Ellen

no longer here: find me where the skies are blue at ellenoffrell. Library Assistant in SE London. @CILIPinfo member working towards Chartership.

[Ellen @booktrotting]

Tapping out of this app indefinitely. You can find me at:

Bluesky: ellenoffrell
Instagram: booktrotting

[Ellen @booktrotting]

Takes me out every time (spoilers for Foster by Claire Keegan, I suppose)

[Campbell College Librarian @ccb_library]

I really wish more people realised what a good investment a well-funded school library and, crucially, librarian is.

We know our pupils, their reading habits & the books they want to read, and provide the space for them to do so.

We are not a ‘nice to have’. We are a necessity.

[Ellen @booktrotting]

Also worth noting that our top five most borrowed books of the 23-24 school year were the Heartstopper graphic novels. All five. Two things from this:
- "woke" and "ideology" are not the issue. Kids love to see representation in their books.
- Graphic Novels are the way forward

[Ellen @booktrotting]

Factors I'd attribute, if I had to guess:
- YA market serving older, female readers
- MG market prioritising celebrity titles
- Unprecedented corrosion of focus/concentration amongst teenagers
- Schools defunding libraries, getting rid of librarians
- PARENTS not reading

[Ellen @booktrotting]

@Jazzy_witch Watched this recently about how dopamine works in regards to social media vs doing something actually challenging it’s very interesting ! https://t.co/p8xZVyM0K1

[Ellen @booktrotting]

@Jazzy_witch I do think there has been a corrosion of attention span and I fear blaming tiktok makes me a bit “old man yells at cloud” but there is definitely a dopamine issue at play!

[Ellen @booktrotting]

@Jazzy_witch Tbf I think the librarian parents may be outliers!

[Nathanael Lessore @NateLessore]

Got this in my IG inbox this morning.
Teenage boys are reading!

Let's go!

[Ellen @booktrotting]

Bonus: Tate-ification of hobbies in boys -- reading seen as a "girly" hobby; reading can only be good if it's explicitly informing self improvement that leads to becoming an alpha male

[Ellen @booktrotting]

Factors I'd attribute, if I had to guess:
- YA market serving older, female readers
- MG market prioritising celebrity titles
- Unprecedented corrosion of focus/concentration amongst teenagers
- Schools defunding libraries, getting rid of librarians
- PARENTS not reading

[The Guardian @guardian]

Report finds ‘shocking and dispiriting’ fall in children reading for pleasure https://t.co/uzdjngzvZN

[Ellen @booktrotting]

If school libraries didn't work, PRIVATE 👏 SCHOOLS 👏WOULD 👏 NOT 👏 PAY 👏 FOR 👏 THEM 👏

[hux | lizzie huxley-jones 🍟📚 (they/them) @littlehux]

I think frequently of something my smart librarian friend once said — if school libraries didn’t work, private schools wouldn’t pay for them. A lack of a funded school library for every school and the cutting of libraries around the country is such a factor here.

[Ellen @booktrotting]

@Jazzy_witch New life goal unlocked!

[Ellen @booktrotting]

Librarians absolutely kill at adding letters and titles to their names

[CILIP @CILIPinfo]

Hearing from @FloEshalomi MP who says she wouldn’t have passed her GCSES without access to the library. And now as a parent how important they continue to be. And a shout out to librarians as a first point of access to the service. #LibrariesChangeLives

[Junior School @AlleynsSchool @Alleyns_Junior]

#TheBigRead goes from strength to strength: “The best thing about it was that I got to be creative”. Thank you to the amazing @mossmontgomery as well as @villagebooksdul and @papercatbooks for making Saturday's event such a success. And of course our wonderful friends from from @heberschool @bessemergrange @LyndhurstSE5
@StAnthonysSE22 @HPAEastDulwich @DKHSchool @GGPrimarySchool for bringing such wonderfully creative ideas. Reading is magic! #alleynspartnerships

[Ellen @booktrotting]

@roryisconfused https://t.co/PeXmu80Acu upcoming races in Battersea, Hertfordshire, Crystal Palace and Wimbledon!

[Ellen @booktrotting]

@roryisconfused All of the RunThrough ones are just pay for a place! They’re not super cheap but they’re not insane either - chip times and photos

[Ellen @booktrotting]

I ran my first half-marathon this weekend! If you're thinking of doing the same, here are some book recommendations about running and adjacent that motivated me on my training journey. #booktwitter

[Ellen @booktrotting]

Yas queen!

[The Nobel Prize @NobelPrize]

BREAKING NEWS
The 2024 #NobelPrize in Literature is awarded to the South Korean author Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

[out of context gilmore girls @ggsnocontext]

what the literary girlies will be reading today (me) 📚