Are you an avid reader or want to get back into reading? Do you scour the internet or pester your friends and teachers for book reccommendations? Are you interested in learning more about Atlanta or Savannah history? A blossoming project called “Call Me Ishmael” is a dedicated service that allows book-lovers easier and more personal access to all of these interests.
Video courtesy of YouTube.
In 2014, two Georgians, Logan Smalley and Steph Kent, started the phone line and website “Call Me Ishmael” which allows readers to call and leave a voicemail at 774-325-0503 discussing the book they just read, how it relates to their personal life, and any lessons they learned from it. Smalley and Kent also developed a website where they post videos that play audio from each voicemail and use an authentic typewriter to transcribe the voicemail. Each video is approximately a minute long and new videos are posted every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Image courtesy of www.slate.com.
According to Melville House, “Call Me Ishmael” has gotten over 1,000 calls and over one million readers have listened to and watched the videos of the voicemail recordings. Smalley and Kent’s next objective is provide any library, bookstore or school an old-fashioned dial phone for locals to listen to Ishmael’s stories on. Librarians, bookstore managers and teachers curate any number of Ishmael’s stories to the phone. According to the “Call Me Ishmael” Kickstarter page, readers can dial a button on the phone and select to hear stories from members of the bookstaff or library, stories about books that take place in the town, stories about books by visiting authors or stories from local students. In this way, the community becomes engaged not just through reading, but by sharing personal impacts books have had on people and learning more about stories relative to their town or area.
Smalley and Kent have already tested a prototype of their vintage phone at Avid Bookshop in Athens, Ga. and have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $10,000 to be able to provide a “Call Me Ishmael” phone to any library or bookstore in the country that wants one.
Her Campus SCAD believes SCAD Atlanta’s Ivy Hall would be a perfect location to resurrect a “Call Me Ishmael” phone pertinent to SCAD students and Atlanta civilians. Students and faculty could “Call Ishmael” on their mobile phones to leave messages about their favorite books, and then use the Ivy Hall phone to listen to stories from other students, teachers and Atlanta civilians. They could also hear stories about books from the Ivy Hall Visiting Writer’s Series authors as a promotional tool and hear stories about Atlanta history or from Atlanta authors like these:
1. “Gone With the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell (1937)
Image courtesy of Pinterest.
2. “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett (2009)
Image courtesy of thatwasnotinthebook.com.
3. “The Temple Bombing” by Melissa Fay Greene (2006)
Image courtesy of Amazon.
Or some Savannah-based or coastal books like these:
1. “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt (1994)
Image courtesy of www.georgiaencyclopedia.org.
2. “Weepin’ Time” by Rand Wood Tuttle (2010)
Image courtesy of Amazon.
3. “Lighthouse” (First Novel in the St. Simons Trilogy) by Eugenia Price (2012)
Image courtesy of Amazon.
Not to mention the phone would drive more tourism to SCAD Atlanta while promoting a small Georgia business.
What do you think about “Call Me Ishmael”? Would you want a “Call Me Ishmael” phone set up at SCAD Atlanta or SCAD Savannah? Let us know in the comment section below.