E54 – Resources At Your Local Library

Show Notes

This podcast episode of “Revision Wizards” explores the numerous resources available at libraries for writers and editors. Beyond books, libraries offer writing and editing guides, research materials, and quiet spaces for work. They often host writing groups, workshops, and seminars, providing community and learning opportunities. Libraries also may have recording studios and access to museum passes. The hosts emphasize the many unexpected benefits libraries offer, encouraging listeners to explore their local library’s resources.

The Revision Wizards are at https://www.revisionwizards.com
V.E. Griffith’s website: https://www.vegriffith.com
Miss Catherine M.H.’s website: https://www.scribes-pen.com

Transcript at: https://revisionwizards.com/?p=2628

Transcript

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Welcome to the Revision Wizards podcast. I’m Ms. Catherine M.H. and I’m joined by my whimsically weird co-host V.E. Griffith.

[V.E. Griffith]
This week is episode 54 and we’re discussing libraries and how they can benefit the writer and the editor. So Ms. Catherine, we know that libraries have books and you can go check them out and read them for free and all of that good stuff. It’s pretty simple and straightforward.

Is that the only thing they offer or is there more?

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Absolutely not. I fell in love with libraries as a child. I loved that I could take out books and I could do things with them.

And then when I worked for a library, I discovered that libraries do more than just, you know, rent books for you. And it is fascinating to me how much people don’t know about like what that offers the community in general, but what it also offers to writers and editors. So libraries offer a host of awesome things.

Where should I start? Your country or my country? Cause I just looked up yours.

[V.E. Griffith]
Well, let’s start with some of the stuff that you can find just on the stacks in the, in the books section. Are you going to find a section for editing or for grammar or for style guides or stuff like that, if you look closely enough, or if you ask your librarian?

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yeah, most of the time the systems are now are digital. So you could go in and type in things like book editing, and it will pop up with the books in the store that are based on editing for books. So you could actually go in and read up on how to edit your own books.

I’ve done this before. They have writing resources. So like how to write books, they will have those there.

They will have how to draw for like the books, how to do world building. And they have those resources there. Another good thing that they also have is when you go in looking for research for your books.

You can type in those keywords, be able to hunt down those books much easier than if you just walked into someone being like, hi, I’m researching the Paleolithic timeframe, but only from this time to this time. And what kind of books do you have? Because the librarian’s going to be like, yeah, sure.

Let me just pull that out of my head because there’s thousands of books here. So it helps when you have looked up a few of the books you want to research and then go up to your librarian and be like, where do I find these? Because then you also don’t have to word vomit any of your research at them, which is kind of fun.

[V.E. Griffith]
But you’re the one who likes word vomit.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yeah. But a library, I don’t know, there’s something about when you’re in there, like you start to whisper and you pretend that you can’t talk as much. And maybe it’s because like I grew up in a generation where as soon as you walked in, the first thing your mom would say to you was, shh, you’re in a library.

And it is interesting to see that kids don’t have that immediate quiet as much anymore, walking into a library. They develop it over time, but most of the time they’re allowed to talk as loud as they want versus when I used to go in and have to be extremely quiet.

[V.E. Griffith]
So what other sorts of resources have you seen? Have you seen things like critique groups and writers groups? Have you seen editing groups or seminars?

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yep. Most libraries will have a book club of some kind, either they are the national book club, like the United States has a national book club that they come out yearly with based on each season. And most libraries will participate in that sense where they won’t meet to talk about them, but all the librarians understand what the books are, where to find them, and it kind of becomes a challenge in a lot of the libraries of how many people are reading from this book club list and how often is the book being checked out weekly because they will be weekly books for people.

Another thing that you will see is sometimes there are writing groups that will meet at the library because that’s a space to work and most of the time, again, it’s a quiet space. So you’re not talking as much to the person sitting next to you. You’re actually getting work done, but you’re sitting in that community sense, you’re not writing alone anymore.

I haven’t seen too many editing groups. I’ve seen some critique groups. I’ve seen poetry classes, things like that.

So your libraries have those things opened up for you.

[V.E. Griffith]
And I’ve seen writing seminars on all kinds of topics, how to write middle grade fiction, how to write fantasy, common tropes, those kinds of topics, individual topics, you’ve seen all kinds of interesting stuff at your library. And a lot of times all you have to do is ask your librarian or go to the library website for a list of upcoming events.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
I know that there was a big one at my old library, which was how to write and draw comic books. And they used to meet monthly and they would have this whole big group that did that. So it is, you know, based on each library.

Sometimes they offer more things. Sometimes they don’t have as much. So, but it is very interesting to actually look into one.

You’ll find that most of the time a library will have a space for meetings. They’ll have space that you could possibly rent out. Some of them will rent.

Some of them will just be like, cool, you put your name down and you’ve reserved this location. So if you wanted to teach classes there, if you wanted to have a writing group, or if you had an editing critique group, you could rent slash reserve a space inside the library. And it’s that common ground where everyone knows how to usually get there and can find it easily.

[V.E. Griffith]
What about other resources like a place to record your podcast? It’s quiet. Do those exist?

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
In larger libraries? Yes. They will have recording rooms.

I know New York city does. They’ve incorporated a lot more into the amount of space that they can do and they have more resources. So they have those things where you could rent out one of those little cubicle rooms and you could do recordings.

You could do your video recordings. It’s all based on how large your library is. If you’re in a very small public library in, you know, a very rural area, you’re probably not getting as much of those resources as another library would have, but they would have the ability to point you in directions of where to go for them.

So they’re very good at knowing that information and that local information for people.

[V.E. Griffith]
The other thing that I have found is that libraries are very interested in having people from the community come into the library and put on a program. So if you’re the sort of author who wants to be a subject matter expert and discuss your favorite topic and put on a seminar that you can offer for free to the community, librarians frequently will help you do that.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Very true. One of the really cool things, especially with libraries, at least in New York State that I know of, there’s a lot of museum passes and passes to, I knew that there was one that had passes to water parks. They had passes to wildlife preservations.

So it’s things where, you know, like if you needed to do some research or you needed to have a mental health day from all of the amounts of writing and editing you’ve been doing, you can get those passes and go enjoy yourself for a day. Get that boost of energy back again and get right back into writing and editing.

[V.E. Griffith]
That sounds like more fun than should be allowed.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Exactly. There’s lots of resources at libraries, but most people just think of them as a place for books.

[V.E. Griffith]
All right. What else did we miss?

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
They have tutors and things like that for kids, but most of the time they really do have a great reading program when it comes to kids, getting kids interested in books, which is super important because if you’re thinking about writing and getting those books published while those kids growing up, they’re going to become your future readers. So it’s really valuable that libraries have child programs. So this way, those future readers are going to want to keep coming back to the library that might have your book on that shelf.

[V.E. Griffith]
And if you’re a children’s author, you may be able to schedule a read along time where you can come in, read your book to a group of children.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yep. I’ve seen many of those having worked at a library. Local writers would be like, Hey, I’ve got this book.

I want to come in. I want to do a reading. And then they usually will tend to also donate their book to the library to help out with the collection.

Yeah, it gets your name out. It gets you active in the community and you start learning more about the community you’re in. So you become a bigger figure than just, Oh, she’s a local author.

That’s great.

[V.E. Griffith]
Well, I think that covers a quick overview. There’s always more to dig into. Every library is going to be different.

So go down to your local one and see what they have. If you’re in a city large enough that has multiple branches, your best bet is to start at your central library.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Or start at their website and do check out their rare collections because that’s a really cool branch and libraries that people forget about is that they’ll have rare books. Sometimes they have rare maps. I’ve been to the Boston Public Library, like the main branch, and they have an entire locked up section where you have to like sign in and get permission to go in and look at maps from like Lewis and Clark or maps that were brought over on the Mayflower.

So like they have really cool resources that can get your brain firing on all cylinders because you’re just staring at these really cool ancient things in our brains and you get to see them firsthand without even having to go to a library most of the time or without having to go to a museum most of the time.

[V.E. Griffith]
It sounds like a great resource for somebody who writes historical fiction.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
It is.

[V.E. Griffith]
Okay. I think that about covers it for this week.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yeah. Let us know what your library has.

[V.E. Griffith]
We’d love to hear from you.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
And of course, stay magical.

[V.E. Griffith]
Bye.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Thank you so much for joining us for today’s episode. You can find every episode on your favorite podcast player and on YouTube. For transcripts, please visit our website at revisionwizards.com.

They go live the same day as our episodes.

[V.E. Griffith]
If you’d like to reach out to us separately, you can find me at vegriffith.com and Ms. Catherine at scribes-pen.com.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Stay magical.