Editorial: From Street Lit to Literacy

When I was a kid, we used to say that when the New York Times wrote about a new band or other pop culture phenomenon, it was already old. Librarians who read the Times's front-page story on urban fiction, or street lit, last month must have been thinking the same thing. Librarians began collecting street lit years ago in much the same way they've picked up on other materials that didn't come through regular channels, just as the Times story detailed. They listened to their patrons and purchased titles they recommended. They bought online and from street vendors.

Among those librarians who embraced street lit were Vanessa Morris (quoted in the Times), at the iSchool at Drexel University and a former teen librarian, and Cleveland PL's Rollie Welch, who alternate writing LJ's The Word on Street Lit column. Welch covers male writers only (though he made an exception for Sistah Souljah's Midnight), while Morris gives the female perspective. The web-only column stars in LJ's latest e-newsletter, BookSmack!, a twice-monthly publication on books and media. (To sign up for the free email, which also features 35 Going on 13: YA Books for Adults, Books for Dudes, Prepub Exploded, Media Mashup, and more, go to LibraryJournal.com/BookSmack.)

The press also has been covering the reach of video games like Nintendo's Wii™, RPG's (role playing games), and so on, and not just among teens. Again, libraries got to the game early. Gen X librarians brought their own expertise and drew teens in to help build collections. LJ's newest column, Gaming Basics (p. 51 and blog of the same name) by Shawn McCann, profiles some of the gamers, including seniors, the middle-aged, and women who play, and their preferred games. McCann himself is Immersive Learning, or Gaming, Librarian at McMaster University, and, as far as they (and we) know, the first librarian in North America to hold the title of Gaming Librarian. (Gaming Basics is just part of a richer Media section debuting in this issue, p. 38.)

While the technologies, formats, and genres that libraries embrace change, the furor over their inclusion never seems to end. Read this issue's Feedback in response to Joseph Grosso's “Mission Aborted” (LJ 9/15/08, p. 34) and comments on the Annoyed Librarian's posts (“Gaming with the Very Special Librarians,” 10/20/08, and“'Urban Fiction' @ Your Library,” 10/22/08) on LibraryJournal.com. There are fierce discussions about whether offerings like street lit and gaming belong in public libraries and harm their historic mission. Sarah Hodge-Wetherbe (Springfield Lib., MA) responds to the charges (p. 11), writing, “I am one of the generations of kids who grew up gaming (and reading Shakespeare as well...). I love books. However...[f]rom online material, to epic role playing games where reading, writing, and map skills are essential...reading is more than opening [a book].... I am very tired of the outdated view of gamers as brain-dead zombies who...have no interest in reading....”

On Annoyed Librarian, Happily Anonymous comments, “...there is good research...that any old reading helps improve literacy, and literacy is necessary to function in this society.... [I]f people find books they enjoy and begin to identify themselves as 'readers' they will spend more time reading...and will be more likely to try other material later.” In another comment, Happily continues, “Fiction, even the trashy kind, can also play an important role in developing empathy...in a way not achieved in other media.”

Surprisingly (or maybe not), Happily's comments closely echo those of David Kipen and others in “Big Read, Big ROI” (p. 26–29), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) program developed in response to the NEA's “Reading at Risk” report. While the Big Read promotes literary reading with the library leading community collaboration, the takeaways are the same: expanding the pool of readers and building literacy. Beyond that, however, the Big Read has what Kipen calls “a secret shadow goal.” It creates a common ground for residents to discuss real issues that are too touchy to address otherwise.

It may seem like a big jump from street lit to video games to literary classics, but not in the library. That's what makes libraries the powerful agencies of transformation they are. Education and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive. Those who think the library must focus only on the former misread the idea of the public library and its ever-evolving mission.