The cool thing about this band and this tour is the fact that it is taking place in libraries across the countries. William Harmer, the Young Adult Librarian at the Baldwin Public Library is the brain child behind the event. Years ago he organized a concert at his library with a popular band called the Brian Jonestown Massacre. The high-strung opened for this show and absolutely loved playing in a library. This might be in part because the band is quite literate; in fact one band member wrote a novel recently which should be published soon, and they are regular library patrons. Any way, when reflecting upon this show Harmer came up with the idea of a library tour. He pitched the idea to The High Strung and thus the rock and roll library tour was born. Last year they simply toured Michigan playing in libraries and it was very well received. This experience was even related on an episode of National Public Radios This American Life. This year they decided to take the tour across the country.

The band will play for about an hour and then they will take a while to talk with the crowd answering questions about what it is like to be in a successful rock band, what it is like to go on tour, or even what it is like to be on MTV.

If you have been trying to find ways to get teens to your library, and to show them that the library can be cool to, what could be better than being part of the Rock and Roll Library Tour. Teens will jump at a chance to see a band live, for free, that they would normally be shelling out twenty bucks to see at some other venue. For more info, check out the bands website or email William Harmer at harmerbi@baldwinlib.org. If you are in the area, stop by during the opening show at the Detroit Public Library on April 5^th at 5:30 pm.

Any way, my idea involves the use of a really interesting book called Seek, by Paul Fleischman, which I will describe in more detail in the review section. Pauls website http://www.paulfleischman.net/works.htm gives us a good short description of the book. ” Assigned to write his autobiography, Rob “listens back” over his life. That symphony of words comprises Seek, delivered by a chorus of 52 speakers–from relatives to baseball announcers to Rob’s absent DJ father, a man he’s spent his life pursuing through the labyrinth of the airwaves. A sound portrait both compelling and comic, presented entirely in dialogue.” This book is written in the form of a radio play and at the end Paul gives instructions that would help you read through it as a grouped and create a radio, or audio play of it.

This is where my idea comes in. I loved this book, and especially loved the audio portion of it. It is a book which is meant to be read aloud, and with a group of people. So why not get a group of people, in this case teens, together and record a reading of this book. It is a fun book, and it would be an interesting experiment to try to create our own audio book. Obviously this would require the library to have some sort of recording device and possibly some audio editing equipment on the computer. But with the required equipment this could be a very fun activity. Not only that but depending on what copyright issues are, it is possible we could create this audio book and then include it as part of the collection, which would really help the kids feel like they are a part of the library.