Why Dog Eared Discoveries?

Reading is far from dead, as many would have us believe. One quick look through leadership literature, popular blogs and podcasts, and cultural observation will show reading as a prominent feature of our society. Name a film cycle throughout the year that doesn’t include a book adaptation or a film clearly counting on the success of a book to carry over into the film version.

But is reading ever fully understood? The push to read as a young child is the grand task of parents and educators. By the time these students are in their teens, though, the task of reading is perceived as a chore that will never end until all levels of schooling are completed.

Despite what some students believe, reading is not a form of academic torture but is a way to have a conversation. This conversation is one with ideas, with fascinating lives, and with oneself. Most people understand this. I know many people who would describe themselves as a person who doesn’t like to read but I know very few who do not want to be a reader.

As an academic librarian, it is my job to help people read. No, I am not like a children’s librarian pushing reading clubs and literacy programs. I am attempting to guide students to these conversations with ideas because I know that it will help improve their understanding, allow them to form their own conclusions, and even contribute to the topic in a way that is unique, refreshing, and hopefully well informed.

What I am trying to do with Dog Eared Discoveries is take the ideas and highlights from a modest academic library and present them to students, faculty, and whoever wants to observe. I plan to take well known or not so well known books as well as the new and old alike and show, in clear terms, what that piece brings to the great conversation and why anyone should care. I hope that these brief “treasure posts” will provide entry points into a world of ideas, philosophies, and truth found in just about any library in the world.

My goal is to help readers discover that reading is a powerful exercise and that finding treasures of truth or ideas is not a arduous process but one that can happen with a turn of a page.