C2E2 2011 DAY ONE

DAY ONE...
I am posting from C2E2 while watching Hero Tales, a pretty-good anime due out soon.  Good enough to select for the library?  Maybe.  Popular enough, no.  But here's the thing, I am posting, while researching pop culture, which I am absolutely suffused in.  Costumes everywhere.  Allegiance-defining T-Shirts.  A wide swath of incredibly interesting people with equally diverse interests.  Animation, comics, Japanamania, TV shows, anything with a (potential or actual) cult following is presented here.

What did I do today?  Learned about the world's largest publicly-accessible comic library, Toby Greenwalt's great work in Skokie to not only involve patrons with comics, but to get out to the community as a whole.  This is obviously a passion of his and I intend to follow up on a lot of the great ideas he had.  A black comix panel celebrated the life of Dwayne McDuffie.  It was so full that I had to type it from the top of a garbage can. 

From the Windy City Jedis (lightsaber choreography and stage fighting!) to the costume contest (Skeletor was late), I also just observed, awe-struck at the amazing creativity people throw into things they are obviously passionate about.  At once complicatedly sophisticated and sweetly naive.


Reading Comic Books in College: Using Michigan State University’s Comic Art Collection for Research and Teaching

Library (in Basement):

Stated Goal – To have every American comic book every published, has over 200K.  Largest publicly-accessible collection in the world.  As well as fanzines.  Full text books trumps reprints due to additional content, including ads, letters column, etc, etc.  Meant to be accessed and used.  Teens come in; fully open to the public.  Doesn't include much art, mostly just the comics and books.  Comics must be read in reading room, cannot be browsed.  Monitored area ensures books stay in good shape.  Scan or reprint older books to preserve them.

The Comic Arts Collection @ MSU

Over 1000 books of Newspaper strips.  From 1935 forward, largest cataloged collection in US.  Many other countries, languages.  

MSU Hosts Comics Forum every year.  To promote comics research and expose the nexus of both comics study and historical study of comics and popular culture.  Site here.  I want to go to here.  The comic shop across the street stocks books for classes and takes part in this.

Ways of Teaching    

Historical Analysis -- Compare early Superman to current Superman book.  Relate historical context.

J Anthony Blair -- Comics, GN's,, video games are very easy for students to relate to and grasp.  Visual Rhetoric: arguments can be communicated in the traditional sense visually. 

David Birdsell & Leo Groarke -- Toward a Theory of Visual Argument: images can sufficiently carry meaning and words have their limitations.

Kathleen Blake Yancey -- "Delivering College Composition: A Vocabulary for Discussion."  The essay may be dead, since so little of it is done post-school.  Most write memos and formal technical reports.  How to manipulate fonts, include visuals, enter settings, may be more crucial.  Repurposing writing.  Composing rather than writing. 

Also: multimedia presentations, online writing, with a solid foundation of essay mechanics.  But can they make and upload a Youtube documentary?  They should in order to be successful in the modern world.

Why Comics? -- Watchmen & Sin City are important cultural artifacts.  They are suited to analysis rather than the reviews students may be tempted to write.  But they are easy to teach because:

They are accessible

They are fun (students put in energy)

They come in with knowledge of comics/films/games

Help illustrate (literally) thetorical concepts

Gives students experience analyzing media, crucial to looking at the world w/critical eye.

Heralds of Change: Comic Books, Libraries, and Innovation

Toby Greenwalt, Skokie PL Virtual Services Coordinator http://www.theanalogdivide.com/

Slides from the presentation here

 

Not a lot of popular books have a lot in common.  GN's have less shelf space, budget, but circulate more than any other genre once teen is added to adult.

We can use the same methods to hook people on services.  Building credibility.

Hanging out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out, book.  IMLS 21st Century Skills.  Libraries and Transliteracy.   Danah Boyd's blog.  ALA Graphic Interest Group. 

Hanging Out

A safe space for users.  As the get more comfortable, they approach us, and we can sell them on other programs and services.  Can do this virtually as well--Facebook, etc.

Messing Around

We surprise people as doing what we do best.  Going out there and being nerds.  

Setting up RSS feeds per question type and making those feeds go in a certain radius area.

Willingness to experiment -- making sure everything is mobile-friendly.  Can have a scavenger hunt through foursquare with prizes like bags, free pizza, etc.  Engendering discovery & reward.  Do the same thing with hiding QR codes.

Geeking Out

Chris Ware's cutouts.  Wednesday Comics allowed current authors to do old strips.  Seth's Dominion City model.  Best, though to look at making patrons create their own comics.  NANOWRIMO, 24 hour comics day.  Drawing Day 2011.

Skokie Stories -- is like Story corps.  2 people in community with shared connection to interview each other.  Archive in partnership with Historical society.

May Be Doing Allready -- People breakdancing in library parking lot.  14 year old kid who built an iPad app.  Capture what's happening.  Capitalize on it.

Digital Media Lab -- Give patrons the space to do this.  CPL's new media space.  Built from book's main ideas--hanging, messing, and geeking...

Use Gimp, Audacity, Scratch.  Recording equipment is cheap.

Collect -- After created also collect the info, innovations, culture, content!

We are one of the only tech centers for people, and so much more.  Brand recognition works against us, OCLC said 80% of teens think "books" and only books when they think of us.  We should refocus on "story" rather than books.  We are being cut left and right.  This is our way to establish credibility.  We need to get people to geek out about the library.

Black Comix: African American Comics Art and Culture
This panel had a conversation, mostly about Dwayne McDuffie.

Milestone Comics -- DC African American imprint has been putting out work since the nineties.  Still going in a different form.  Not the failed experiment it's often referred to as.  Comics failed Milestone, not vice-versa.  The same way they failed women.


Dwayne McDuffie -- RIP for this major artist, he made John Stewart, Luke Cage, Black Panther possible to be huge. 


Image/Tribe -- Told blacks that they could make books even more like themselves.