Could you take a second to answer this question for me? If you need another option, just leave a comment. Thanks!
It IS Asian Pacific Heritage Month! The Hub is running a nice Asian themed series which began with Cindy Pon and most recently featured Asian themed books. How are you celebrating this month?
One of the main purposes of blogging is to speak what’s on your mind. I don’t expect bloggers to have my same perspective on anything, but if you’re going to put it out there, be willing listen to opinions that may challenge what you say. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, as my mom would say! Recently blogger Jen Doll was criticized for provided an all white listing of outstanding YA girl characters of color. After much criticism, she paused, reflected and shared this.
I was just this morning reading an interesting post on a library blog that took thoughts from outside the library world and did a very interesting job of applying the principles to how libraries should evolve. Well, until I got to this.
My take – Celebrate diversity: How interesting it is to read in Kawasaki’s article that “former teachers make the best salespeople because they ask a lot of questions”. Often times our library patrons forget that those of us working in school libraries are teachers. With the dual qualification of teacher and librarian, we hold a powerful range of skills to engage and assist. Don’t lose sight of it! With the essential support of librarians, library technicians, library assistants and a range of volunteers working hand in hand with teacher librarians, we present our patrons with a very diverse range of talent, knowledge and skill.
While we all certainly all have diverse views on what diversity is, I found this one to be quite limited. So I posted a response which said something like “I was really enjoying this list until I got to the fourth item. If librarians are not able to see the world outside their own race, religion or sexual preference then they’re limiting their effectiveness. Librarians should open the world to those they serve.”
I say my response was something like that because my response was deleted! The only ones that remained were responses that praised the author for such a nice post. Talk about lacking diversity, about limited perspective! I cannot assume any ethnic or religious identity on this person, but I can clearly see someone who is controlling and limiting what could be a dynamic and engaging conversation. It really felt like the hand of someone who feels rather entitled and maintains a rather limited view of how immensely diverse the work really is.
Then, there’s the issue of deleting comments. I’ve done that quite sparingly. Most notably, when I kept going back and forth with someone who disagreed with me because I didn’t like a book. I’ve also deleted comments when I’ve posted a grant or scholarship and someone thought I was providing the funding. Other than that (and spam), I provide an open mic.
Many librarians, educators, moms… are getting into Pinterest and you probably know I have, too. I’ve seen so many tweets about dynamic ways educators are using Pinterest in the classroom, how libraries are promoting services… so I decided to give it a try. Mind you, I didn’t want to as there’s only so much social networking a girl can do! And we all know that next month there will be one more ‘must have’ site!
So, here’s my critique of Pinterest.
I haven’t read their backstory, so I’m not sure of the creators’ intentions. I don’t get why they require invitations for people to join. It does seem they want members to join based upon relationships on previous sites, specifically Twitter and Facebook. I don’t care for this. I know I’m building a traceable digital footprint, but if you want to know that much about me, then I want to make you work a bit to find things.
Once in the site, it is impossible to search current members unless I know exactly for whom I’m looking. I can only search for FB contacts to add friends.
Pinterest is very easy to figure out. You find something you like and pin/add it to your board/page. You can only add webpages with images on them to your boards and you must say something about what you pin. I can see what others have pinned and I can comment on their boards, but, there is no private messaging.
I found a really useful board that pins products that are sold to support causes.
Here’s the controversial part that I’ve just uncovered. According to the terms of service, individuals are solely responsible for what they pin. So, if I go to HIJKL’s blog and in pinning their current post I select an image that they created, I am liable for copyright infringement, not Pinterest. This bothers a lot of people who like to post artwork, poetry and probably those cute sayings that have become so popular that they annoy me to no end. At the same time, Pinterest doesn’t want people pinning their own work!! Now that, I really don’t understand.
Will I continue pinning? Yes! And I’ll be glad to tell you why!
- My being there creates a presence for POC YA literature. Sometimes, we just have to show up, you know?
- My birth children aren’t on there, but my DIL is. I have to admit I don’t know her as well as I wish I did.I’ts hard to get to know her because they live in a different city. Nonetheless, she linked to me and you know what? I now am getting to know her likes and because of that I’ll no longer have to ask my son what I should get her for her birthday.
- I don’t post other people’s original work. I’m taking part in a great American commercial activity of promoting goods for sale.
This post is growing too long! The weather here is just beautiful! I hope it is where you are, too!
