3. Censorship & digital resources, learning Flipboard.

I wanted a tool with potential to entice readers - 'read appeal'- in order to curate resources to share. Although Delicious (n.d.) and Diigo (n.d.), are valuable for academic collections, reading them requires clicking,  the cloud interface is unappealing  and dead links accumulate. Bea (2013) describes Paper.li (n.d.), Scoop.it (n.d.) and Flipboard (n.d.), as newer tools, that 'store' resources in an attractive, less condensed, form. However, Paper.li,  searched only my personal social media and did not find suitable material. When I used Scoop.it to search Twitter, it produced an attractive and readable format, but expensive (only two free collections permitted).

Flipboard is a well reviewed free tool (Behen, 2013, p.115; Tay, 2013) that incorporates internet resources,  selected using its browser bookmarklet, to create  e-magazines. Flipboard is best read on tablets where pages turn by swiping. The Flipboard bookmarklet would not download in Internet Explorer, but worked in Chrome, and allowed me to take material from the internet to create the online magazine about censorship of young adult literature, shown below. Since I sought currency, I started a Twitter account and began following about 100 librarians and people involved with literature. The first page turns by clicking on the arrow, subsequent pages turn using the keyboard arrow keys.

View my Flipboard Magazine.

Flipboard is useful for keeping abreast of literary and technological trends and accessing Twitter (Waters, 2013).  For example, magazine subscriptions from my login page are shown in the screen shot below.

 
Furthermore, it is suited to promoting programs and pathfinders. The intuitive magazine interface is engaging, and can be embedded in social media, where young people 'hang out' (Behen, p.53). A collection of web resources for a school topic, presented in magazine format rather than as a traditional pathfinder, may reach a new audience. As well as pulling pre-existing resources from the web, Flipboard can publish documents composed online, like blogs. Unfortunately, Flipboard could not take material from scholarly journals.

From the technological perspective, I learned that  interrogating the web and watching You Tube, were more often effective in solving technical problems than official support sites that aimed to sell upgrades. My professional practice would benefit through becoming familiar with a wider variety of tools. Just like books, I learned that tools need to be matched to the task and the person. I need to develop more skill, through practice, in learning tools, for my own information needs, and  to offer library users the most appropriate ones.

The task also heightened my awareness of censorship's prevalence. Indeed the issue proved close to home - surprisingly a local author's ballet fiction facing a ban (Bavati, 2010). The variety of books banned is amazing - reasons ranging from ludicrous to insidious (Banned Books Week n.d.). Parents are entitled to protect their children (Gurdon, 2011), but democracy relies on freedom to read and think (Freedom to Read Foundation, 2012). It would be easier to respond to challenges, if the library had previously educated about freedom to read, for example, by celebrating Banned Books Week (n.d.). I need to expand my knowledge of banned books and find ways of drawing attention to books that have been banned and also gain a deeper understanding of censorship, its relationship to democracy, and how it is impacted by the rise of the digital information environment. 

References

 

Bavati, R. (2010, November 1). Book censorship at Mount Scopus College. Galus Australis. Jewish life in the antipodies. Retrieved from http://galusaustralis.com/2010/11/3708/book-censorship-at-mount-scopus-college/

Banned Books Week. (n.d.). Banned books that shaped America. Retrieved from
http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/censorship/bannedbooksthatshapedamerica

Bea, F. (2013, March 29). Flipboard's self curation feature is a hit with 100,000 magazines created in   24 hours.  Digital Trends,  Retrieved from http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/flipboards-self-curation-feature-is-a-hit-with-100000-magazines-created-in-24-hours/#!Nm2ZL

Behen, L, (2013). Recharge your library programs with pop culture and technology. Connect with today's teens.  Santa Barbara: Libraries Unlimited.

Delicious (n.d.) Retrieved from https://delicious.com/

Diigo (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.diigo.com/

Freedom to Read Foundation. (2012, February 7). John Green at the Freedom to Read Foundation - banned author. (Video File). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqzNxerwuGw 

Gurdon, M. (2011, June 4). Darkness too visible. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303657404576357622592697038?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303657404576357622592697038.html

Flipboard (n.d.) Flipboard is your personal magazine. Retrieved from https://flipboard.com/

Paper li (n.d.) Retrieved from http://paper.li/

Scoop it (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.scoop.it/

Tay, R. ( 2013, July, 27). Curation tools. Flipboard's custom magazines. In Musings about librarianship. Retrieved from http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/curation-tools-flipboard-custom.html#.U3NHj52KAcA

Waters, S. (2013, June 12). A Flip-a-holic's ultimate guide to subscribing, curating and sharing  using Flipboard. Edublogger.  Retrieved from http://theedublogger.com/2013/06/12/flipboard/