Pop Culture Roundtable

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of the NYLA Pop Culture Roundtable is to provide information and resources to librarians on a variety of pop culture related topics, including but not limited to comic books and graphic novels, manga and anime, tabletop and video gaming, movies, music, film, science fiction and fantasy, geekery, and fandom.  This roundtable will be of interest to libraries of all types as both librarians and patrons of all types of libraries are interested in various facets of pop culture, and by integrating pop culture into library services and practices libraries establish a continued cultural relevancy with their patrons.

The roundtable will serve these functions:

  1. Create a network of librarians statewide that are interested in pop culture.
  2. Provide a forum for the exchange of ideas on programming, services, and collection development related to pop culture and promote the ways librarians can meet the needs of their patrons through pop culture.
  3. Provide continuing education opportunities related to pop culture throughout the year and at the NYLA Annual Conference and Trade Show.
  4. Create an event during the annual NYLA Conference and Trade Show that would serve as an opportunity to demonstrate and learn about games and gaming in libraries.
  5. Coordinate with the ALA Graphic Novel Member Interest Group to establish and maintain a NYLA presence at New York Comic Con by having a booth on the exhibit floor and running a programming session during the event.
  6. Collect best practices, and create and distribute resources for holding pop culture related conventions or festivals in libraries.

Roundtable Structure:

The Pop Culture Roundtable will be managed by a committee to be elected every two years. The committee would organize events for librarians at the NYLA Conference and oversee other activities of the roundtable. These activities might include regional “demo days” of library pop culture related programming, aid libraries in establishing a presence in local pop culture conventions, establishing a database of artists and creators in New York State that are interested in presenting at libraries, organizing group trips of librarians to major pop culture events such as New York Comic Con, creating a “lending library” of games or other materials that could be circulated among libraries in NYS, and other functions as requested by the members.

Committee structure:

President/ Vice-President / Treasurer / Secretary – two year terms for each position