food bank drop at Christ Our King Christian Church, but he wasn’t dropping off food. Next to him was a road bike and a bike trailer bearing a sign: “Free books.” 

When people walked by, Crain repeated the message.

“Free books from the public library,” he said. 

A woman approached, glancing at the sign. She had never seen the bike setup before.

“I need something to read to my grandbabies,” she said.

Crain showed her the trailer’s shelves, displaying 20 or so books, and an extra stock of nearly 100 books in boxes nearby. He made recommendations, and she walked away with four titles, one for each of her grandchildren.

The books and the bike that brought them are an initiative the Indianapolis Public Library rolled out last year as another way to engage the community and bring reading and the library more fully into people’s lives. The bike goes to range of events, whether small like a Gleaners Food Bank donation on the north side or large like the Gen Con convention Downtown, a few times a month May to October.

Anyone who visits the bike, which stays outside at events, may take free books home to keep. The books range in topic and genre, including Captain Underpants novels, Agatha Christie mysteries and Charles Dickens classics.”

I’ve been a librarian for about 20 years now, and have been in a lot of different kind of libraries. I’ve been in a few that had money to burn and was happily fully staffed – but not too many. And I don’t think I’ve ever been in a school library like that.

My own view here: I’m a highly degreed librarian (both a MLIS and a PhD in it), and I’ve taught librarianship at the Master’s level for more than a decade. But – and here’s the potential heresy – I don’t think you necessarily need a Master’s to be effective in a library. It’s nice, of course, and if that fits into people’s life plans and opportunities: great.

What is necessary is to spend some time, somewhere/somehow, learning about libraries and what working in a library really means.

If the thought is that libraries are places to store books and to shush people – that’s not only so wildly out of date that I want to bang my head on the table, but constitutes professional negligence. And if the even worse thought is that sticking a few books in a room that is staffed by a person (or two) who are actually responsible for handling all the tech in a school, because hey – who really cares about this information stuff??? I literally want to throw myself under my desk and cry.

I am not kidding in the slightest here.

School libraries are supposed to be there to play a vital role in the education of every K-12 kid. When they aren’t, it’s not just a sad thing – it’s potentially a disaster for every single person being sent out into the world unprepared. (Just ask me about my experience in higher education, and the high school grads who don’t know how to cite material. Ask me about the times we expelled these students for plagiarism – who could have stayed in college if they had THE SMALLEST LEVEL OF LEARNING FROM THEIR HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY!)

*taking a deep, calming breath*

*okay, one more before I can go on*

This is from the American Association of School Librarians, and gives a quick overlook of what a school library should be:

” The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) supports the position that an effective school library plays a critical role in preparing learners for life in an information-rich society. As defined by AASL, school libraries are “dynamic learning environments that bridge the gap between access and opportunity for all K–12 learners” (AASL 2016b, 1). Grounded in standards and best practice, school libraries are an integral component of the educational landscape. The school library provides access to a wide array of resources and an environment in which teaching and learning are the primary emphases. The school library provides a space and place for personalized learner success; learners are encouraged to explore questions of personal and academic relevance. Under the direction of a qualified school librarian, school libraries are instrumental in fostering literacy and teaching inquiry skills to support lifelong learning (AASL 2018, 54). “

So when I read this, and I think back over the assorted school libraries I’ve worked with and been in across a bunch of states in this country – I’m so depressed. And I really, really want to help us – as a profession – to do so much better than settling for just crappy half-assed practices that are ultimately hurting our communities.

Check out this article excerpt below and maybe shed a few tears yourself for the kids of Michigan who are being so poorly served by the schools that are SUPPOSED to be educating them.

Amid a literacy crisis, Michigan’s school librarians have all but disappeared

By Koby Levin

“…In Michigan, this is the new normal. School librarians have become an endangered species across the state. Consider:

• 92% of schools statewide don’t employ a full-time, certified librarian. Even if you count part-time librarians, the numbers hardly budge.
• The number of school librarians in Michigan declined 73% between 2000 and 2016, one of the sharpest declines in the country. The national count dropped roughly 20% during that period.
• Michigan ranks 47th in the country in the number of librarians it has per student.

The disappearance of school librarians comes at a pivotal point for literacy in Michigan. Beginning this year, districts will hold back third-graders who are more than a year behind their peers in reading.

That tough new policy comes in response to Michigan’s two-decade tumble down national rankings of how well students read. The state’s fourth-grade reading scores are 35th on a rigorous national measure of student achievement. That’s down since 2003. No state in the Midwest performs more poorly.

Michigan rapid loss of school librarians makes it one of the more extreme examples of a national trend. American schools are in the midst of a reckoning about the role of libraries in schools. While most adults in the U.S. went to a school with a dedicated librarian, there are far fewer working in schools today, the result of an economic downturn and a growing sense that digital technologies would render books, library reference systems, and librarians obsolete.

Library advocates in Michigan say nothing could be further from the truth, noting that reading scores foundered as the state lost librarians. They point out that Michigan requires its prisons to have a certified librarian on staff.

“Schools that have librarians and libraries have better reading scores than schools that do not,” said Rep. Darrin Camilleri, the Democratic House minority whip. “There is no clearer data than that.”

He can point to several studies that suggest a link between school librarians and improved reading scores, even when accounting for differences in school funding and student income.

Explanations for the decline of the school librarian vary, but there’s little doubt that it is in part the result of cost-cutting by districts across the country. The trend accelerated after the economic recession in 2007.”

Read the rest of this article here!

CMLE members – this sounds like it is going to be a really valuable workshop on selecting, analyzing, and including Indigenous youth literature. We would love to help send you to this conference, so if you apply and are accepted, please apply to us for a travel grant to cover your costs.

This is such an important topic, and it’s easy for those of us who are not to knowledgeable to bring poor material to a library or to a classroom. Attending this workshop will help you to provide the best information to your patrons!

Indigenous Representations: A Literature Workshop

Saturday, November 9, 2019 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM

Rauenhorst Ballroom, Coeur de Catherine 

St. Catherine University

2004 Randolph Ave. St. Paul, MN 55105

This workshop for educators (such as teachers and librarians) focuses on how to select, critically analyze, and include Indigenous youth literature in libraries and classrooms. With an emphasis on Indigenous-authored (#OwnVoices) texts, this workshop will encourage participants to explore books aligned with specific MN English Language Arts Standards and develop strategies for incorporating titles in curricula, programming, and other activities. Participants will also have opportunities to practice hands-on book evaluation. The day’s activities include lectures, readings, and interactive workshops by Dr. Dawn Quigley (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe; author of Apple in the Middle) and Dr. Debbie Reese (Nambe Pueblo; founder of the American Indians in Children’s Literature blog and co-adaptor of An Indigenous People’s History of the United States Adapted for Young Readers).

Applications for Registration Open Through September 13!

This workshop is limited to 60 attendees; we are using an application process to strive for participant equity and diversity. There is no registration cost, and a limited number of travel grants are available. Applications are due Friday, September 13 by 5:00 PM. Applicants will be notified whether or not they have been selected to attend by Wednesday, September 25. Individuals selected will receive a second registration form to specify any necessary accommodations, including ASL interpretation and dietary restrictions. Additional information about this process, as well as the application, are available here.

Contact

Please contact Hannah Buckland at hannah.buckland@state.mn.us or 651-582-8792 with any questions.

Supported by MDE Office of Indian Education and State Library Services, St. Catherine University MLIS Program, and the Kerlan Friends University of Minnesota Libraries. This workshop is funded in part using federal funding, Library Services and Technology Act [LS 00-18-0024-18].

We like to go places with our members, and to have cool member events that will be interesting and give us all a chance to chat and connect. So in this upcoming academic year, here are a few author events happening at St Ben’s.

We are setting these up as informal member events. We will be attending each of these readings, and will happily meet up to have dinner/coffee in advance, or will hold chairs for you so we can sit together as a group! Email us at admin @ cmle.org if you want to attend any of these with us:

• Chris Albani: Public reading and talk: Stories of Struggle, Stories of Hope: Art, Politics and Human Rights Tuesday, September 17 at 7:00 p.m. Gorecki Family Theater, Benedicta Arts Center, CSB (free, ticketed event). Talk followed by an audience Q&A.
• Shena McAuliffe: Public Reading: October 24, 2019 Upper Gorecki 7:00 PM
• Sally Wen Mao: Her reading will take place on February 4th in Upper Gorecki at 7:00 PM.

FALL 2019

Chris Abani

Chris Abani will be in residence from September 15-18, 2019 with his reading in the Gorecki Family Theater on Tuesday September 17 at 7:00 PM. Abani is known as an international voice on humanitarianism, art, ethics, and our shared political responsibility. He is a bestselling novelist and poet PEN Freedom-to-Write winner. Check out Abani’s work here. 

Shena McAuliffe

Public Reading: October 24, 2019 Upper Gorecki 7:00 PM

Shena McAuliffe grew up in Wisconsin and Colorado. Her novel The Good Echo won the Big Moose Prize and was published by Black Lawrence Press in 2018. Her stories and essays have been published in Conjunctions, Black Warrior Review, Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, True Story, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

SPRING 2020

2019-2020 Sister Mariella Gable Award Winner

Sally Wen Mao

Mao is the is the 2019-2020 Sister Mariella Gable Award recipient for her work Oculus and will be in residence February 2, 2020 through February 5, 2020. Her reading will take place on February 4th in Upper Gorecki at 7:00 PM. 

From her publisher Graywolf Press, “Sally Wen Mao is the author of a previous poetry collection, Mad Honey Symposium. Her work has won a Pushcart Prize and fellowships at Kundiman, George Washington University, and the New York Public Library Cullman Center. Her work, Oculus, explores exile not just as a matter of distance and displacement, but as a migration through time and a reckoning with technology. The title poem follows a girl in Shanghai who uploaded her suicide onto Instagram. Other poems cross into animated worlds, examine robot culture, and haunt a necropolis for electronic waste. A fascinating sequence speaks in the voice of international icon and first Chinese American movie star Anna May Wong, who travels through the history of cinema with a time machine, even past her death and into the future of film, where she finds she has no progeny. With a speculative imagination and a sharpened wit, Mao powerfully confronts the paradoxes of seeing and being seen, the intimacies made possible and ruined by the screen, and the many roles and representations that women of color are made to endure in order to survive a culture that seeks to consume them.”