It was a fabulous talk. She covered politics, as you might expect, as well as reading and writing. She described reading in a way that completely resonated with my memories of reading as a child, and it made me want to read more. (These days, as I am writing book length works, I find it too stressful to read books. Reading them makes me stressed out about how people will read mine. Instead, I’m reading a lot of graphic novels. I can’t wait to get back to text novels and nonfiction once I’ve wrapped up these projects!) She described writing in exactly the way I experience: not nearly as fun as having had written.
As much as I loved what she was saying about reading and writing, my favorite part of her talk was about the news industry. She described the world as both bigger and smaller, simultaneously, due to technology. I’m sure than many of the blogging/twittering librarians have experienced this, as people across the country might know what’s going on in our lives more-so than our physical neighbors. She talked about the amazing access to information that we have thanks to the internet, but how we’ve lost the talk over fences and on front porches that people used to have. And what was most impressive about this, was I didn’t get the feeling that she was judgmental about this shift, but rather that she was exploring the possible implications and meanings of this change. And she was looking for ways to get back some of what we lost, without shutting the door on what we’ve gained.
She also made a statement that touched on information literacy (as far as I’m concerned). She said,
“We have to reinvent the news, but you have to reinvent the reader.”
I love it. In this statement, she was describing how journalist have to adapt to how people consume news today. She described how journalism has shifted in the past to people’s changing needs and expectations, and described a more nuanced and deep form of journalism that we need today (that actually reminded me a lot of the Ira Glass keynote at ACRL). And then she pointed out that the readers of news also have to reinvent what news is. She talked about how readers need to be smart, and read widely, to get the full story, and essentially described an RSS reader to pull together various content.
Quindlen gave a great talk, and it’s one I’m still thinking over. I will make sure to hear her anytime I get the chance, and will (as soon as I’ve finished my big writing projects) read all of her works, and quickly!
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