Keeping Busy in the Ivory Tower
Or, Take a Look at What’s Been Driving Ellie to the Brink of Frothing Madness for the Past Few Weeks
The long and short of it is that my studies have taken such a prominent role in my life that I’ve decided to quit my part-time job. As we speak (or as I type), I’m going over my letter of resignation with a mix of gladness and regret. Ultimately, this is the best decision I can make, but I can’t help feeling a little wounded by cutting out a small bit of sociability.
Still, driving for 45 minutes, spending seven hours doing work that’s deteriorating my joints, and then driving for an hour back home through tourist traffic eats up a lot of time that I could be spending on preparing for a better future. Comparing the short-term prospect of receiving a steady paycheck with filling my days by volunteering and building a career I’ll actually enjoy… I’ll take the leap.
I’ll be okay financially. I won’t be hurting, but I’ll have to be frugal. It works in my favor anyway; I’ve been meaning to adopt a more calorie-deficient diet to lose my muffin top.
Anyway, the cause of my frothing madness. Becoming a future LIS professional means keeping on top of trends—and there are lots of them. A nerve-wracking ton of them. Being the geek I am, I investigated how fandom works in libraries and found a happy little nest of peer-reviewed articles. Since these don’t require a university or journal account to view, you can take a gander yourself, if you’re interested.
You’re not? Okay, scroll past the links for some bit of news.
The Center for the Future of Libraries: Trends – Fandom
American Library Association
Ta-da. Okay, not an article, but I’m including it. The other trends are worth checking out, though some of them no longer apply, like the subscription boxes and anonymity. I think short reading is also going out, since platforms are emphasizing longer-form content. (But we all know the pendulum swings fast and hard on the internet, so I predict it will make a comeback within 3-5 years.)
Fandom in Public Libraries: Mapping of Initiatives and Their Applicability
Bruna Daniele de Oliveira Silva and Deise Maria Antonio Sabbag [ResearchGate]
This 2019 research paper focuses more on how Brazilian libraries can participate in fandom culture, but I think it applies to libraries the world over.
Motivations for Nostalgia in the Nintendo Fandom
Leandro Augusto Borges Lima and Bertalan Zoltán Varga [Journal of Transformative Works]
This very recent (2023) paper highlights Nintendo’s significance as a cultural phenomenon and the nostalgia’s effects on fans, both old and new. I found this quote particularly interesting:
[5.8] I used to watch a lot of YouTube videos from this channel called Cinemassacre. They made videos called Angry Video Game Nerd; it was quite big when I was younger. He played all these games on other consoles, also on [a] Sega and Commodore, so through that I used to learn a lot about the previous eras. It was a source of information for me besides just being entertainment.
Any content creators reading this, take note: you could one day become the subject of a research paper and not know it. So make it really weird for future scholars.
The Fading of the Elves: Techno-Volunteerism and the Disappearance of Tolkien Fan Fiction Archives
Dawn Wells-Thumma [Journal of Transformative Works]
Oh, boy. Back when the original movie trilogy came out, I not only read the books back-to-back, I also read a lot of LotR fanfiction. Many stories came from… *cough* certain mature sites. Look, I was in my early 20s and didn’t have a boyfriend. Shut up.
But this article does highlight a problem that we’re still seeing: the decaying of software, evolving code, and aging technology that makes preserving digital materials a difficult process. I see this becoming a bigger issue for videos in the future, especially if platforms keep fighting consumers trying to preserve materials.
Life hasn’t stopped in other aspects. I’ve been satisfying my possibly ADHD brain by listening to playthroughs and songs for another Sounds entry, and sneaking in pockets of time to research for the next VTQ quest, a two-parter that I’m combining into one entry. It’ll be like a fetch quest followed by an escort quest, but without the obnoxious NPCs.
I wouldn’t expect that by the end of this month, but it’s getting done. I just have to finish a few more research side quests at the same time.