It’s that time of year again – ALA Annual 2013!  We’re pumped that the conference is so close to us – all of our core team members live in Madison, WI – so we’ll be there in full force!  We so want to meet you there, so keep these things in mind during your own preparations.

Find Us!

Just a reminder: this is us…

…and this is what we’ll be wearing…

…so keep your eyes peeled!  We’d love to connect, chat, or just say hi!

Schedule

Click here for a loose outline of our schedule, where we’ll be, and which sessions we might attend.  VERY subject to change!  We might want to, you know, eat or sleep.

Presentations

• Library Makerspaces: The Field Trip is a preconference program on Thursday.  Erinn, Katie, and Holly will be kicking off the day and hanging around to chat about maker culture.
• Humanities in the Digital Era: Mashing Up Public Programs with MOOCs, Media, and More.  Saturday 1 – 2:30pm.  Erinn and Laura are panelists for what will surely be a fascinating and engaging conversation.
• DEMCO booth, Saturday 10am – 12pm.  We get to play experts on makerspaces and making for the breakout sessions on Saturday morning at the DEMCO booth.  Guys, DEMCO is way more than just library furniture.  Come say hi!

Twitter Contest!

We’ve got lots of great swag waiting for YOU!  Find us anytime to get an awesome pin, or follow us on Twitter to score the best tote bag in the world.  The game: we’ll tweet a “password” each day with the hashtag #LAIPswag.  Be the first to find us on the exhibition floor, tell us the password, and win a tote bag!

ICFABArt Contest Launches!

Remember last year’s phenomenally successful Teen Art Contest??  It’s time to get ready for year 2!  The contest isn’t until November (and the official launch will be June 27th, more details then), but we’ll be promoting it at ALA like crazy, along with our partners EgmontUSA, Zest Books, and Teen Librarian’s Toolbox.  Find us or them for a free postcard – put it above your desk so you don’t forget!

Can’t wait to see you there! ~Katie

Read “Page to Stage: Revisiting a Revolution” to learn more about the performance that Brandon is working on this month.

by Brandon Monokian

I’m someone who gets terribly bored with anything and everything, even theatre jobs. I at one point in my so far short career was blessed enough to be doing an Off-Broadway show 8 times a week and I thought I would go absolutely insane. Three years later of Revolutionary Readings and I am not bored at all. Perhaps because it’s not such a frequent event, or the fact that we are able to try out new pieces from the book at every performance. That and the timeless nature of these words resonate every single time you hear them. I’m always surprised when we are asked to perform it again someplace. Surprised, but thrilled. A lot of growing up happened these last three years, and myself and the Revolutionary Readings crew have done a lot of that growing up together.

One of my key collaborators has been Kaitlin Overton. I met Kaitlin while she was still a student, and I was hired to direct The Laramie Project. It’s been incredible to see her growth over the years, from the amazing person she was, to the even more amazing person she is. She’s now a working professional in the arts just like me, and I am consistently moved by her passion for theatre work that helps change and build communities. She produced the first play I ever wrote (Grimm Women) for its New York run, and has been an integral part in the Page to Stage series I helped develop at the Princeton Public Library. Not only is she an amazing actress and producer, but what I discovered through the Page to Stage series is that she is also a gifted musician.

Kaitlin, myself and Grimm Women star Briella Calafiore after a performance.

For Page to Stage we worked completely bare bones in the library’s community room with no sets, costumes or anything but the play’s text. We found that the inclusion of music added something special, transporting audiences to another world. For the upcoming performance of Revolutionary Readings, we’ve been asked to add some live music and movement. I knew right away, Kaitlin would be the one to add the music. Her instrument of choice is the ukulele, a generally happy sounding instrument, and when you pair it with some of the emotional text of Revolutionary Readings, the juxtaposition is fascinating.

The integration of music and text is something that interests me in theatre and performance and is something that has definitely helped enhance the Page to Stage series as well as Revolutionary Readings. The acoustic sounds of ukulele and guitar offer a raw feel to the piece, and the text and music compliment each other. It’s something somewhat new to me as well because writing music is something I’ve never done before, but it’s really come in handy and I think people enjoy the sound of the ukulele especially because it adds the quirkiness and calming sound to textual pieces of theatre. – Kaitlin Overton

For movement, I went to my friend Hannah Rolfes. New to Revolutionary Readings, I knew of Hannah’s work from when we were both students at Montclair State. She is not only one of the most technically gifted dancers I know, but brings an un-manufacturable quality to the stage that comes straight from raw emotion and connection to whatever piece she is working on. We’ve had many “wine and work nights,” where we will each sit separately over a glass of wine working on whatever creative projects we have at hand and then report to each other for feedback. I at one point even helped her acquire toilets from the side of the road for one of her dance pieces, but this is our first time actually working together in this capacity. Going over the text of Revolutionary Voices with her, discussing where movement might come into play has made me discover things I never knew about this incredible book that his been extremely close to my heart for the last three years.

People have always responded extremely well to how we’ve presented Revolutionary Readings in the past, which really is a basic stand still reading of the book. It may seem risky to “mess” with that, but if we were so afraid of risk, there wouldn’t have been a Revolutionary Readings in the first place. From day one, the text of Revolutionary Voices has moved and inspired people, so to see it now inspire music and movement is nothing short of theatrical magic.

Brandon Monokian works professionally as an actor, writer and director. One of South Jersey Magazine’s “Names to Know,” Mr. Monokian most recently had his original play Grimm Women show at Philadelphia’s Adrienne Theater and N.Y.C’s Kraine Theater which starred Briella Calafiore from Jerseylicious. He can be seen in the Princeton Public Library produced mini documentary Page to Stage: Bringing Literature to Life which highlights the arts programming he helped create for the library and was a guest speaker for their Tedx series (view his Tedx talk and performance). Twitter @brandonmonokian facebook.com/brandonmonokian

The three projects present in the “Artists in the Archives” exhibition all relate to library ephemera, books, history, memory, organization of information, and discovery. How were the three projects, “The Alternet,” “Book Marks,” and “Call to Everyone” developed? Were they conceived of separately and then brought together, or were there three sets of card catalogs available as a “blank slate” through which to develop three new pieces of art?

The projects were each conceived of separately. Each of us has an abiding love for libraries as sources and resources for our art and our lives. “Artists in the Archives” reflects our delight in serendipitous discoveries and connections made possible in a library. Our aim is to recreate and share our experience with the community served by public libraries.The three projects came together thus:

In the fall of 2012, someone sent me a link to “The Call to Everyone” asking me if it was part of the “Alternet” project.  I was fascinated to learn what JoAnne Wilcox, a photographer, was doing with a card-catalog.  I contacted JoAnn and we met.  (She took me on a tour of the libraries in New Haven, CT! We had a great day!)  Since our projects and our mutual love for libraries were so related, we decided to pool our resources and exhibit our catalogs together.  I remembered the work of Barbara Page from an exhibition in which we both participated on Long Beach Island a couple of years ago.  I contacted Barbara, and she agreed to join us! 

“Artists in the Archives” opening reception, Greenburgh Public Library.

When you were actually developing “The Alternet,” where did you work on the piece? Were libraries – the physical space, not just the card catalog – a part of your creative process? How, if at all, do you think your relationship to / understanding of libraries changed or evolved based on your work on “The Alternet” and “Artists in the Archives”?

I worked in my own studio on my own set of 300+ cards that, eventually, filled one of the drawers in the “Alternet” cabinet.  Each of the more than 75 artists who participated in the “Alternet” worked in their individual homes or studios.  Some went to libraries to procure “deaccessioned”  3×5 cards.  Many of us purchased archival cards from suppliers to libraries. I can’t say that my relationship to/ understanding of libraries changed or evolved during the work on the “Alternet” but the process of proposing “Artists in the Archives” to libraries reminded me of what great, open, vibrant, and wonderful institutions our public libraries are, and always have been. 

As an artist, I am  very familiar with the process of pitching exhibitions to galleries and museums.  This is a humbling and arduous process.  Unconsciously, I cringed when it came time to e-mail the proposal to libraries I knew, or those suggested to me by other participants in the “Alternet.” I anticipated minimal response, or lots of rejections.  Instead, I was delighted with wonderful positive responses and, thus, “Artists in the Archives” is “booked” for the next two years in libraries from New York to North Carolina! 

I must also say that the staff-members with whom we have been working at exhibiting libraries are wonderful, energetic, and very helpful.  I think this is a result of the “culture” of public libraries: an attitude of delight in providing service. 

The finished pieces are shown in a public library. Can you talk a little bit about the process you went through to propose the project, how the exhibition evolved as you talked with library staff members, and ultimately, what the public’s response to the exhibition has been?

I have touched on this above. I sent the proposal via e-mail to libraries I knew of, and those suggested to me by others.  It was so easy!  I set up a calendar and filled in the blanks as the libraries expressed interest in hosting the exhibition. The exhibition is and will be different in each library, depending on space and physical structures.  In the Greenburgh Public Library, the exhibition is “self-contained.”  The surprises of the “Alternet” and “The Call to Everyone” are hidden in drawers, waiting for the curious to discover.  A peek at the beautiful and intriguing cards created by Barbara Page might encourage or compel such curiosity.

At other libraries, there are walls available. Selections from the card catalogs can be mounted and framed, or scanned and displayed on the walls.  Still, it is the lure of hidden “treasures” that we love about the catalog drawers.  Our goal is to find ways to entice visitors to search and seek and be surprised! This part of “Artists in the Archives” is growing and evolving. As the three of us correspond, or meet and chat, it is the subject of our conversations.  We brainstorm on how to encourage participation, inquiry, and discovery. 

When we visit the installation of “Artists in the Archives” it is a bit disconcerting to watch people walking by, intent on their mission to find a particular book, periodical, or bit of information.  Disconcerting, because we know what beautiful, creative, fascinating objects are hidden in those drawers passed by. 

At the Greenburgh Library, John Sexton, the Assistant Director, has his office directly across from the installation.  Each morning he opens several drawers, and pulls a few out to sit on the pull-out shelves. He says it is partly because he loves the “feel” of the sliding wooden drawers that fit so will in the cabinet, but also, he wants to invite visitors to come and have a look at what is in those drawers! Beyond that, it’s only the people we have witnessed browsing through the catalogs and getting lost in the thrill of discovery.  Some delight in finding a favorite book on one of the cards in “The Call to Everyone,” some find a 3×5 abstract work of art in the “Alternet.” We also have a binder with blank pages: room for comments.  I haven’t checked the binder in a couple of weeks, but will do so on Monday when I go to the library to check on the exhibition. 

To see more photos of the cards in “The Alternet,” visit the project’s Facebook page.

New on the website this week:

• We loved the Read/Write Library in Chicago, and we were practically giddy when we heard that they have a mobile library on a bicycle.  Best part?  It’s called the BiblioTreka.
• Brandon Monokian is BACK with his Page to Stage series!!  He talked this week about a powerful experience bringing an anthology called Revolutionary Voices to life.
• We launched a new series called Book to Boogie with the help of Kerry Aradhya, blogger at Picture Books and Pirouettes – learn how to incorporate creative movement into your story times!
• Jessica Smith, head librarian at Indian Springs School in Alabama, on curating a visiting writers series for free.
• Even MORE wonderful story time ideas from the Pages to Projects series, this time on scratch-style art and swirls.  Made of pretty, I tell you.

From the social media neighborhood:

• I’m in love with this maze-like book representation of a tweet.  Really cool teen program???
• Twitter user @TalesofOneCity shared this video of guerrilla opera in the library – Love in the Library.  So great!
• Seriously, you guys are the best.  Our Facebook posts were shared almost 100 times this week – that’s huge!  Are you following us on Facebook?  Search for Library as Incubator Project!

Fun stuff from around the web:

• Book painting – a spin on using books as an artistic medium.  Wouldn’t it be cool if you could paint several pictures throughout these books so they mixed in different and interesting ways?
• A graphic designer launches a text font that is easier to read for people with dyslexia.  Right on!
• Bookshelves in the home –> kids do better in school.  Interesting study from Britain that shows the importance of print-rich environments for children.
• Love romance novels?  Check out these kick-ass shoes.
• DUDE.  There are more public libraries in the country than McDonald’s.
• 40 Artists on a bus touring the country!!  Bring them to your town!
• The trend of catalog cards as art continues!

Does stuff on the internet just keep getting cooler?  And people – people continue to amaze me with their creativity and awesomeness.  Look for the beautiful things this week – they’re everywhere.

Cheers! ~Katie

Pages to Projects: Scratch and Swirl

by Rebecca Z. Dunn

Strong, fascinating, beautiful spirals are present all around us. Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beth Krommes, explores spirals, a shape that occurs in nature over and over and over again from the basic construction of a spider’s web, to the way a spiral galaxy spins. Swirl by Swirl is both poetic and visually stimulating, a storytime crowd pleaser, and the inspiration behind this latest Pages to Projects.

Most well known for her picture book, The House in the Night, which won her a Caldecott gold, Beth Krommes, the artist behind Swirl by Swirl, used her signature technique, scratchboard, to create detailed and elegant illustrations. Scratchboard’s meticulous illustrative technique is accomplished by using sharp tools to carve into special clay. After reading Swirl by Swirl, a unique way to explore spirals is by using a like-minded art technique and by prodding children to make spirals of their own.

Since scratchboard requires special materials and sharp tools, it isn’t a storytime project, but there is a kid-friendly alternative. Children can mimic the art of scratchboard by making scratch art. Using only a few items that you might already have in your supply cabinet, follow these easy steps:

Materials Needed:

• Oil pastels
• Toothpicks
• White Cardstock

How to Make Scratch Art:

1. Have the children cover their entire piece of white cardstock with various bright colors of oil pastels.
2. Using black oil pastels, color over the entire area that was colored in step one.
3. Once the colored area is covered with a layer of black oil pastel, scratch the sheet with a toothpick to reveal the colors underneath.  If you’re doing this project in conjunction with reading Swirl by Swirl, consider persuading the children to create their own spirals.

An option instead of using black oil pastels to cover the colored side of the paper is to substitute black tempera paint for the black oil pastel. Wait for the paint to dry and it will be prepped for scratching. If you happen to find yourself short on time and materials, a quick fix is to purchase pre-made scratch art sheets through a craft store or party supply outlet like Oriental Trading Company.

Wanna sneak some STEM literacy into your storytime? After you read Swirl by Swirl, talk about what a spiral is (“Spiral: a shape that curls around a center point”) and where they occur in nature as illustrated in your book or in the environment where you reside. Hold up picture examples like these, or make a flannel board demonstration like the one created by Piper Loves the Library.

Math, nature, and art… Spirals are just one way for kids to scratch the surface of the whirling and wonderment found in the world around us.

Check out other books illustrated by Beth Krommes:

• The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, illustrated by Beth Krommes
• Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beth Krommes
• The Hidden Folk – Stories of Fairies, Dwarves, Selkies and Other Secret Beings by Lise Lunge-Larsen, illustrated by Beth Krommes
• The Sun in Me – Poems About the Planet by Judith Nicholls, illustrated by Beth Krommes
• The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Beth Krommes
• Grandmother Winter by Phyllis Root, illustrated by Beth Krommes

For More book recommendations and crafts that introduce fine art to children, be sure to check out the Pages to Projects Pinterest Board!

Rebecca Zarazan Dunn is a Youth Services Librarian Assistant for the Lawrence Public Library, and was recently named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker for 2013.  When she’s not at the library or running after her 2-year old daughter, she is most often found at her blog home, Sturdy for Common Things, where she writes about books, library programs, and living the simple life in Lawrence, Kansas.

Douglas Ray & Jessica Smith

Curate What You Know: The Indian Springs School Visiting Writers Series

by Jessica Smith, Head Librarian at Indian Springs School

Here at Indian Springs School, my colleague Douglas Ray and I founded the Indian Springs School Visiting Writers Series (ISSVWS) to bring writers to the library to share their books with our students. We’ve integrated ISSVWS with the curriculum so that students read the work of Visiting Writers before they meet them. Writers come to the classroom for a discussion and give a reading (free and open to the public) in the library in the evening. Although we started ISSVWS without funding, we’ve invited local writers and writers we know to donate their time to help our kids get a more personal understanding of literature. As ISSVWS has become more popular, the library’s circulation of Visiting Writers’s books has increased. Gaining a more personal collection with the writers seems to make the texts more interesting for the students.

When Douglas and I first came to Indian Springs in 2011, we wanted to start a poetry reading series that would draw out the poetry community in Birmingham. We had both come from active poetry communities (Oxford, MS and Buffalo, NY) but we didn’t know any poets in our new town. We proposed to start ISSVWS with no budget and were granted permission from our very supportive administration.  Both Douglas and I are writers, so most of the writers we invite to ISSVWS are people we know personally who are interested in introducing teenagers to their work.

I recently read a quote by Annie Proulx in The Paris Review: “Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” Jessica Smith gets this.  As she highlights books in her VWS, she gives the students access to books, then introduces the authors of the books to the students in an intimate setting, allowing academic banter. The experience is education at its best!

~An Indian Springs School parent.

We decided to try to incorporate ISSVWS with the school curriculum in two ways: Douglas would teach the authors’ work in his classes, and I would order the authors’ books for the library and promote them through displays. When a book can easily be incorporated to the curriculum– like Sandra Beasley’s Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl, which was part of Douglas’s unit on memoir and personal narrative– students read the whole book. Other times, students will read a few poems before the writer visits to get a feel for the work. When I started teaching classes at Springs in addition to my librarian duties, I started thinking about the texts that I used in class and how I could bring authors in for ISSVWS. My first classroom-ISSVWS integration was Nona Willis Aronowitz, a journalist and cultural critic whose book GirlDrive I used in my Feminist Literature class to illustrate the variety of issues at play in contemporary feminism. After reading the book and discussing its viewpoints over a week before Nona’s visit, the students came up with a list of (fearless) questions to ask Nona, which I gave to her before the Q&A. I think her answers enriched the way the students thought about the book– and about contemporary feminism.

One cannot underestimate the impact of meeting a “real, live” author, which takes that profession off the high shelf and puts it within the reach of aspiring writers. My campus time included visiting co-curator Douglas Ray’s class for a spirited discussion about metaphor, artistic influences, and working as both a poet and nonfiction writer.

The students at Indian Springs are mature, bright, and curious to begin with; Ms. Smith challenges them by selecting a variety of voices from all tempers and genres. She is a gracious host, sensitive to both the needs of the author and the interests of the audience, which includes not only kids but their parents, teachers, and neighbors. Seeing that crowd fill the library was a thrill.

~Visiting Writer Sandra Beasley on ISSVWS

Listen to the students’ Q&A with Nona during her ISSVWS visit on Sound Cloud:

Indian Springs School isn’t just a school for the kids who currently attend it– it’s also a cultural touchstone for its faculty, parents, and alumni. So besides asking writers we knew to visit, we asked alumni to come read from their work. This part of the Series has been our most popular: YA author John Green (ISS ‘95) read to a packed auditorium on his NerdFighter tour in 2012; political cartoonist Howard Cruse (‘62) showed illustrations from his graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby and talked about the Civil Rights Movement to a standing-room-only crowd in the library; Laurel Mills (‘96) read from her children’s book Night Night Birmingham to a group of students, parents, faculty, and children while they drank milk and ate cookies.

A YouTube video of John Green at ISSVWS:

We’d like to see ISSVWS expand in a two major ways. First, with an expanded budget, we would be able to invite more writers that we don’t know personally. Right now, almost all of our authors have visited for free because they know and like us. This limits who we can ask to visit and what books we can use as tie-ins in the classroom. With an expanded budget, we would be able to get more input from the students and other faculty and make their requests happen. Second, and related to the first goal, we’d like to get more of a variety of authors whose works would be relevant to classes other than just English/Literature/Creative Writing classes. Since we don’t know those authors personally, we’d probably need to pay them.

However, these ideas for expansion should serve as a lesson for schools and libraries who want to start up a Visiting Writers Series of their own: you don’t need money to attract authors. Instead of thinking, “Who do our students like and how can we get them to come read here?” think, “Who do we know who writes, who would read for free, and how can we integrate their work into our curriculum?”

There are so many writers in the world who are interested in promoting their work, finding new readers, and teaching children. When a local bookstore or library hosts a reading or book release, go meet the author and ask her if she would be interested in reading at your school or library. When you read an article you like in the local newspaper, write to the journalist to see if he would be interested in talking to your students about journalism.  If you work at a school, find out whether any of your alumni are authors who would like to return to old haunts and talk to current students. Curate not based on what you want, but on what you already have and can share.

Want More?

• Check out ISSVWS on Tumblr and on SoundCloud.
• Learn more about super-librarian Jessica Smith and her projects.
• Read author Nona Aronowitz’s The Nation blog, titled “How To Raise a Progressive Kid in Alabama,” which talks about her visit to the ISSVWS.

All photographs by Melanie Kieve

Cover of “The Museum” by Susan Verde, with illustrations by Peter H. Reynolds.

by Kerry Aradhya

I was lucky enough to attend a presentation that author Susan Verde gave to a large group of children at a local bookstore a few weeks ago. With excitement, she told her captive audience how she loved taking her own children to museums when they were young and how she used those experiences to write her debut picture book, The Museum, which was published this year by Abrams Books for Young Readers.

The main character of the book is a young girl — drawn lanky, barefoot, and full of energy and emotion by illustrator Peter H. Reynolds — who shares her reactions to what she sees when she tours an art museum. As she walks by the different paintings and sculptures in the museum, she feels a range of emotions that she translates into movement. “When I see a work of art, something happens in my heart. I cannot stifle my reaction. My body just goes into action.”

The Museum is good choice for a movement-based story time because it shows how movement can be used to express feelings. It also shows how one art form (art) can be translated into another art form (dance). Interestingly, author Susan Verde is a yoga teacher for children, so it is not surprising that her first picture book is full of movement!

I think the easiest way to incorporate this book into story time would be to read it all the way through, but to pause on the pages that lend themselves to movement. For example, one of the first pieces of art the young girl sees is a famous painting by Degas.“This one makes me want to pose and stand up on my tippy-toes.” This would be the perfect opportunity to pause in the story and have the children stand up on their tippy-toes. Perhaps they could even walk around on their toes and then tiptoe back to their seats so the story could continue.

Presentation by “The Museum” author Susan Verde.

Another of my favorite movement-based sections of the book is when the young girl views a wall of beautiful landscape paintings. “I’m skipping through a field of flowers. I could keep this up for hours. Fragrant, soft, and so delightful…” At this point, the children could skip through the room, stopping from time to time to smell imaginary flowers in a field or in their hands.

Some of the opportunities for movement are more subtle.“I make silly faces at a guy. He did it first! I do not lie!” In this instance, the children could stay seated but identify one or two nearby children so they could all make silly faces at each other.

Toward the end of the book, the young girl comes across a blank canvas in the museum and gets to create her very own masterpiece. Author Susan Verde offers resources on her website to go along with the book, including a printable photo frame that children can color in. Creating art inside the photo frame would be a perfect activity for the children to do after the book ends, as would allowing the children to come up with their own dance. All you would need to do is play some music and let the children react to the music and dance how they want to dance. Just like the elation the young girl feels when she creates her masterpiece in the book, the children would feel elated after creating their own dance!

If you would like to pair The Museum with other books about creating masterpieces, then you might consider Art & Max by David Weisner or When Pigasso Met Mootisse by Nina Laden. As an alternative, the picture books Color Dance by Ann Jonas and Shape Space by Cathryn Falwell are all about creating dances.

Kerry Aradhya.

Kerry Aradhya is a children’s poet and aspiring picture book author whose poetry and action rhymes have been published in Highlights High Five, Ladybug, and Stories for Children Magazine. Kerry has also danced with the Houston Grand Opera, the Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble, and several other small dance companies. She shares her passion for picture books and her love of dance at Picture Books & Pirouettes, where she blogs regularly about integrating children’s literature and movement. 

by Brandon Monokian

For my first big post graduation New York City audition, I found myself walking in time to music while pulling a burlap sack. On that sack stood a girl holding tree branches. What started as tentative, what-the-heck-am-I-doing baby steps turned into a swag filled stride as the assistant choreographer enthusiastically said “YES” after my first few steps. I had booked the job.

I had another job lined up immediately after – a rarity I didn’t appreciate at the time.It was a directing job, presenting a production of The Laramie Project. I would sit backstage during rehearsals for my acting gig and sob as I read The Laramie Project script. I think at the time I thought I was sobbing just because it was sad, but as I moved into rehearsals, I realized I was really sobbing because it was the kind of work that changes you as a human being. Created out of interviews with residents of the town of Laramie, Wyoming, it depicted real life peoples’ response to the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard who was killed for being gay. I don’t think for one second the cast or my amazing assistant director Victoria Fear ever approached the work as “another play.” In fact we spent most of our rehearsal time just having discussions about hate crimes, bullying, global events and personal stories, not actually running the play! We wanted to open doors for conversations and make people aware of how we were treating one another in our daily lives. One big question mark loomed over our heads as the show came to a close: “What now?” So often in theatre you have these life changing experiences, and then you move on to a new job and many times it’s like the show that had such an impact on you never happened.

It was around the time that The Laramie Project was coming to an end that I found out the book Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology had been banned from my former High School and public libraries due to “sexual content.” I believe the article title on Jezebel “Library Pulls Queer Youth Anthology, Leaves Joy of Sex” proves that this wasn’t an attack on sexual content, but homosexual content. After reading the book (which was very hard to find since it was out of print), I was so moved by the stories shared I wanted to do something to fight the libraries’ decisions.

Katie McGhee in Revolutionary Readings at Princeton Public Library.

I met up with Laramie Project assistant director Victoria, and our good friend and amazing theatre artist Katie McGhee, and we sat on Victoria’s furniture-less apartment floor (she was moving out) and together we came up with what would turn into Revolutionary Readings. We were all freshly graduated and had no idea what to do in this crazy big world with our theatre degrees that had any sort of value. Maybe this would be it. Together with a group of fellow theatre artists (the majority of which being theLaramie Project cast reunited) we would go perform readings from the book to protest its banning.

At first we were just begging places to let us come perform, but eventually we started being invited places we never dreamed as possibilities for performances such as Rutgers University, the NJLA Conference and as a part of the Princeton Public Library’s Tedx program. We got to speak alongside the book’s editor, the amazing, inspiring and groundbreaking Amy Sonnie, and one of the book’s contributing authors Qwo-Li Driskill read at one of our performances.

Although the book was never unbanned, something more important happened: more people than ever before were exposed to these beautiful writings in this out of print anthology.

Not only were people exposed to the work through our performances, but libraries such as the Princeton Public Library who didn’t have the book in stock found it and stocked it on their shelves! Had it never been banned, this out of print 2000 anthology never would have found a whole new audience in 2010 and on.

NJLA Conference with Amy Sonnie.

The words in this book are powerful. Really powerful. So many people would come up to us after performances, take us by the hands and say “thank you,” or “this is me in these stories.” The poetry, stories and art in Revolutionary Voices is the type of work that makes people feel not only comfortable in who they are, but powerful. This is the kind of work that needs to be available, not banned because of the homophobic ideals of a small group of nuts. By banning this out of print anthology, you are silencing these voices. It was our goal that these voices would not be silenced, but heard louder than ever. I think we did just that.

Now the Princeton Public Library has invited us to perform in their community room for the third time, this time as part of the Page to Stage series I helped create with librarian Janie Hermann – a program that is now in it’s third year. It’s amazing revisiting this because it’s not a piece I do much anymore, and every time I do a performance or read the book, I discover something new about the beautiful anthology. I’m excited to present this performance with theatre artists like Kaitlin Overton, Amanda Guzman, Jose Paz and Daria Feneis, all of whom were involved in The Laramie Project and the beginnings of Revolutionary Readings over three years ago, and new faces Hannah Rolfes and Corey Hafner.

With current news headlines such as “Anne Frank’s Diary Too ‘Pornographic’ For 7th-Grade Students, Claims Michigan Parent” we are reminded that book banning and the desire to restrict access to knowledge is not something of the ancient past, it is current, which is why Revolutionary Readings remains important. It is also important stand on stage and celebrate the beautiful writings of a youth anthology that is truly revolutionary.

Brandon Monokian works professionally as an actor, writer and director. One of South Jersey Magazine’s “Names to Know,” Mr. Monokian most recently had his original play Grimm Women show at Philadelphia’s Adrienne Theater and N.Y.C’s Kraine Theater which starred Briella Calafiore from Jerseylicious. He can be seen in the Princeton Public Library produced mini documentary Page to Stage: Bringing Literature to Life which highlights the arts programming he helped create for the library and was a guest speaker for their Tedx series (view his Tedx talk and performance). Twitter @brandonmonokian facebook.com/brandonmonokian

by Amanda Meeks

The BiblioTreka, packed up and ready to roll.

Chicago’s Read/Write Library collects every type of media from the area, now including a cargo bike with quite the track record of community engagement.  We’ve adopted the Chicago Book Bike in order to preserve it as a cultural artifact and Chicago icon as well as to further the mission of the library by using it to provide pop-up library and outreach services throughout the summer months.

In July of 2008, Gabriel Levinson began the Chicago Book Bike project.  His vision was to offer free new and used books to the general public because “everyone has the right to build and cherish a private library”.  Working with Haley Tricycles in Philadelphia, Gabriel collaborated to design the front-loading, cargo bike that would help him place thousands of books into the hands of Chicago community members over the next few years.  He took the Book Bike to parks and free events each weekend and the project became well-known and loved throughout the city.  When he relocated to Austin, TX last year he was disheartened to find that no individuals or organizations were able to keep the project rolling.  Thus, Book Bike came to a screeching halt.

Early this year, when I took on the role of outreach coordinator at the Read/Write Library, I suggested we look into acquiring a bicycle for pop-up library services.  Others became excited by the idea but there was one wrench in the works: Money–we’d need to fundraise a lot of it.  I started researching costs and options.  Using social media, I crowdsourced ideas from the bike community about custom-built bicycles in the area and many mentioned the Book Bike.  After connecting with Gabriel on twitter, inquiring how he started his project and explaining what we hoped to do with a bike at Read/Write, he generously offered to loan us the Book Bike since it had been unused since his move and was still stored in Chicago.

Setting up the BiblioTreka at a pop-up location in Chicago.

We’ve agreed to adopt the bike and return it to Gabriel should we stop using it for its intended purpose, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.  As of May 2013, the bike has been painted, tuned up, and renamed the Read/Write BiblioTreka.  We’re gearing up for a summer of pop-up libraries at local art and music venues (such as Comfort Station), farmer’s markets, community gardens, and any other free or low-cost community-oriented events by training a team of volunteers to safely drive BiblioTreka.  As with our traditional pop-up library services, we curate a sampling of our materials to match the needs of the events or organizations with whom we’re partnering, only we’ve put a new spin on the old model by arriving by bicycle.

BiblioTreka transformed into the pop-up library.

Updates about where the bike will be each week are available on the Read/Write Twitter and Facebook pages.  To inquire further about BiblioTreka and our pop-up services, please email outreach@readwritelibrary.org.

Read Amanda’s feature on Chicago’s Read/Write Library here on the Incubator Project.

Amanda Meeks is a recent graduate of Emporia State University’s SLIM program in Portland, OR and the Read/Write Library’s outreach coordinator.  For more information about the library, events, and volunteering please email her at outreach@readwritelibrary.org. 

New on the site this week:

•  Andrea Reithmayr is back with a fascinating look at the impact of natural science on historic book design.
• Artexte is an amazing collection of Canadian-based art and art resources, but that’s definitely not all!  Check out their story/interview.
• The art of book sculpture is on the rise, and artist Jodi Harvey-Brown is thrilled to use books as her medium.
• Scratch is a free downloadable program to learn computer programming/coding – huge potential for creative learning in the library!  The Labs @ CLP walks through their Scratch Day program so you can tailor it to your library.
• Did you know that the Boston Public Library hosts a children’s writer-in-residence??  So cool!  (Guess you thought so too: @AssociatesBPL told us on Twitter that they’re sorting through a record number of submissions!)

From the social media neighborhood:

• As I mentioned, if you follow us on Pinterest, you might have noticed that we pinned the stuffing out of past Linkubator posts.  Enjoy!  We’ll be more active there from now on, hopefully getting our own stuff out there.
• Museum & library folk share many things, including the ability to act like a boss.  (LOTS of shares on that one!)
• A blogger at HuffPost made a case for not finishing books, and we asked what were your rules for putting down a book.

Fun stuff from around the web:

• Love this idea for a picture book walk from The Show Me Librarian.  Follow a story through a nature trail?  Sounds wonderful!
• This 5-year-old must be best friends with her librarian!
• Wouldn’t you love to paper your walls with this Penguin Classics wallpaper?  Kind of pricey, though.
• Vintage Libraries is a Tumblr to follow – maybe this vintage catalog card explanation will hook you.
• The Venice Art Biennale is a big deal, so it’s great to see some book art representin’!
• CONGRATULATIONS to the Seattle Public Library for setting a world record for the longest book domino chain!  SO much fun to watch.

Happy Sunday, friends!  Let us know what you’re up to, creatively or at your library.  Summer’s a great time to start projects, so keep in touch!  Stay inspired! ~Katie