There were two summer sessions. Session 1 was from May 6 to July 2. Session 2 was from July 6 to August 14.
Session 1
No, we didn't actually have to work in a youth prison, we just read books and articles about providing library services in juvenile detention facilities.
This was an online class taught by Joe Coyle who works as a librarian in a juvenille detention facility in Illinois.
Unfortunately, Coyle wasn't able to actually come to Hawaii to visit us. He just listed the readings, and we just posted comments online as well as submit papers.
We started learning about what goes on in juvenile detention facilities, as well as what type of circumstances that makes it more likely to for a juvenile to be locked up.
We learned about general library services for teens in general.
We then learned about how library resources services are provided for youth in juvenile detention facilities. Some of them include
- no hardcover books (which be made into a weapon). Inmates get paperbacks, which are more fragile
- Some facilities allow inmates to visit the library, others just cart the books to the inmates
- restrictions on the type of material (ie. glorify violence or drugs, sexual content, etc.)
- internet use (usually filtered so they can't send threats nor access explicit material)
- culturally relevant materials (ie. "street lit" - books about inner city life)
- book discussion as therapy: using literature to understand one's situation and how to better deal with less than ideal situations
We also had to interview someone who worked with youth in custody. I tried to contact the librarian at the local youth facility. He responded that his time there was almost up, and that I could email him the questions. He didn't respond back.
Luckily, Mr Coyle hooked me up with David Inocencio, the founder of The Beat Within, an organization that conducts writing workshops in juvenile facilities as well as publish some materials written in those workshops.
You can learn more about what I learned in the class by checking out that LIS 693s (Sum 15) projects page at http://pwegesen.wix.com/pablowegesendlis#!lis-693a-sum15-projects-page/c875
screenshot from the LIS 693a (Sum 15) projects page page
Session 2
In the library world, "Young Adults" do not refer to those in the early 20's.
In the library world, "Young Adults" actually refer to teenagers - middle school and high school!
I know what some of you are thinking ---- teenagers aren't adults, they don't pay rent, they can't vote, they're not allowed to do what adults do.
But there's this perception that calling teenagers "adolescents" or "teenagers" is condescending! Whatevers!
Anyways, our class was taught by a local public librarian who specializes in "Young Adult" materials and services.
We learned about the controversial issues that are addressed in "Young Adult" literature including but not limited to
- alienation
- sexual abuse
- suicide
- racism
- LGBT issues
- family abuse
- and more
Sometimes, things did get contentious, when one student talk about media & body image issues. I told the class I think that body image issue has more to do with evolution than the media, and that student wouldn't even let me finish. She ranted about "cultural constructs" and whole bunch of nonsense I refuted at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-stuff-happens-everywhere-not-just.html
The strange thing is this type of disruptive nonsense NEVER happened to me when I was majoring in sociology during my undergraduate years! And sociology as you never, is a topic with tons of controversial topics.
That student did apologize, but then I had to have meeting with the professor and the LIS Chair (who I don't even trust, due to how he handled my internship issue at HSL) because I was "yelling". One, that "yelling" is NOTHING how loud I can really yell. Two, I only raised my voice because that other student kept interrupting me! Yeah, I know that me raising my voice isn't good practice for being a librarian dealing with crazy patrons. But still....................
Luckily after that, there was no drama!
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Anyways, our class had some quest speakers who talked about
- high school librarianship
- Young Adult nonfiction
- dystopian novels
- graphic novels, comics and manga
- booktalks
- YA awards
We were also supposed to have a Native American novelist speak to us via Skype, but she had a family emergency that day!
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screenshot from the LIS 682 projects page
Other Stuff
This might be the last summer session I will take at UH-Manoa. I am on schedule to graduate with my master's in Library and Information Science this coming December. I got an internship coming up!
This summer's been hard with so much work due in short time and the shorter campus library hours during the summer.
Being that I'm the LIS rep in the Graduate Student Organization (GSO), I introduced and drafted a resolution calling for longer library hours during the summer. You can learn more at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2015/07/gso-resolution-to-extend-summer-library.html
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I also did some volunteering that the Friends of the Library of Hawaii sponsored booksale at McKinley High School (Go Tigers!) though I got sick the last weekend of the booksale and couldn't make it! Oh well!
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Anyways, the summer is done. Time for new adventures!
