My Love of The Outsiders Fan Fiction

Ok there are some readers that will know I love The Outsiders and that I have also mentioned my love of some, not all, The Outsiders Fan Fiction.  But here I will share a little bit more on why I love some of The Outsiders Fan Fiction.

To quote from Wikipedia: Fan fiction (alternatively referred to as fanfiction, fanfic, FF, or simply fic) is a broadly-defined fan labor term for stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. 

I stumbled across The Outsiders Fan Fiction purely by accident - so much so I can't even remember how and why I found it.  Regardless, I haven't looked back since finding it.

For me it is the ability for the characters to continue to live on once I finished the book that does it for me.  And while some fan fiction is absolutely terrible, others I have found to be quite good - even up there with the original book.

I admit that I don't always feel in the mood to go to it and I have my The Outsiders on and off phases but it is something I keep coming back to.

I have re-read the original book to many times to remember but at times I feel I have out done it (definately not out grown it) - but am over it and want the to see the characters move on and that is exactly what fan fiction has allowed me to do.

Sometimes you find a story that you just shake your head in disbelief at what they put the characters through.  Others try to re-write the original with different endings - some I have liked, others I haven't.

I now have a few fan fiction authors that I have feeds for so I know when they write a new chapter or new story.  It is frustrating at times at how slow they release the chapters but most are very much worth waiting for.  Other stories have been started and left abandoned - I have found a few where it has been a real shame that this has happened.

Did you know that Fifty Shades of Grey started as a Twilight Fan Fiction story?  So fan fiction can be and has been a starter for some successful authors.

Anyway, for those who share my love of The Outsiders - here are some links to what I think have been good stories/authors:

• FeistyFeist
• A Sideways Smile
• Mars on Fire

They used to have Wrong Side of the Tracks awards for the best The Outsiders FanFic but it hasn't been updated for many years.

Of course, they also have some YouTube clips where fans have put together some clips from the movie to appropriate or sometimes inappropriate song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4EHMS7a-IU

But if you are an Outsiders fan - you can't go past this website http://www.theoutsidersbookandmovie.com/Index.html

Library Day in the Life - Post #3

Sorry for the delay in putting this post up but I was a tad exhausted after work and then my daughter took over the computer to play games.

I started the day with an hour and half drive to our library service HQ where one of our book suppliers was coming to visit. The deal is the book supplier brings many many boxes of books and the regional librarian, the coordinator of the other branch libraries and I go through and select which ones we'd like to purchase for our library service.

In a past job, I did book selection for the 900 DDC area. But when I started in this position, book selection was not a part of my role. The HQ staff would select the books for the library service and branch staff would be able to have input via submission of Requests for Purchase. I really missed book selection, and there is nothing like having someone with local knowledge of their branch libraries to know what will and won't be read.

Since our new Regional Librarian started 12 months ago, I have been invited to attend book selection days. There are usually around 2 a month. Of course we use more than 2 book suppliers but these are the only 2 we have organised to visit. It can take us 2-3 hours to do this process depending on how many books we have to go through.

We have a standing order which makes the process a bit easier, and of course, large print and audio books are purchased in a different manner so we don't have to go through those formats. We are now also in the process of building a DVD collection - yes we don't have one. We must be the only library service in Australia that doesn't have a DVD collection. But now we do - albeit small - at this stage. So we will also be selecting DVDs.

The process we go through is the book supplier will show us all the adult fiction, then junior easies, junior fiction, young adult fiction, junior non-fiction and adult fiction. We pick out the ones we think we should have in the collection and other HQ staff check these against the catalogue to ensure we don't already have them.

Once selection was completed, the Regional Librarian, coordinator of other branch libraries and I had a meeting to do final preparation for Library Lovers Day and the launch of National Year of Reading which is happening on 14 February. We then headed to the local pub for our $10 lunch specials - the pub is actually a nice place to eat as we eat on the verandah that overlooks a river.

After lunch I packed up the boxes to take back to my branches, had a look at some draft posters for an activity we are running this year and bid farewell. Back in my main branch library it had been raining fairly steadily all day and the staff had discovered a leak in one of the skylights - unfortunately there were some stock that did not fair well. The leak is something I will have to follow up with facilities staff today as they didn't make it over yesterday. The river is once again up so I was lucky that my relief staff made it as they live on the other side of the river which gets cut off from the main part of town.

It has been raining fairly heavily for most of last night but I have checked river heights and it looks like the bridge has not gone under.

On my way home I got a call from said relief staff who said that the local Steiner school had called and asked if they could use the library study rooms to run their school tomorrow as they are flooded out - i.e. they can't get to their school. So I look forward to approx. 40 odd students in the library tomorrow!!

Library Politics

Since moving from Qld to NSW I have been struggling with the close relationship with Council councillors and libraries. The Public Libraries NSW association is divided into Zones - our library service is part of the North East Zone. Our Zone has a full Zone meeting twice a year and a managers meeting twice a year. I attend the full Zone meetings and the Regional Librarian attends the managers meeting. The meetings are held in May and October - one on the coast and one inland - usually inland in May (cold) and coast in October (so we can swim!!).

My Council has a councillor who is nominated to be the library representative. The councillor attends the Zone meeting with me. This is the same in all the member Councils of Public Libraries NSW association. The same councillor also attends the association conferences with me.

This was very new to me. I am unsure if the same happens in other states but I believe the reasoning behind this is so that the other Council councillors are aware of what is going on in the library world and they can lobby for us. Councillors have better access to local members of parliament and are used to speaking the speak. So does this happen in other states?

Now I mentioned before that there are two public library associations in NSW - Public Libraries NSW (formerly Public Libraries NSW - Country) and Public Libraries NSW Metropolitan (my linking is not working correctly so http://www.nswmpla.org.au/). For many many years there as been negotiation back and forth between the two associations to merge and become one voice. I am not fully aware of the history so I can't comment too much - although I do believe that there are less councillors involved in the metropolitan assocation then in the country association.

Since the negotiations continue to fail - Public Libraries NSW decided to open membership beyond country libraries and invite all public libraries in NSW to join. Apparently there has been some movement of metro libraries from their association to ours.

The other thing I found interesting after moving here is the attitude towards ALIA. I noted that even though some of the country librarians are members they don't necessarily think that ALIA supports public libraries enough.

I have noted that ALIA has done some pretty good lobbying on behalf of public libraries in the past few years. It did help that there was a public librarian as the President but I feel that this has continued. When prompted I can't get a list of what they think ALIA should be doing - just that they don't feel they are doing enough.

Personally I think ALIA has been doing quite a lot for public libraries - especially in getting our representation on the table for things like the NBN, NYR2012, and the Library Initiative to name a few. There has been some successful lobbying for library funding in other states - not sure why NSW has not been tackled, especially when our state funding is the lowest in Australia. Maybe we, as a state, haven't put our hand up to ALIA for assistance - again I'm not sure son can't comment.

There was a comment made recently at our association AGM concerning the represenation of public libraries in the recently published Book Industry Strategy Group final report http://www.innovation.gov.au/Industry/BooksandPrinting/BookIndustryStrategyGroup/Documents/BISGFinalReport.pdf
Especially when it came to this quote from the report:
"But the very concept of a public library is currently under threat and may appear to some readers as remote as the medieval monastery, especially when they can access the contents of the Library of Congress from their iPads. The Fisher Library of the University of Sydney plans to eliminate 500,000 books from its collection. The University of New South Wales Library is converting library space to lounges, which are more friendly to people using ereaders. It is difficult to imagine any government in 2011 committing large sums to the construction of new libraries."

It was asked why this quote, especially the last sentence was included in the report and why the representatives of public libraries did not disagree with this statement. As many of the NSW public libraries apply for building funding via the State Library Development Grants - having this quote circulating around probably doesn't assist the case in getting funding for new libraries.

The reply was that there was an opportunity for public libraries to respond to the draft report but there were few submissions received. There was then the comment that many people didn't see the call for submissions - so really who is to know who is at fault?!? Often the call for submissions allows little time to put one together. Do others agree?

Anyway, these are the political things I struggle with since moving to NSW but I am interested to learn about what happens in other states - even in other industries.

Do you think it is a good idea having councillors involved? Do you think we should have less associations and one that speaks for all? Do you think ALIA does a good job in speaking for all?