[HN Gopher] An 8-year-old slid his handwritten book onto a libra...
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An 8-year-old slid his handwritten book onto a library shelf
Author : TruffleLabs
Score : 172 points
Date : 2022-02-02 05:08 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| considering all the laws in america and the current
| misinformation 'controversy," the wrong sort of book could bring
| legal trouble
| tacLog wrote:
| This reminds me of how instrumental just going to the library was
| as a kid for my love of reading. It was the only place that was
| like a store to me at the time where I could have anything I
| wanted. It felt like a fun challenge to find as many books that I
| might want to read as possible.
|
| I wonder how we can create this experience more easily remotely.
| There are tons of library eBook apps that are all pretty awesome,
| but discovery of new content just isn't the same. I find myself
| going to the library still. Or even to book stores to write down
| interesting looking titles.
|
| I know this seems like a boring problem because you can just go
| in person then put a hold on the eBook version while you are
| there. But there has to be a way to present a curated selection
| of books that inspires children to:
|
| - enjoy the adventure of finding a good book
|
| - fosters the idea that reading unlocks knowledge or stories
| about anything they want
|
| - makes the process of sampling a book as easy as it is on
| Amazon, or in person
|
| Why? When schools are remote, or to serve children that don't
| have a local anything nearby.
|
| Does anyone know of services that provide this now or have any
| ideas for how this would best work as an enhanced UI over say
| Libby or overdrive, or even hoopla all of which are great for if
| you already know what you want to read.
| azalemeth wrote:
| One of my defining memories looking around universities as a
| 16/17-year-old was going to their libraries and being
| _overwhelmed_ with how much knowledge there was there. Shelves
| that showed the parallax in the rooms, where books went off
| into the distance and motion-activated lights. As an
| undergraduate, I worked extensively in an underground library
| -- isolated from the world, isolated from anything but my tasks
| at hand, and with all the knowledge one could conceivably want
| if you could find it effectively (or, at least, that 's how it
| felt).
|
| Libgen.rs may have an unimaginably larger number of titles on
| offer, but it's not quite the same as walking into a cathedral-
| size store of books and looking at the weight of humanity's
| greatest achievements staring back at you. Libraries are
| _awesome_. We should support them, and keep supporting them, as
| much as possible.
| tacLog wrote:
| I couldn't agree more. I have 0 desire to replace or limit
| libraries. They are some of few places where you can feel the
| progress of humanity in a physical space.
|
| I just want to allow people who can't access libraries easily
| to experience some of that.
| wanderer_ wrote:
| Now people at that age are used to having all of that
| information at their fingertips and for free.
|
| They say that this ease of information is causing physical
| changes in how our brains operate.
| lukewrites wrote:
| I don't think anything compares to going in person.
|
| I'm father of a 4 year old, and we live a couple of blocks from
| the library. Seeing how his interactions with the shelves has
| changed over the past couple of years has been really
| interesting. At first it was enough to look at the covers and
| spines, then he could pull himself up to the bins of board
| books, and eventually started grabbing from the shelves
| himself.
|
| And like you, he loads up with a little bit of everything (it
| doesn't matter what he chooses, we check it out) and we take it
| home to read and see what sticks.
|
| It's probably no surprise that one of the most exciting trips
| he can make is driving to PDX to go to Powell's.
|
| There's probably a UI genius out there with great ideas for it,
| but I don't see how anything can beat going to a library in
| person.
| tacLog wrote:
| I completely agree. I don't think you can fully replicate
| this experience remotely.
|
| I am just trying to imagine what you need to do to get as
| close as possible. Maybe I make this a project happen if I
| end up with something actionable. Maybe these ideas inspire
| someone else, maybe they fade away into memories and do very
| little.
|
| I love the it doesn't matter what you choose you can check it
| out part. I think it would be really important to have a
| filter where all the books the kid can see, the kid can have
| right now. This of course could be disabled by older kids
| that understand sometimes there is a wait but I think for the
| younger kids this would be an important detail.
|
| I don't want to replace libraries, I want to make it so every
| kid that has access to the internet on some device or gaming
| platform can get 30% of that experience. Or whatever is
| possible.
| butwhywhyoh wrote:
| This is one of those "pure HN" comments that you're almost
| guaranteed to find here.
|
| How can we take a genuinely pleasant, analog human experience,
| strip all of the magic out of it, automate it, and make it
| remote?
| tacLog wrote:
| Your comment made me sad to read. I don't really feel like
| that's a fair take at all.
|
| I love libraries and the experience they provide. These
| memories are core to who I am today.
|
| For me this is about access. I want every kid who doesn't
| live near a library or who's parents don't have the time to
| take them there to have something more than nothing.
|
| I don't think that we can make it remote without taking a lot
| of the magic out of it. But I don't think it's a bad idea to
| talk about what we might do to try.
| charcircuit wrote:
| The internet is much better than a library. I've gone to the
| library a handful of times and the information there typically
| pales in component to the information that can be found on the
| internet. The internet also has videos too which can help
| explain concepts. Books in a library are typically old too.
| Good luck finding a book about some new piece of software that
| came out.
| brimble wrote:
| I've found the opposite: it's often even hard to find out
| _that some piece of knowledge might exist_ on the Internet.
|
| I think it might(?) be better for math and things like that,
| but dig into social sciences or history or whatever, and
| often at a _surprisingly_ shallow level you 're going to have
| to go find some real books. eBooks fill some of the gap, but
| lots aren't there. Some stuff is rare (very niche) and can't
| even be found in newly-printed books, let alone online--used
| books and libraries are it. Some special collections--again,
| without even digging _that_ deep, sometimes--become necessary
| and would require international travel to pursue (depending
| on where you live).
|
| It's not hard to poke around a decent used book store or
| university library and find information that's simply nowhere
| online.
| tacLog wrote:
| Sure, I don't go to libraries to find anything about code or
| even computers. I go to find old fantasy series and enjoy the
| physicality of the library.
|
| I would say the internet is almost always better at
| everything non-fiction for adults. But I am talking about 4-8
| year olds here mostly, and by extension anyone older that
| wants some of the library experience.
| shuntress wrote:
| Really, the libraries' contents are just a significantly more
| difficult-to-search part of the deep web.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Why would you limit yourself to the information that is on
| the internet when the vast majority of the world's
| information (and music, and video, etc.) is elsewhere?
| the_af wrote:
| The tactile experience of a library or even a bookstore
| cannot be replicated by the internet or ebooks.
|
| It is indeed something wondrous for little kids... and
| adults.
| myself248 wrote:
| Take the kid to a physical library a few times. I think the
| visceral experience of the vastness really has to be
| experienced by our spatial-relation lizard-brains. Explain the
| "anything you want, but only a few at a time" concept. Nurture
| the kid-in-a-candy-store wonder.
|
| Then take them to the most impressive library you can feasibly
| drive to. Universities spring to mind. Let that awe really sink
| in. See if you can get a librarian to talk to the kid for a few
| minutes about why _they_ personally think this is important.
|
| THEN introduce ebooks, gutenberg, archive.org, apps, etc. All
| that and then some, right here in the palm of your hand.
| tacLog wrote:
| I think you are highlighting great ways to impress upon a kid
| the: "visceral experience of the vastness." Which is the core
| of what I want. That's a really good way to put it by the
| way.
|
| I really like the idea of taking kids to really impressive
| libraries as well. My parents did that for me and it really
| did create lasting memories.
|
| But I am more thinking of something that can emulate that
| experience remotely. Your focus on the space made me thing of
| maybe a library on Minecraft or Roblox? Maybe it can be a
| space where you can somehow see the books in a virtual space
| and design something that allows you to explore the
| collections. I know this would be really hard in Minecraft
| and I don't know how hard this would be in roblox. But I
| really like this idea because it would be easy to create,
| easier to maintain, and be a really cool thing that a teacher
| could say take a class trip to.
|
| It would be important that you where presented with a way to
| checkout the books you found in this virtual library from a
| real library near you that has ebooks for children. This
| would also allow you to checkout the public works books from
| the awesome sites you referenced instantly.
| myself248 wrote:
| Oh oh oh.
|
| I think you mean https://help.archive.org/hc/en-
| us/articles/360054148012-Brow...
| tacLog wrote:
| This is exactly the kind of tool I was hoping to find.
| Thank you!
|
| I wasn't really expecting to be having novel ideas here
| and as usual someone built something close and someone on
| hackernews can tell me about it.
|
| This service isn't perfect and doesn't seem very kid
| friendly to me. But it exists and is free so it's
| something to learn from and recommend.
| indigochill wrote:
| Maybe something like this (aimed more at journalism, but
| the virtual space is still impressive):
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/18/21184041/minecraft-
| librar...
| tacLog wrote:
| This looks really cool and is exactly along the lines of
| what I was thinking. I will explore it later after work.
|
| Thank you for linking this.
| schoen wrote:
| My elementary school had a unit (I think in third or fourth
| grade) where each student made and illustrated a book, which was
| then bound by the librarians and temporarily added to the school
| library's collection, on a special shelf (for books by current
| students). Other students could check it out during the school
| year, and I think there was even an assignment where you were
| expected to check out one other student's book and give some kind
| of report or presentation about it!
|
| At the end of the year, you got your own book back to keep.
|
| This was a really great school project.
| ericmcer wrote:
| This is great, they should have more projects in school that
| allow kids a chance to move from being passive participants in
| the system to being contributors to it. I think this is a huge
| mental barrier that gets reinforced in schools rather than
| broken.
| rambambram wrote:
| Haha, so cool! If 6 year olds like it and there's already a
| waiting list, he might even sell the story to Hollywood. ;)
| onemoresoop wrote:
| I really hope it doesn't get to money making but instead it
| starts a new trend where kids make their own books and share
| them at the library, a new special section. Let's leave money
| outta this..
| rambambram wrote:
| I knew this kind of remark was coming, hence the smiley. ;)
| geocrasher wrote:
| Self publishing at its finest. What a great story!
| steveylang wrote:
| They should digitize it and put the ebook up on Amazon.
| incomplete wrote:
| paywall free: https://archive.is/nyf78
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I would love it if my local library had a section dedicated to
| local amateur authors. I want my boys to see that being an author
| is not some huge gap. You don't need a fancy book making machine
| or publisher. Just write and share.
| dhosek wrote:
| My kids's school has creating a book a part of the curriculum
| every year beginning in kindergarten. My son who's amazingingly
| prolific did two books last year (he was in first grade). There
| was one day when he was in kindergarten that we were both writing
| at the same time. I managed to get a couple hundred words written
| on my novel in progress. He knocked out a 750-word story
| (dictated to his mother) that was damned amazing.
| chadd wrote:
| This is why I've supported 826LA (and the other 826 chapters),
| started by the author Dave Eggers. Among the reading and writing,
| tutoring and college essay writing programs they sponsor, mostly
| focused on kids who are in homes where English is a second
| language, they also help kids publish their own book.
|
| You would be shocked to see how proud the kids are when they have
| their very own words, in _print_ - it 's whimsical and inspiring
| that they can accomplish anything.
| [deleted]
| jimnotgym wrote:
| My son used to put his books on our shelves. Imagine if I had
| encouraged him rather than working silly hours for some future
| that never arrived
| geocrasher wrote:
| The perfect parent doesn't exists, my friend. We all do our
| best to provide and sometimes it works out the way we expect,
| sometimes not. Count your successes, not your failures.
| balls187 wrote:
| Chris Rock said it best--Nobody ever says, 'Hey daddy, thanks
| for knockin' out this rent.' 'Hey daddy, I sure love this hot
| water.' 'Hey daddy, it's easy to read with all this light.'
| triceratops wrote:
| Kids shouldn't have to thank their parents for the basics.
| That's what we commit to when we bring them into this world
| (or adopt them). To use another Chris Rock phrase - "You want
| credit for some s*** you're supposed to do?!"
| [deleted]
| kbelder wrote:
| My son did this to a book he wrote. Something about a moose... He
| slid it onto the shelf at the school library, and found a year
| later that some employee had put on a library sticker and a
| checkout card. A couple people checked it out; it was still on
| the shelf a few years later.
| IncRnd wrote:
| What a nice story!
|
| When they create an ebook, be prepared for the next HN story to
| discuss Dillon's book being the most pirated pdf worldwide.
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(page generated 2022-02-03 23:01 UTC)