Chapter 4 Summary
Being that I am a visual learner, seeing the web diagrams in the video, Genres and Formats: The Might Not Be What You Think, helped me with comprehending this topic. The video begins with describing that genre only has two types: fiction and nonfiction, and it goes into explaining the subgenres that fall under these two umbrellas. Following this, the two subgenres that fall under fiction were explained, and then the subgenres that fall under fantasy were broken down into two more categories. These two categories are traditional and modern. I now know that my favorite of these two fall under modern fantasy, but I had always assumed that it was just fantasy and not a specific type. After all of the subgenres were discussed for fiction, nonfiction has one umbrella, being informational, which was discussed along with all the subgenres that fall under it.
I had always assumed that every type of book is a genre. For example, I caught myself saying “oh wow, I was wrong all along” when I learned that graphic novels and picture books were not a genre but rather a format. I have always told my students that one of my favorite genres was graphic novels, but I now know that this is not the case. I am glad I learned this early on in my journal of becoming a librarian.
Learning about these genres and subgenres that fall under the two umbrellas of fiction and non-fiction will be helpful to remember as I am reading my YA books. Now that I know all the subgenres and subjects/categories that I thought were genres are not, I can use this new information to determine which genre and subgenre I think the books that I am reading would fall under.
The topic of “genrefy” and “genrefying” a library had been briefly mentioned towards the middle of the video but went into more detail towards the end. After hearing more on this topic, I am now interested in finding out more about this because it seems to be a topic for debate whether it is a good or bad thing to do for a library. As the video mentions, if a library has books put under certain subjects/categories, it may change a student's mind on the book they are interested in reading. The example given discusses a situation where a student, who is a boy, wants to read Twilight but sees it in the “chick lit” section. Would this change the student’s mind? Would they still feel comfortable looking through this section? These are great questions that every librarian should take into consideration when considering “genrefying” their library, and ones that I will keep in mind when I am a librarian myself.
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