JavaScript disabled or chat unavailable.

Have a question?

We have answers!
Chat Monday-Friday, 8 AM - 5 PM (except MS state holidays)
Phone: 601-432-4492 or Toll free: 1-877-KWIK-REF (1-877-594-5733)
Text: 601-208-0868
Email: mlcref@mlc.lib.ms.us

Monday, March 18, 2024

I Am Woman, Hear Me Write

It's Women's History Month. Quick! Name your favorite female Mississippi author!

There are a slew of wonderfully talented authoresses hailing from our great state and they have written (and continue to write!) in a number of genres: romance, mystery, biography, and more. Whatever your preferred reading style is, these women have covered it. Sometimes, though, it feels like they're overshadowed by the Faulkners and Grishams in the state. According to an article published by the website Quartz, only 18% of published authors in the 1960s were women. Fast-forward sixty years to 2020--a new study proclaims that women have surpassed men in book field, now publishing more than 50% of the written word. Whether or not this study was sound methodologically, it points to the fact that women writers in Mississippi and world-wide have come a long, long way.

Back to our question, though. Who is your favorite female Mississippi author? The following are just a few of MLC staff's picks.

"I am a little tardy arriving to the Charlaine Harris party, but I love her Sookie Stackhouse mysteries. Like Sookie, I love a good supernatural mystery to solve or learn about -- even though I don’t get to play amateur detective like she does... nor do I have telepathic powers like she does. I just end up watching true crime on TV! But this series got me to read more mysteries and vampire fantasy instead of reruns of vampire shows."
-Kristen Hillman, Magnolia Outreach Coordinator
 
"Anne Moody wrote a perfect autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, and I love it."
-Tracy Carr, Deputy Director of Library Services
 
"Brandi Perry has an incredible talent as a writer. It’s easy to follow along with her writing and storytelling. Her novels have a Southern charm feel within them and being from the south, it is easy to relate to the surroundings. Her second novel, A Whisper on the Bayou, received a nomination for the Mississippi Library Association Fiction Book of the Year and is currently in the pre-production stages of becoming a movie. If you find yourself with spare time, I highly recommend delving into her collection which includes Wayward Justice, The Jury, Buried Cries, and one of my personal favorites, Splintered: A New Orleans Tale. I will mention, too, that she recently joined Dori Lowe to co-author 100 Things To Do In Mississippi Before You Die. If you need to upgrade your own personal bucket list, this one is a must."
-Sharmaine Frazier, State E-Rate Coordinator

"Donna Tartt wrote A Secret History, one of the first dark academia books, and it is so. good. It's the golden standard of that subgenre."
Shellie Zeigler, Library Consultant
 
"I am in awe of Jesmyn Ward's writing prowess. Everything she writes leaps off the page with total honesty. Her style is lyrical and lovely and raw. I admire her and I try to read everything she writes."
-Elisabeth Scott, Reference Librarian
 
"Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings is a wonderful book for anyone who is interested in the craft of writing."
-Zach Burton, Reference and Archives Librarian
 
"My favorite is Deborah Wiles because Love, Ruby Lavender is one of my favorite books of all time. It led to my love of chickens and makes me think of catfish guts when I see very tight curls."
-Alex Brower, Information Services Director
 
With so many talented authors available, and many, many more on the shelves of your local library and the Mississippi Library Commission, we invite you to explore their work.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Read with MLC: Graphic Nonfiction

Welcome to March and the third reading prompt of our 2024 Read with MLC challenge: read a work of graphic nonfiction. Nonfiction comics have been around for longer than you might think. Thomas Nast, who created political cartoons, started drawing as a teen in 1856. The Republican elephant was one of the artistic brainchildren of his decades-long career. He brought other popular figures to the forefront of American consciousness, figures just as beloved and enduring as, say, Superman, like the Democratic donkey, Uncle Sam, and Santa Claus. Robert Ripley and his Ripley's Believe It or Not franchise started in 1918 as a single panel comic and grew to encompass a wealth of researchers to back up his claims. There are many more examples, here in America and across the world. While fiction comics dominate the reading landscape, there is a wide world of graphic nonfiction available that has literally exploded onto our reading shelves. If you have a thirst for knowledge and a love of art, this may be the perfect type of book for you.

So... Just what is available out there? I scanned our shelves for some of our top graphic reads and found some in an array of subject areas that are sure to tickle your nonfiction reading taste buds.

Monday, March 4, 2024

Clay-ke It to the Limit

MLC’s Craft Club had its sixth meeting in February. We tested MLC’s polymer clay kit and let out our inner sculptors. Attendees had the option to create earrings or design their own sculptures. The earrings didn’t work quite as planned: MLC’s main meeting room was in the middle of a technology makeover and we couldn't use the projection equipment. It is much easier to have people create something with an example, so most of the attendees chose to make their own sculptures. They turned out great!

I have been making my own polymer clay earrings at home. I used this video from Creativebug to get started, as well as checking out designs on Pinterest. These are trendy right now, so an earring-making program would be a good way to encourage teens in your community to visit the library. I also found this video helpful; I was able to recreate the watercolor look of the hair clips as earrings. Allowing for free sculpting or directing patrons to sculpt a certain animal or shape based on a holiday (like Valentine’s Day) allows patrons to show off their creativity and is less hands-on work for the librarian. Polymer clay sculptures could be a fun take-and-make program to center around holidays or themes.

While the clay program was a big hit, we thought of a few suggestions for adapting the program for public libraries to make it even better. Having the clay blocks unwrapped and portioned out is a good way to keep clay from being wasted. If you are directing patrons to create a specific item or type of project, it is helpful to have a finished example. If I were to do this program again, I would bring earrings that I had made and/or have some photos pulled up from Creativebug or Pinterest. Also, if you are baking the creations in the library, make sure to put some tin foil over your pan so the clay doesn’t touch it directly. You can use ceramic tiles, available at home improvement stores, to use as a work surface and to bake your creations.

After this post, look out for more feedback and recommendations for MLC’s kits and programming ideas under Craft Club’s new name: Test Lab! We feel that this name change more accurately reflects the spirit of Craft Club and allows us to try out and report back about a variety of our other kits.

Polymer Clay Kit contains:

Learn more about our craft kits here and look for the polymer clay kit, coming soon!

Alex Brower
Information Services Director

Monday, February 26, 2024

That All May Social Media

That All May Read. That's the slogan of the National Library Services for the Blind and Print Disabled. I think about those words a lot. In 2018, the National Health Interview Survey found that over 32 million American adults experienced vision loss--that's loss of vision that can't be corrected, even with glasses or contacts. A different source, the American Printing House, estimates that over 55,000 children under the age of 21 had the same diagnosis. In a world that has become increasingly visual -- with eye-popping memes and long, drawn-out hashtags, marketing floods our consciousness from early in the morning to late every night, day after day after day. When we aren't intentional about reaching everyone, we omit huge chunks of the population. You can make your social media more accessible for others using the tools and ideas below.

  • Hashtags
    Twenty years ago, hashtags weren't even a blip on the radar, but now they're everywhere. A good hashtag can be the force that gives a brand or a movement the visibility they're aiming for. A bad hashtag can disappear in the sea of hashtags or it can be misconstrued as something else entirely. Camel case hashtags are the best method to avoid misunderstandings and let eyes and screen readers more easily identify where the words in your hashtag begin and end. What is a camel case hashtag? It's a hashtag that capitalizes the first letter of each word. #thatallmayread becomes #ThatAllMayRead, and that's just better for everyone.

  • Alt Text
    Alternative text, or alt text, describes an image or graphic for those who can't "read" the picture with their eyes. Technology has gotten better over the years and computers can attempt to fill in what an image shows, but that still won't be as clear as a succinct description from you. Some social media platforms allow you to fill in alt text in a special field when you're creating your post; others haven't made this adjustment yet. You can also choose to describe an image next to the image itself to help those who don't yet have screen readers. Text descriptions don't need to be long or flowery. Basic facts that add meaning to an image are all that is needed to get a point across.

  • Font selection
    Everyone has been the victim of hard-to-read fonts. They can be pretty to look at, but absolutely impossible to decipher. Choosing fonts designed with legibility in mind, like Arial, will increase the amount of people you'll reach with your message.

  • Contrasting colors
    An eye-catching image that pops off the page and draws in readers... that's what every content creator is hoping to make. When you're fashioning the perfect picture, it's good to remember that font colors can bleed into the background if they're too similar. Yellow on top of orange can be hard to puzzle out, but black on orange is clear and legible.

We hope these easy-to-implement pointers will inspire you to make your social media more accessible. Please reach out to the Mississippi Library Commission if you have any additional tips!

Monday, February 19, 2024

Finding Your Nonfiction Niche

We all know fiction genres: romance, science fiction, fantasy… all types of books that have their own shelves in bookstores everywhere. But what about nonfiction? Most people know what nonfiction is: books about real world concepts, people, or events. You might not know it, but there are different types of nonfiction. Much like fiction genres, there aren’t any hard and fast rules for nonfiction genres—if you ask ten different people about these genres, you’ll get ten different answers. But if you want to dig deeper, here are some categories you might start with. 


Monday, February 12, 2024

Reading Black Mississippi

February is Black History Month, which makes it a great time to visit the bookshelves and refocus your reading on some of the great Black authors out there. There are a ton of Black Mississippi authors--historical and modern--just waiting for you to discover them. Their perspectives on Mississippi life and culture are must-reads, but you might not know where to start if you're not familiar with the local writing scene. These suggestions cover a multitude of writing styles and genres, so you ought to be able to find something in your favorite areas to get yourself started. 

Monday, February 5, 2024

Read with MLC: Reread a Book You Love

Welcome to February and the second reading prompt of our 2024 Read with MLC challenge: reread a book you love. There's something incredibly special about a book you enjoy so much that you want to reread it. Setting aside a wedge of time to experience something again is a unique act, but especially when it's something as time consuming as reading a book. I don't do a lot of rereading--there are so many books out there I want to get to--so I was curious about what drives other readers to reread. Here is what a few of my fellow library workers had to say about their favorite rereads.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...