LibraryTechtonics

I’m a firm believer that It’s never too early to start planning when I get an idea, or to run the idea by other people. And while I haven’t run this by my boss yet, I think it might be a hit.

I was talking about how much I love my job with my SO the other day, especially how open my library is to new ideas. And out of nowhere, I got this idea: NaNoWriMo @ my library.

See, I’ve tried to complete NaNoWriMo twice now, and while every year I get closer to 50,000 words, I never get to the end. Most of the groups I participated in were for the greater Boston area, and while that does encompass a large area around Boston, the areas nearer to Boston seem to be more of a hotbed of activity for events, write-ins, and the like than the outer reaches, like, say, Reading.

One of the major characteristics of my library is that we’re in a community of readers. Any reports and research studies on how Americans aren’t reading as much as they used to just don’t seem to take the Town of Reading into consideration, because just from my experiences working the information desk, I seriously think Reading would blow the curve. My curiousity is thus: is a huge community of readers potentially a community of writers? And what better place to have write-ins and writing reference sources on hand than a library that allows food and beverages, and has a super staff?

So I’m thinking that I may propose some sort of NaNoWriMo coordination of stuff at my library in November. We could get copies of the book about surviving NaNoWriMo, highlight NaNoWriMo authors who have been published, offer a display of helpful writing books, organize write-ins, and offer classes that might help people with writing and staying focused. After all, the point of NaNoWriMo is not to write the most fabulous novel ever, it’s to get to the 50,000 word mark, so anyone can give it a try. I may not go so far as becoming a regional coordinator, since that’s way more than I can handle and still *work*, but I’m thinking these other ideas are nifty.

For all I know, with the fabulousness of my library, it may have already been done ;). Either way, I’ll definitely hit the “Writing Groups In Your Library: Models for Facilitation” session hosted by PLA at ALA in Chicago.

Tags: work