Perhaps it’s just my hyperactive paranoia, but anytime someone asked me an unusual question or acts strangely, I think it’s some kind of “secret shopper” evaluating my performance. Case in point, a little while ago the reference desk received the following email:
is there a contest I can use to make my kid a famous poet?
That was it - no name, no other information, just that one line. The email address seemed legitimate, so I researched it a bit and replied:
I think I’ll need a little bit more information from you, but I do have some suggestions. It would be helpful to know the age of the child, and also what you’re looking for in a contest: are you looking for a venue for live readings, a mail-in contest with winners and prizes, just somewhere that will print poetry from children, or something else entirely?
Our Childrens Rooms subscribes to lots of magazines that accept poetry submissions from children. They’re not exactly contests, but the poetry is judged to see if it’s worthy of publishing in their magazines. One magazine that publishes a lot of poetry is “New Moon” but others do as well.
The Chelmsford Library has a “poetry slam” every April, which is open to all ages. It is a contest in which winners are chosen, but as our website says, it is a gentle contest. And it’s held in April because that is National Poetry Month - during that month, there are a lot of other local poetry-related events, but those usually aren’t announced or publicized until closer to April.
There are also lots of online poetry contests - here are a few websites I found:
Another resource is the Massachusetts Poetry Festival website, which is building a database of both poets and venues. It doesn’t seem like it’s ready yet, but their website has a list of the people building the database, so they may have information on contests they could provide you with.
Lastly, I found a article on the eHow.com website that probably says a lot of what you already know, but also had a few interesting tips relating to childrens’ poetry contests.
The woman here who organizes the poetry slams is out for the first part of this week, but I think she will have more ideas. I’ll ask her when she comes back, and will email you with whatever else she can suggest. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions, or if you can be more specific about what you are looking for. Thanks, and take care.
This was at least a month ago, and I never got a response. I’m not sure if it was real or not, but if it was, I hope it was helpful. However (and granted, I am not a parent), it always bothers me when people refer to their child as “kid” and when it seemed parents are forcing their kids* into something for their own benefit. To wit:
Bruno Parenting FAIL video:
*Oddly, although calling one child “kid” bothers me, referring to a group of children as “kids” is perfectly fine. “Lady” works the same way - calling one woman “lady” seems rude, but referring to a group of women as “ladies” is okay. I am a complex person.
I’m pretty unsophisticated when it comes to video games, but I do occasionally play escape games when I’m looking for a way to occupy some time. I enjoy them because they require logic and problem solving, but are also just fun.
I saw one recently I thought I’d share: in “Library Labyrinth,” you’re locked in the library with a serial killer, and you need to find objects and solve puzzles to survive him and get out of the library. Good times, I know, but I also liked that winning this game involved using Twitter (in the game - you don’t need an account yourself). Clever, and it also shows (again) how ubiquitous Twitter has become.
Not having a cell phone, I can be a bit behind when it comes mobile apps - but this is still cool even to tech-no’s like me.
My former co-worker Chris pointed out the iPhone app RedLaser, that turns the iPhone’s camera into a barcode scanner. The app was designed to do instant price checks while you’re in a store, to see if you could buy something cheaper online.
He also found that the database it scans can be customized - which means it could be modded to search a library catalog (among other things).
So a patron with an iPhone (or an Android) could be shopping in a bookstore, see a book they’d like to read, and instantly scan it to see if it’s available at their local library. Great stuff.
But wait, there’s more…
Another colleague, Scott Kehoe of NMRLS, posted about making customized versions that can search the MVLC (my library consortium), MassCat and the NOBLE consortium catalog. His post shows how he did it, links to Delicious for the customized databases, and explains how you can customize it yourself.
I think this is a great thing to promote to patrons, but they need to be careful about walking around bookstores scanning barcodes. I’ve heard many stores will throw people out if they appear to be doing “research” (recording a store’s prices or looking for country of origin). Also, about this app, one bookstore owner was quoted as saying:
If I see any lecherous internet bottomfeeders using my store as a display case for a discount website, I will politely ask them to leave.
As the world of mobile devices becomes more compatible with the world of ebooks, the next step will be to create customs searches of places like Overdrive and Project Gutenberg, so that patrons can not just locate but also download the desired book immediately. I tend to think instant gratification is not a good thing, but in this day and age, it is certainly easy to support.
For a few more library-related apps, check out Aaron’s post on Walking Paper.
I say no, and he looks a little puzzled, but then continues:
Oh. We can’t make the projector work for our meeting, and when I asked for help and the desk upstairs, they said come down here and ask for someone. I forget what name they said, but they said look for the redhead, so I just figured your name must be Andy.
And yes, he was serious, but he did apologize when I said my name is Brian.
Similarly, last year our Children’s Librarian started pulling books that she felt were good, but had misleading or unexciting covers, and had kids design their own covers. That’s a great idea, and it’s fun to take great ideas just a little bit further.
Yay for activities that involves patrons and lets them take more ownership of their library use.
Perhaps it’s just my hyperactive paranoia, but anytime someone asked me an unusual question or acts strangely, I think it’s some kind of “secret shopper” evaluating my performance. Case in point, a little while ago the reference desk received the following email:
