Update

I turned in my thesis today! Huzzah!

Relatedly, I now hope to have a bit more time for writerly activity. Was pleased yesterday with a building layout I sketched to help me clarify a scene in Looking Like Lani; now, if I can just find time to actually write the rest of the scene.

Less relatedly, yesterday seemed to be Randomly Talk About Zombie Movies Day. I had multiple fascinating conversations about what zombie movies say about humanity and what their appeals are. It wasn’t just me, either. Other people just kept bringing up zombie movies.

Maybe my favorite outcome of this was a cool discussion of how great it is when authors do a good job creating characters who are on the same side in the overall struggle, but are still at odds with each other. This spun off into talking about Harry Potter (and Snape, and Scrimgeour, and others) and also Psych (mostly Shawn and Detective Lassiter). Of course, there are TONS of great characters who fit into this kind of strange-bedfellows mold, and it makes for excellent tension, not to mention subplots and sometimes even plot-plots. Anyone else have favorite examples?

Things With Which I’m Busy

My review of The Clockwork Girl just went up at No Flying No Tights! Huzzah!

Tomorrow, I will collect the last set of circulation data for my thesis project. This is because the thesis is due in mid-November, so I have to finish it, like, nowish. However, because I hope to take this study to its maximum level of possible awesomeness, and then try to publish it, I plan to continue collecting surveys and data on the circulation of graphic novels in the section I set up for another month or two. Still, this last data set is important and exciting, so woo.

Goings-On! And Thesis!

It’s thesis time! By which I mean it is my last semester, and I’m having oodles of fun working on my thesis, which is a study to try and determine the most effective and popular way to shelve graphic novels in public libraries. I’m super-psyched about this project. It would seem my department likes it, too – they gave me an award for the best research proposal of the semester. Woo!

Several months ago, after meeting with the director of my hometown’s public library, I located all of the eighty-plus graphic novels in the building. They were scattered through the Juvenile Fiction and Juvenile Nonfiction, Teen Fiction and Teen Nonfiction, Adult Nonfiction, and even Science Fiction, sections. I took note of all of them and started recording how many times they checked out each month.

After getting three months’ circulation data, I have moved to Phase Two of the project: pulling all of the graphic novels to place in a separate section. They are now marked in the catalog as graphic novels, and green tape on their spines will hopefully get shelvers to return them to their new spot – here.

Another shot:

I will now see whether, and how, the circulation rates change. My hypothesis is that they will go up, as I suspect many patrons who like graphic novels simply didn’t realize the library had these.

The display on top could be a spurious factor, certainly, but I put it there for two reasons:

  1. It promotes the new section – and graphic novels! – for the library and its patrons, the interests of whom are at least as important as the pristine scientific nature of my study.
  2. I need it to display, and give IRB-required information on, the survey that I’m asking patrons to fill out about the new section. Hopefully, this will help to support the data I gather on circ rates by showing which shelving system patrons actually prefer.

Also, I worked hard on it.

All those middle-school posterboard projects finally pay off! Huzzah!