And very soon it will finally be Monday, the day I’ve been waiting for for what seems like forever.   Oh Kenya trip, how I’ve waited for you!  I’ve been so excited for it lately (school building! giraffes! new friends!) that I’ve had a hard time concentrating on anything else.  But this evening I finally took some time, between loads of laundry, to get organized, and I ended up spending a lot of time thinking about books.

I came across this, which I wrote down a long time ago, and which I still love immensely:

“…I suspect we all have inward links between some books and where we were when we escaped into them. Everyone knows the memory links to scents or the pop songs of teenage summers, but I suspect if we reach back and in, we’ll find many of the books of our lives to be vividly time and place specific too.” –Guy Gavriel Kay (in the July/August 2008 issue of The Walrus)

Oh, yes.  The Time Traveller’s Wife is thirty degrees Celsius, the fan-flutter of a loose bedsheet on the sofabed, lamplight, mosquito-buzz, 3am.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the armchair in my parents’ living room, mid-summer Saturday afternoon, cold tea, sunlight slanting across the pages.  A Thousand Splendid Suns is a wet highway in Nova Scotia, feet tucked under me in the backseat, a blanket across my lap because it was still winter everywhere else, and my tiny university town somewhere in the rearview mirror.

The Cellist of Sarajevo is our next book club book, and I’m bringing it with me on Monday to read during the ridiculously long flights.  I can’t help wondering what reading it in Kenya will be like (Kenya! It really hasn’t sunk in yet that I’m finally, finally going).

What about you? Do you have any time-and-place-specific books?

Using Twitter for Networking, Not Spam

At first Twitter seems like nothing more than a series of mundane updates on the lives of friends and family, but it’s all about using the site to your advantage.  It’s a particularly useful tool for people like me, who are just finishing up a program in an industry that is eagerly exploring how they can use Twitter to their advantage.  Twitter, so far, is a great way to connect with others in the book publishing industry.  Many book publishing companies, organizations, and individuals involved in the industry tweet about new books, exciting events, or projects they’re working on.  It’s a great way to get a conversation started with a favourite company, author, or organization!

Spread the News

Twitter is also a great way to get the news out quickly, and to keep your followers updated on new and ongoing projects.  One of the projects I’ve most enjoyed hearing about recently is Julie Wilson’s Seen Reading project called 30 in 30.  Julie uses her Seen Reading twitter account to tweet about how the project is coming along, and to simultaneously raise awareness about National Poetry Month (April).

Getting to Know You

One of the things I like best about Twitter is the opportunity to get a peek into the lives of “celebrities” in the publishing industry, such as author Neil Gaiman.  Neil often tweets about his tour to promote Coraline, his novel which has recently been released as a film in theatres, writing, and his daughter.  This glimpse into Neil’s life, and the lives of others like him, makes the publishing industry seem much smaller and more close-knit.

Maybe Twitter won’t lead to a job offer, but if used correctly it is a way to open doors in the industry, which will be particularly useful once I’ve finished school and am finding my way in the industry as an intern.

sabinetheearthgirl.wordpress.com

I think this is a fantastic idea, for several reasons.  How often have you finished a book and thought, “I don’t want this story to end yet. I want to stay with this character for a little while longer!”? As an avid reader, I would love the opportunity to read additional content about, and especially from, a character that I enjoyed getting to know.

Earthgirl’s blog is a particularly good idea given the target audience for the book.  Teenagers spend so much time online that online content seems to me like a great way to keep them invested and engaged in a book.  The content of the blog is also pretty great: it continues to educate youth about the environment and the world around them, while staying true to the character’s voice.  The blog format allows the content to stay timely in a way that a sequel wouldn’t, allowing the character to react to events as they are occurring.  Through Sabine’s voice, Cowan is able to garner attention for her book and her character while raising awareness about important events and issues such as world water day and earth hour.

The sidebar of the blog contains some of my favourite features.  It includes the links you would expect on this sort of blog, such as links to the publisher’s website, several websites where readers can purchase the book, and a positive review of the book by the Quill and Quire, but it also includes links to musicians to “feed your soul,” and links to eco-related websites to “free your mind”, such as a personal favourite of mine, the story of stuff.  Lastly, it includes a list of Sabine’s mantras, such as “the more you know the less you need” and “I will be the change I wish to see in the world.”

Do you know of any other blogs that are written in the voice of a fictional character? So far I haven’t found any others, but I did find a Twitter account written by a fake Laura Ingalls Wilder, HalfPintIngalls, which seems to me like a wonderful way to relive a favourite story from my childhood.

Social networking sites, organizations, and youth themselves are taking advantage of the amount of time youth spend online by using the internet as a tool for encouraging activism. Whether through social networking, blogs, videos, or forums, the internet is becoming a great place for youth to learn about important issues in the world today, connect with others who are passionate about the same issues, and share their ideas to raise awareness and create positive change. According to a study called Just Cause conducted by MTV in 2006, 70% of youth believed that helping others and their community is important, but only 19% were “very involved.” The web is offering youth new and inventive ways to get involved. Hopefully that 19% will soon be on the rise! Could the internet be turning into a tool for good?

Social Networking sites that encourage activism

In 2007, MTV launched a social networking website, www.think.mtv.com, that encourages and enables activism. The website is backed financially by AOL founder Steve Case’s Case Foundation, Bill Gates’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Goldhirsh Foundation and MCJ Foundation. Celebrities and organizations that use the social networking site include the United Nations, actor Leonardo DiCaprio, and musician Bono.

Similar sites include www.change.org and the Centennial College-initiated www.humanracebook.com. Think.mtv was initiated to draw youth into activism, as was humanracebook, while change.org seems to appeal to an older audience as well as non-profit organizations. Think.mtv describes their website as “your community where you, your friends, and your favorite celebrities can get informed, get heard and take action on the issues that matter to you most.”

Even popular social networking site Facebook is enabling youth to spread the word about important issues through the “causes” application and through facebook groups dedicated to spreading awareness.

Organizations with a focus on youth

An excellent example of an organization that is using the internet to encourage activism is Free the Children. Free the Children is the largest network of children helping children in the world. It was founded by Craig Kielburger, pictured on the right, when he was only 12 years old.

We Generation

This section of the Free the Children website encourages you to “find your perfect way to help the world.” It offers you the opportunity to get informed, get involved, and share and connect with other youth by posting photos, videos and stories. It is an online space for youth from across the world to come together to discuss their ideas and their projects, and to support each other in creating change.

I Am Silent

On March 5^th, youth across North America will be participating in Free the Children’s Vow of Silence campaign in order to raise awareness and collect donations for children throughout the world who are silenced by poverty, war, and oppression. The website created to raise awareness about this campaign, www.iamsilent.com, uses flash and graphics during the introduction to effectively explain the campaign in a simple, yet hard-hitting way. It also provides youth with relevant facts, downloads, and everything they would need to participate in the campaign. The website is definitely worth checking out (be sure to have your speakers turned on).

Videos that raise awareness

A short, well-made video can be incredibly effective in getting a point across. Youth today are generally thought of – by adults – as apathetic, and the video below is a great example of a video that is doing its part to reverse that impression. Clocking in at less than two minutes, its message is still very clear. In many ways this video is a call to action: what part will you play in the way our generation is viewed?

How about you? Have you seen any other effective videos that encourage activism? Have you heard of any interesting or cool campaigns via the internet?

Real Simple Magazine

The Real  Simple Magazine website has many web 2.0 features that are very helpful to the reader. There are three daily RSS feeds available: daily recipe, daily tip, and daily thought, which are quick ways for the a busy reader to get quick advice, recipes, and tips with no effort or time wasted on searching.  The website also features several blogs with content from editors and experts on topics such as the world of a magazine editor, home and organizing, food, technology, and several others.  There is even a no-obligation book club.  All of these blogs allow for reader comments and interaction.   There is also a gadget called “My Organizer,” through which readers can organize articles and posts they are interested, personalize areas of the website, and keep track of their ratings and reviews of website content.

These features would be very valuable to the Real Simple staff for several reasons.  The RSS feeds allow the magazine to stay in the reader’s mind on a daily basis, which would probably keep the reader more invested in the magazine.  This could also be said about the magazine’s blogs, which allow the readers to interact with each other and with magazine staff, creating a feeling of community that wouldn’t exist on websites that do not have web 2.0 features.   Creating that feeling of membership in a community for a reader could be very beneficial to magazine staff.  Reader’s comments also provide the magazine with feedback on content that they are much less likely to get from readers of the print edition of the magazine.

Canadian Living Magazine

The Canadian Living website features several web 2.0 features, such as RSS feeds, embedded videos, and forums.  The RSS feeds on the Canadian Living website are extremely similar to those on the Real Simple website.  There is an RSS feed for each of the blogs as well as daily ideas and recipes.  There are embedded videos in the test kitchen section as well as health and wellness club videos.  The site features four blogs: The Foodie-file, The Health and Wellness Club, The Green Living Blog and The Mom Blog (all of which are easily located by clicking the blog tab in the menu at the top of the page).

I’ve already written about the benefits of RSS feeds in the paragraphs about Real Simple, so instead I’ll focus here on the potential benefits of embedded videos and forums.  A well-done video can be a great way to create reader-user loyalty for a magazine.  If a reader-user can rely on a magazine’s website for helpful, instructional videos they are more likely to check back with this magazine when they are looking for instructions/advice in the future.  This would create more traffic to the website, which would be helpful to the magazine and advertisers – the more traffic, the more people seeing the ads on the website.  Forums are a great way for a magazine to create heavy traffic to their site while providing an area for reader-users to ask questions, give advice, and interact with other reader-users.  Even more so than commenting on a blog, reader-users will feel like they are part of a community.

Style at Home Magazine

The Style at Home website featured many web 2.0 features, including RSS feeds, forums, blogs, bookmarking tools, and my personal favourite – polls and quizzes.  The Style at Home website only featured one RSS feed for the magazine (rather than being broken down into specific topics like the magazines mentioned above) as well as two blog-specific RSS feeds.  The RSS feeds for the blogs were more difficult to find as they were grouped with RSS feeds from the magazine’s larger parent network, the Home and Garden network.

Because I’ve already written about most of Style at Home’s web 2.0 features in the descriptions of Real Simple and Canadian Living’s features, I will focus here on the inclusion of polls and quizzes on the Style at Home website.  I love this feature because it allows the reader-user to learn about their personal preferences in home decor which will help them know what to look for in further issues of the magazine (or in future articles).  This is a really fun way to educate reader-users while also providing the magazine’s staff with key details on their readers through the quiz and poll results.  Quizzes are also a great alternative to your basic magazine article, providing a more interactive experience for the reader-user, and gives the reader-user advice that is tailored specifically to them – drawing the reader back to the website in the future for more personalized advice.