Searching, please wait...
|
Sort Blog Posts
Sort Posts by:
Suggest a Blog
Enter a Blog's Feed URL below and click Submit:
Most Commented Posts
In the past 7 days
Recent Posts
(tagged with 'New Librarians')
- Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: New Librarians, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 26 - 50 of 60
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: New Librarians in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
I’m about four months in to my first professional position out of grad school. I was very lucky to land a YA position just a few months after graduating, and I really like my library, my coworkers, and the community that supports the library. But as a new librarian, I’m finding that even though I have my MLS, I still have a lot of learning to do in providing a strong teen services program.
I’m not just a new librarian: I’m also in a newly created position. Until I started, our head of collection development was selecting all of the teen materials and other staff members would occasionally step up to do a teen program, but there hadn’t been a coordinated, sustained effort to serve teens. During all of my coursework, I’d never considered the possibility that I wouldn’t just be stepping into someone else’s shoes and inheriting an already running program, but I was excited to accept that challenge. Building my own program has been thrilling, especially since I’ve been given a lot of freedom to try things, but it’s also been kind of terrifying.
There are some things that have been going really well. I embarked on a massive weeding project and made the case for interfiling the paperback and hardcover teen fiction, which has been well-received by both patrons and staff members. I’ve been cranking out book lists and series shelf labels and other readers’ advisory tools. I lobbied for a small desk to be set up in the teen area (which is really far away from the reference desk) and rearranged the furniture and shelving to make it feel more like a dedicated space. I’m proud of all of this and I think that it has greatly improved what we’re offering our teens.
But working on all of those projects took time, and it all seemed really important, and we never have enough time for everything we want–so what I didn’t spend as much time doing was sitting at that new desk getting to know my patrons. Sure, I did a survey within my first couple weeks to see what kinds of programs teens at the library would be interested in and what their pop culture interests were. And when I could, I was doing on-desk time and was always so thrilled when I had the chance to do readers’ advisory (I’m quickly learning it’s my favorite part of my job). It just felt like I needed to do those things before I could properly serve my patrons–except that that “must do” list kept getting longer.
So when I launched our new YA programming schedule and no one came to my events, I was heartbroken. I’d spent so much time brainstorming, collecting cool ideas, planning, justifying with the Developmental Assets, creating posters and fliers, setting events up–and then just cleaning up after a couple sad hours in a room by myself. It hasn’t been a complete disaster: while no one ever came to my drop-in crafts during after-school hours, the drop-in gaming on a different day is drawing a small but regular crowd. And my movie nights have been mostly misses, but the screening of Harry Potter 6 the week before the seventh movie came out was a hit. And I have a very tiny, tentative Teen Advisory Board that may or may not survive but at least exists for now! But every time I planned or set up for a program, I was worrying and wondering if anyone would come.
For the new year, I took a step back and sat down to evaluate how thin
I recently moved from the Teen Services Librarian position at Red Deer Public Library to the teen job at the downtown branch of Edmonton Public Library, and while the two cities are only 1.5 hours from each other, they feel a universe apart to me. The teen area at the downtown branch has been without a librarian for the past few months (and in the 2 years before that, there was much turnover in the position). The space has been heavily used by street/at-risk/ inner city youth roughly aged 15-25, making younger teens and tweens feel intimidated to use the area to find library materials, let alone spend time there hanging out.
There was previously a reference desk near the teen area that was closed down (due to staffing constraints, but also because EPL made the move to roving/roaming reference). I am a relatively young librarian but old school in the sense that I generally find a stationary reference desk to be more ideal than roving reference, especially in the teen area. It has been my experience that unless all the staff members are equally committed to working with and engaging teens, they may as well not rove in the first place. That being said, roving has become the trend of public service at EPL, so I may just have to adapt to that.
What has been the experience at your libraries – do reference desks or roving prove more effective, or a combination of the two? It is my goal to engage with the older and inner city youth so they know that they are still welcome, but must abide by the rules like all of the other library patrons. I’d also like to make the space more welcoming to the younger teens, who currently use the children’s library. I am open to any thoughts or suggestions on this topic!
Earlier this summer, Melissa Rabey reflected on her experience so far on the Printz Committee. While I think a number of us one day aspire to serve on a selection committee, we may not be ready to make that kind of commitment yet, or we might feel like we don’t have the experience within YALSA to do so–but there are other ways to begin your involvement within YALSA. For new members especially, a task force can be a good way to try out professional service, so I thought I’d talk about my experience on the YALSA Mentoring Program Task Force.
The call for task force members went out a few days before I graduated. I’d been looking for avenues for getting more involved in YALSA, and a task force seemed like a manageable way to start. I’d applied for the mentoring program itself, too, so I made sure to mention that in my task force application. When I was asked to join the task force, I was told I just needed to recuse myself when my own application came up, but that I could still evaluate the other applications and help match proteges and mentors (and it turned out that one of the other members of the task force was an applicant to be a mentor!). Soon after the mentoring program application deadline passed, the chair of the task force emailed all of the members asking us to introduce ourselves to one another, and we began our work.
One thing that makes a task force a good place to start for people who are looking for their first way to get involved with YALSA is that many of them conduct their business entirely virtually. We did all of our work by exchanging emails and chatting via Skype, which was a great way for a group of people across the country with varying schedules to be able to collaborate. Of course, there are pitfalls in communication done primarily by email, but it opens task force work to people who can’t afford to travel and lets members work asynchronously.
Since task forces have a specific project to carry out, task force work is also usually done over a shorter timeline than a selection or process committee. We began our Mentoring Program Task Force work in early July and submitted our final recommendations at the end of August. If you’re anxious about how to get started with your YALSA involvement, a few months is a great trial period to see how you like it.
Joining a task force–or serving in any capacity with YALSA–is also a fun way to get to know your fellow YALSA members. Especially if you’re a new member, I think that trying to jump into a huge crowd of people you don’t know to make connections and friends can be intimidating. A task force is a good way to narrow that crowd to a friendly few and to start to put personalities and faces to the names you may have seen on listservs. While I’m not going to be able to make it to Midwinter this year since I’m going to the YA Lit Symposium in November, I’m hoping I’ll be able to meet up with some of the other task force members at future conferences.
I was a little nervous heading into my first professional involvement experience, but I had fun and I’m proud of the work we d
Many of you, like me, have made a shift from one job to another this summer. Kudos to each of you who still managed to get their posts in during September. Me, I’m just now getting to my desk to write this. (I just now have a desk in my apt!!) During this transition, a few earworms have made their way in. I imagine others have found certain songs rolling around their brains this last month too. With Teen Read Week‘s theme being Books with Beat this year, and our blogmaster giving her students a weekly playlist, I thought it only fitting to put down some of the beats that have been in my head lately.
Here’s my playlist:
- Welcome to the Jungle - Guns ‘n Roses (this is pretty self explanatory, right?)
- Lost in the supermarket – The Clash (while I feel totally lost at times in this new school, I imagine the students feel this way sometimes in the library as well)
- Los Angeles, I’m yours – The Decemberists (sometimes we just have to surrender and give our new location everything we’ve got)
- Swagga like us – Kanye West, Jay-Z, T.I., Lil Wayne, MIA (I’d like to believe that it’s always me with the swagga, but usually it’s the students)
- Maps – Yeah Yeah Yeahs (a healthy dose of narcissism when no one familiar is around to give it to you)
- Wannabe – Spice Girls (how many times do you ask “what you do really really want” only to get a strange/indecipherable answer?)
- Bad romance – Lady Gaga (currently the queen of the earworm if its not one Gaga song in my head, it’s another)
- Furr – Blitzen Trapper (this song is totally makes me want to read books with werewolves in them)
- So Whatcha Want? – Beastie Boys (“tell me where’d you get your information from hun,” –clearly these boys know how to evaluate their sources)
- L.E.S. Artistes – Santogold (I’m in a new state with a new job, and that brings anxiety. Santogold makes me feel a bit better about all this transition.)
- Ghost of corporate future – Regina Spektor (great advice when feeling overwhelmed)
- <
In August, I left my job at the Darien (Ct) Library to become the Academic Technology Coordinator at Hamden Hall Country Day School. While I’d begun my library career as an independent school librarian (at Wilbraham & Monson Academy in western Massachusetts), I have never been in the classroom before. Having now switched from a school to a public library and back again, I feel like I’m getting a pretty good sense of the overlaps between the two areas, as well as the significant differences. If you’re considering making the move to a school, here’s what I’ve learned in my few weeks on the job.
You’ve got a lot of names to remember. One thing that surprised me about working at a public library was that I didn’t really get to know the teens in the same way that I did as their school librarian. And already, I can see things swinging back in the other direction; when you see students every week, you do get to know them a bit more quickly, and perhaps even more deeply. I’d always assumed that working in a public library meant you could be more relaxed with your patrons–they can call you by your first name, you have more unstructured time with them, there aren’t teachers giving you dirty looks when you don’t shush the students (cough)–but in actuality, I found that I was more cautious with the teens, and they never opened up to me in the way that my students have. Now, I’m sure there are public librarians who will have had totally different experiences, so your mileage may vary. I will only say that as a teacher or a school librarian, you are a constant presence in your students’ lives, which can help build trust.
There’s a LOT to learn. If you are joining the ranks of the school librarians or becoming a teacher without any formal education or training, as I did, you are going to have to play a lot of catch-up. Not only are there new rules to follow, there are new resources, new politics, new challenges. And I have never worked at a public school, which I imagine is even more of a culture shock in terms of regulations and policies. In terms of school culture, I would recommend finding a mentor. Try to avoid putting your immediate supervisor in this role, though certainly that person should be a go-to resource and sounding board. A true mentor can help guide you through the uncharted territory of your new workplace and can listen to frustrations that you don’t necessarily want to run by your boss. Ask lots of questions: what is expected of me in this situation? What resources are available to me? What’s the best time to hit the caf? I noticed people wearing jeans even when the dress code says we can’t – what’s up with that? Schedule regular meetings with as many people as you can fit into your busy schedule: your boss, administrators, key teachers, the librarian (if you’re not that person). Ask for feedback.
And in terms of learning how to do your job, well, maybe that’s another lengthy post for another time, but in short: reach out. Use social networks to get human answers to your questions (as opposed to Google). I use Twitter constantly, both to ask questions of my network of friends and to follow professionals who post great ideas and resources. Follow the blogs
As a part of our community outreach each fall, my public library sends representatives to as many “Back to School Night” open houses as we are able. Library staff bring posters and flyers describing our programs for children and teens, library card applications, giveaways like our nifty color-changing pencils, and raffle tickets. Students and parents can see what’s going on at the library, get a card and a fancy writing implement with the library’s name on it, and fill out a raffle ticket to win some books.
Since I am new, and the first full-time young adult librarian my library has had, I want the teens, parents, and teachers in my community to see me and have every opportunity to say hello. So, I have volunteered to go on five of these visits. The first two were this past week and the experiences were vastly different.
On Wednesday evening I visited the local Catholic middle school. For their open house parents, and just a few kids, gathered in the auditorium where the principal spoke. Each of the few community guests, from a grocery store, the local boy scout troop, the Catholic high school, and me, were asked if we wanted to speak to the crowd briefly. I did, but since I was completely unprepared to do so, I think I sounded incoherent. After the principal and guests spoke, parents were directed to visit the teachers in their classrooms. A small handful of people said hello and told me they already had library cards before leaving the room. I sat there at my table with my poster and program flyers, and giveaways, for an hour and not a single parent came back into the auditorium.
On Thursday, I visited one of our two public middle schools. Another staff member visited the other middle school. This open house was set up so that parents and students had to enter through the cafetorium and walk around a series of displays from community members before they could enter the school and go to the classrooms. This seemed to work out pretty well for those of us set up at the tables. I was at the end and angled my trifold poster towards the oncoming crowd. Not everyone stopped but many people did. My eager cry of: “Color changing pencils!” seemed to help and I encouraged any who lingered longer than a second to fill out a raffle ticket. I spoke to a few families who seemed excited about my upcoming Harry Potter Movie Marathon, and a few more who applied for library cards.
Here are a few things I learned:
I need an elevator speech. In the entertainment industry this is the speech you give when you are in proximity of some star or producer in an elevator and have 30 seconds to pitch your idea. For me, it would be a structured notion of what to say when I am randomly asked to speak about the youth services department at my library. Instead of just saying, the library is awesome, I could have something specific to tell people about wanting to get teens involved in library programming.
I can’t expect too much control of the situation. Each school is different and sets up their open house differently. What I can control is smiling and saying hi to people no matter where my table is set up. Being out in the community and letting people see me has got to be better than not going. So even at the school where I didn’t talk to too many people, the whole room still saw me and had to think about the library, even for just
Earlier this month mk Eagle wrote about working with guidance counselors. Collaborating with other librarians and people who work with teens in the community is an important aspect to providing great YA services, but we can also find opportunities for collaboration within our own libraries by working with our non-YA coworkers.
The necessity of collaboration
In my last post, I talked about my job search and mentioned that I had an interview the next day. I was lucky enough to be offered that job (yay!) and had my first week at work last week. The library where I’m now working has never had a dedicated YA librarian before and I’m excited about developing great teen services, but there’s only so much I can do as just one person. Many YA librarians find themselves on something of a team of one, the only professional at their libraries dedicated to serving teens. When we’re not at the desk or in the building, taking care of teens’ reference questions and readers’ advisory requests falls to non-YA staff members.
We can help bolster teen services at our libraries when we’re not present by providing non-YA librarians with some of the resources we use in assisting teens. For example, for adults who haven’t read a YA novel since they were teens themselves, annotated lists of popular titles and series or readalike lists can go a long way in getting them up to speed with the cool new stuff teens are reading now.
If you have the occasional behavioral problem with the swarm of teenage beasts that descends on your fair garden of a library shortly after school gets out, keep in mind that successfully responding to patron behavior requires a unified effort. At the PLA conference this spring, the panelists at SYASS: Save Your After School Sanity talked about making a whole-library effort to restore harmony during after school hours.
There are also more specific things we can do to work together with non-YA librarians to enhance library service to the entire community.
Working with adult services librarians
It seems like there’s sometimes a drop-off in library usage between when people graduate high school and go off to college and when they return to the library with their own children. By working collaboratively with adult services librarians, we can better ease the transition from teen services to adult services. Plan events that target college kids or 20-somethings in your community with video game nights showcasing more mature titles, book clubs with a mix of upper YA titles and contemporary adult books (check out Genre X for ideas), or host a wine tasting event. Subscribe to the OTYA (Older Teens and Younger Adults) listserv to discuss program ideas and more.
Collaborating with adult librarians is also necessary for hosting successful intergenerational programs. Have experienced grownup knitters from the community give tips and show off projects to your teen knitting club. Host an i
This post is a bit of a departure for me; as YALSA’s communications specialist, I usually post about the latest goings on in YALSA or put up advocacy alerts. (You’ll see that post on Friday.)
But this is 30 Days of Back to School, and along with two of my fellow students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Library and Information Studies, I’m going to talk about the new SLIS student experience.
I’m currently pursuing my library degree through Madison’s distance program. It’s been almost ten years since I finished my first master’s degree, so it’s been a bit of transition to get back into the school mindset. Last time, I was straight outta undergrad, I went full time as an on-campus student, and I had almost no responsibilities. This time, I’m going as a part-time distance student, which certainly has its advantages — flexibility, cost, less disruption to my life. Plus, Wisconsin retooled its distance program so that it takes place entirely online (it used to be done via videoconferencing), so it’s kind of an experimental year for our program.
To get some differing perspectives, I invited two of my classmates to join me in Meebo so we could talk about our experiences going back to school and working full-time. I’m joined by Kayce Austin of Fort Myers, Florida, and Kathrine Rogers of Bettendorf, Iowa.
I began our conversation by reflecting on the social aspects, particularly in a distance program, and our weeklong bootcamp on campus in Madison last August, which was basically like summer camp for adults who really like libraries, ice cream, and ethnic food. (“My kind of summer camp!” quipped Kayce.). We moved on to many other topics: why we’re going back, how we’re fitting it into our lives, and what we hope to do when we’re done.
Stevie Kuenn: I want to start with the social parts of this, particularly our week together at bootcamp. Because I was nervous about how we’d all get along and was pleasantly surprised to discover that pretty much everyone in our cohort got along really well. I feel like I made connections, professional and personal, that I’ll have the rest of my life.
Kathrine Rogers: We have some very strong personalities – but getting to know each other at orientation will make interactions easier in some ways. Some will be life long friends and others, maybe not.
Kayce Austin: I thought we would mesh pretty well. Many of us have similar interests and it’s easy to find common ground. Part of the reason I wanted the face to face meeting to be required is that I didn’t feel I would be able to have these lifelong friends without some face time.
SK: Right. And I wasn’t expecting that a) we would all get on so well and b) we would form some pretty intense friendships. But looking back, I don’t know how I didn’t anticipate that.
KR: My sister was at a leadership training the same week we were at bootcamp. She said we were doing similar things. We are the future leaders of the library world.
SK: So to switch gears a bit, to go beyond the social experience. We’ve been in class a little over a week now, so it’s still early. What’s been the hardest transition for you?
KR: Getting into my STRUCTURED routine again.
One of the great perks of working in a school is the opportunity each fall to feel refreshed, take stock, and focus on improving for the upcoming year. Even year round schools have a natural cycle as students move to the next grade. YALSA provides a variety of helpful resources to prepare for the new year.
The Professional Development Center on the YALSA website is a one-stop shop for information on career development, learning opportunities and teen services resources including white papers, toolkits, bibliographies and more. Although YALSA’s Competencies for Librarians Serving Youths focuses on teen services in public libraries, many of the benchmarks apply to school settings as well. (Look for a rubric to be published in the future to help evaluate your services.) It’s an excellent reminder that we are about more than instruction, and can never forget our role as teen advocates and the need to provide an inviting and pleasant space. Reading through them, it struck me how I need to think more about creating opportunities to serve niche groups among my students. How cool would it be to invite the humane society or anime club to meet in the library and introduce the books and online sources we have available? I’ll ask them if they want to create a display and give them a set amount of money to research and select materials for the collection. Showing an interest in their special interests sends a genuinely inclusive message.
Speaking of purchasing, get a hand with your overall collection development by using YALSA’s book award and booklist resources. Helpful too is the forthcoming book, Annotated Booklists for Every Teen Reader: The Best from the Experts at YALSA-BK by Julie Bartel and Pamela Spencer Holley included in the YALSA Books link along with other timely titles for school librarians. Don’t forget to print out the 2010 YALSA Book Award Bookmarks. Do you have a technology goal for this year? The Teen Tech Guides are an excellent place to start, and look to the Advocacy Toolkit for comprehensive tips on dealing with budget and other legislative concerns.
This is just a taste of what’s available. Exploring the Professional Development Center had an immediate pay-off for me–I’m printing out the brochure, Teen Reading Guide for Parents and Caregivers, to give out at our upcoming Back to School Night open house for parents.
When I went to library school I didn’t know that being an advocate for teens and teen library services was going to be a part of my job. But, over the years, it’s become very clear that without librarians standing up and advocating for teens, it’s easy for people to forget why the age group is an important one that deserves quality service.
How did I learn to be an advocate? Honestly, I can’t say what the exact tools or events were. I can however relate some of what I’ve learned.
- Partnering with others makes advocacy less scary and definitely easier to accomplish. This might mean partnering with other librarians in the area, partnering with other youth serving organizations, partnering with teachers or parents or teens. There are lots of possibilites for partnering opportunities. What can be beneficial when sorting out the best partner with whom to work, is to think about the goals of an advocacy effort and determine who in the community is the best match for reaching those goals. Also, think about who you know in the community that you trust as a partner. Trust is an important part of successful partnerships. If you can work with someone or some agency that you feel trusting towards, you will be more able to successfully meet your advocacy goals.
- Be specific and clear about what you want to advocate for. For example, do you want to advocate for funding for a specific collection area? If that’s the case then develop an advocacy plan for that specific purpose. By doing that you are better able to target the person, persons, or group that you might partner with in order to achieve success. You can also better target the audience to whom you make your advocacy pitch.
- Different techniques work for different advocacy efforts. There is no one-size fits all approach to advocacy. It’s important to look at the goals of a particular effort, the audience to whom the effort is going to be targeted, and who the partners are – if there are partners – and then come up with a plan that fits that set of variables. Sometimes face-to-face meetings are the best way to advocate. Sometimes social media meets the needs of the endeavor. There are many ways to go about it, think carefully about what your best approach is.
- Find out what others have done when advocating for a particular purpose. Pay particular attention to what didn’t work. Knowing about mistakes in the process can help you to not repeat those mistakes. Check-in with other librarians in your general area or around the country to learn from them about their experiences. Tools like Twitter and the YALSA YA-YAAC listserv are perfect for gathering this kind of information.
Advocacy can be difficult, and it can take some time for an advocacy effort to be successful. Be prepared to be in it for the long haul.
Librarians working with teens have to learn to take the initiative to advocate for quality programs and services to the age group. If teen librarians don’t, is it really OK to expect that anyone else will? Do teen librarians want others, who don’t have teen services skills and experience, to lead the charge? I don’t think so.
If you are interested in reading more about advocacy, check-out the 28 Days of Advocacy and the
(with apologies to Charles Dickens)
It was the worst of times… it was the best of times…
Just over three years ago, I was awakened by a phone call that no librarian wants to hear: the library’s on fire. This wasn’t just a minor “use the fire extinguisher” fire, it was a 10-hour conflagration that left nothing uncharred. So, definitely the worst of times.
However, when life hands you limes, you make margaritas, right? The reality was (as it is for so many of us) that the building wasn’t really student-friendly, and the collection was a little on the old/needs to be heavily weeded side. The fire meant that we had the opportunity to do a lot of shopping, and a lot of building.
When you have a disaster, be it flood, fire, earthquake or tornado, there are many places to look for help. FEMA, for one (if you’re in a disaster area, not a one-off like our fire). Public schools can apply for a Dollar General Stores grant. If this isn’t an area-wide disaster, your friends, neighbors and the rest of the community will rally with donations (be careful: a professor retiring after a life in academia may not have the best materials for a collection focusing on young adults!). Few of us think of disaster preparation as a part of our jobs, yet it is so necessary. Take it from me: do not be caught unprepared. In June 2009, I was asked to present at an ALA Pre-Conference on just this topic. If this presentation or I can help, just let me know!
Hackley School is very lucky, in that we had a “spare” Chapel (the building was used perhaps 2-3 hours a week by the time of the fire). For three years, the Middle and Upper School Library made its home in that building – separated from the rest of the buildings, smaller than we needed (if a class came in, there was no place for other students to do their work) and a little dark, but far better than doing “library in a box” or staying in a classroom until we rebuilt. We moved in as news of Maricopa (AZ) County’s decision to drop Dewey was making librarians squirm. However, because we were staring from scratch, we were able to think about how we shelved our collection. As mk graciously pointed out, I have some strong opinions on the topic. Whether or not you’re renovating or rebuilding, I urge you to rethink your collection shelving.
By February 2008, when our Junior Research Paper started, we had nearly 7,000 books on the shelves. With our new shelving system, we found that students were using the biographies and reference books we offered for the first time, because they no longer needed to go to several sections of the library to find the materials. Fiction was circulating like mad, despite our distance from the main buildings. We also used this opportunity to increase our database and eBook collection, so students didn’t have to wait until school opened to do research. Student and teacher visits, circulation and database usage continued to grow throughout our time in
Library student, Jamie Young is one of three YALSA Spectrum Scholars for 2010-2011. From Stevie Kuenn’s previous post, “the Spectrum Scholarship was established in 1997, and is ALA’s national diversity and recruitment effort designed to address the specific issue of under-representation of critically needed ethnic librarians within the profession while serving as a model for ways to bring attention to larger diversity issues in the future.” In order to get to know Jamie better, she agreed to an interview here.
How did you find out about the Spectrum Scholarship and why did you decide to apply?
JW:To be honest, I hadn’t heard of the scholarship until I won it! I applied to several scholarships through ALA, and a representative contacted me and said that with my interest in YA that I would be a great candidate for the YALSA-funded Spectrum Scholarship.
At this point, are there any areas of interests within young adult library services that you would like to focus on?
JW: YA is the area of librarianship that interests me the most and I think I would succeed in it, but there’s still so much more I have to learn. I pick my library’s Youth Services Director brain on a daily basis!
How do you feel your background and/or interests will help contribute to helping shape the future of library services?
JW: I’m very interested in keeping libraries relevant in today’s society, beyond a place to check out 3 DVDs at a time and play Bejeweled on the Internet. Those things are fine, but that’s not what people should be doing 100% of the time. Libraries should be providing more and, even if they cannot provide more, encouraging people to do more. I’ve always been the type of person who likes take something that isn’t working as well as it should be and implement solutions to make it work better. I’m not afraid of change when it’s necessary, and I think that will one of the strongest assets I can bring to Libraryland.
What are some goals you’ve set for yourself in preparing to enter the library profession?
JW: My main concern at the moment is completing my MLIS. Since moving from Philadelphia, I’ve had a little harder time making the transition to the online learning environment than I expected. With working full-time at the library, one online courses is about all that I can handle each quarter. I currently work in Administration, so another goal of mine is to learn as much as I can about how libraries operate before I’m able to apply for professional positions. Five more courses!
Do you have any words of advice or encouragement to those considering applying for or helping support the Spectrum Scholarship program?
JW: The Spectrum retreat is honestly one of the best experiences I’ve had during my time in library school. I learned a great deal about the profession through workshops and activities. That alone would have been worth the trip to Chicago, but really the best part about the long weekend was meeting so many amazing future librarians who will all bring great experiences from their unique backgrounds to the profession. The program is such an important tool for helping underrepresented individuals advance in libraries which probably isn’t an issue that most people even consider. I’m hoping people will start becoming more aware of it and help support the program. It really is i
Are you new to the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)? How can this ALA division help you?
Get the answers to these questions at YALSA 101, a mixer-style orientation where new members and those considering membership will get an overview of the division and its activities, and can learn more about the benefits of joining YALSA!
YALSA 101 will be held on Friday, June 25th, from 4-5 p.m. in Embassy Suites Convention Center, Capital D.
Guest speakers include:
• Linda Braun (YALSA President)
• Carrie Kausch (Local Arrangements Committee Chair)
• Eve Gaus (Webinar Instructor)
• Kristin Brand Heathcock (YA Literature Symposium Committee)
• Kelly Czarnecki (Teen Tech Week Chair)
• Sandra Hughes Hassell (YALSA Research Journal Advisory Board Member)
• mk Eagle (YALSA Blog Manager)
and more!
New and established members are welcome to attend this great networking opportunity!
Each year, I try to drum up interest in poetry by creating displays and talking to teachers about National Poetry Month. The displays have sort of worked (one teacher transported the whole display to his classroom to use with his 8th grade English classes), but I wanted more. The problem (common to teen and school librarians everywhere) is that whenever I create “programs” they are often tons of work and poorly attended in the end. So this year, I started talking out loud about my ideas. I had planted a few seeds last year, by sending a copy of a VOYA article to the English faculty. The article was about a school librarian who had created something called “Random Acts of Poetry,” where topical poems are posted all around the school in celebration of National Poetry Month. That was the starting point. English teachers loved the idea, but most had little time to help me plan and I really wanted to create something that had some faculty buy-in. Thankfully, the 12th grade English teacher who is always game to try something new had handed over two of her classes to her student teacher and offered to help.
I made little tags identifying the “random acts of poetry,” and her students searched for poems of their choice, to print and tape up somewhere in the school with a tag. I have never had so many teachers respond directly to an activity! They loved it, and apparently the students did a great job of placing the poems in the right places. The poems went up at the very beginning of the month, and stayed up all April. In conjunction with that month-long display, I asked teachers to submit to me their favorite poem. I created a display with the full poems and made ballots for people to guess which poem was which teacher’s favorite. Again, the teachers loved this – both the process of deciding which of their favorite poems to submit – and trying to figure out which poems their colleagues had submitted. It was nearly impossible. Out of twenty poems on display, the winners got only six correct! Most ballots had only about two correct answers, but people really enjoyed guessing. The best side-effect of this was that most teachers had more than one poem they wanted to post, so I encouraged them to post and use their second-favorites in their classrooms.
In addition, the collaborating teacher and I kept coming up with ideas for an interactive poetry day in the library – sort of a culminating event for the end of the month. Initially I wanted to host a poetry slam, but kids in my school don’t even know what that is! Instead, we decided on a free-form, flexible day of poetry creation. I came up with six different activities that students could do. I invited teachers to bring in their classes, and for students to come in whenever they had free time. I expected at most five or six students to ask about it after they heard it on the morning TV school news. In a single day, 10 teachers brought in classes totaling over 120 students (in a school of 700). I had blocked off some space for the day, but regular classes were still using the library just like they always do, and the normal traffic continued. Most of these ideas were not my originals, they were planted somewhere, sometime in the past, but this is what I came up with:
- Concrete Poetry: with a couple of books as examples, as well as some printed “how-to” sheets, students were encouraged to write/draw their own concrete poems.
- Magnet poetry: I had created my own set of words printed on magnet paper (wit
The Youth Services Section of the Massachusetts Library Association has released the 2010 revision of the Standards for Public Library Service to Young Adults in Massachusetts. The standards are intended to guide the local library in its ongoing evaluation and development of young adult services as a strong unit within the overall services and planning structure. The document was originally created by a statewide committee of teen librarians, children’s librarians, library directors and regional youth consultants in 1994. It was substantially revised in 2005 and is intended to be revised every five years.
Additions to the standards in the new edition include chapters on Young Adult Librarians as Leaders and Long-Range Planning. Technology was also given its own section, and a subsection on social networking was added to the Technology chapter. An extensive bibliography at the end of the Standards will be available soon as a separate standalone web page that will be updated frequently as YSS members discover new, useful resources.
To download a copy of the 43 page PDF document, please visit http://tinyurl.com/mla-yastandards. For more information, contact Maureen Ambrosino, Chair of the 2009-2010 Subcommittee on Young Adult Standards at [email protected].
Are you just entering the library field? Maybe even still in school, trying to figure out what work you want to do in a library? Or, do you have a ton of teen librarian knowledge that you’d like to share with us who are new to the field (yes, you could be the next convener!)?
If you are even slightly interested in working with young adults, the YALSA Student Interest Group (SIG) is for you. We are here to answer questions as well as facilitate discussions with undergraduate and graduate students and librarians just entering the profession. The SIG hosts a forum on Ning (http://yalsasig.ning.com/), where you can also connect to other members of the group. Many opportunities exist for in-person discussions too, especially at the ALA Midwinter Meeting, Annual, and at the YALSA Literature Symposium.
This might also be the perfect time for the SIG to partner with the new YALSA Mentoring Program to open more discussions and provide networking opportunities for those who don’t get the chance to participate. It might be the time to consider where the best place to hold discussions is (Ning? Facebook or Twitter? Skype? Something completely new?). As the convener you could help make changes that create a better experience for those new to the library field.
Are you interested in being the next convener for the YALSA SIG? Let me know by Monday, May 3. It’s an easy way to get active in YALSA without a major time commitment. You also do not need experience to become the convener – I was appointed while in my 2nd semester of library school! If you are thinking of applying for the Mentoring Program, you might consider taking the plunge and volunteer to be the next convener of the SIG too!
Please don’t hesitate to contact me at jlbalaco{at}umich.edu with any questions or to volunteer to be the next YALSA Student Interest Group convener (or co-convener).
![]()
Yesterday morning one of my students sidled up to the circulation desk before first bell and asked, “Were you, by any chance, at roller derby this Saturday?”
I was, in fact, and I had a great time–but instead of thinking about what fun I had with my friends, inwardly I started panicking.
Had I been drinking? Was I swearing publicly? Did I wear something I wouldn’t wear to school?
(For the record? The answer is “All of the above,” although we happened to be surrounded by small children so the swearing was probably at a minimum–instead we entertained the other adults in our area by gruffly shouting polite encouragement, like “I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!” and “I LIKE WHAT YOU DID THERE!”)
Running into a teen you serve in your library when you’re both somewhere else can be lovely, weird, or some combination of the two. Whether it’s at the grocery store or a roller derby bout, you’re suddenly off-duty and the dynamic shifts. What if you run into teens while they’re doing something you wouldn’t allow in the library? What if teens run into you while you’re doing something you wouldn’t do in front of your boss?
We’re all allowed to have lives outside of work. Some of us may relish the chance to interact with teens from our community in a different setting, whether it might be at a pride parade, a sporting event, or just a local restaurant. Others of us may shy away from the spots where our teens might be, hoping to keep our personal lives private or to just avoid the pressure of being “on” all the time.
Whether it’s a chance encounter or a planned excursion, your interaction with a teen outside the library could actually help your relationship–remember how seeing your elementary school teacher out in the world changed your view just a little?–and it could raise some interesting questions the next time you meet at work.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s great for my students to see me and their teachers from time to time outside of the school building. I like that they get the chance to see us as regular folks. But just as I wouldn’t want to butt in where my teens are trying to hang out and just be themselves, I’m grateful that I have social spaces to just hang out with my friends and be an adult who isn’t worried about writing passes or giving lessons.
Have you had a “run-in” with teens from work? How did you handle it?
As I write this, I’m glued to my chair behind the circulation desk. As a school librarian I’m often up and down, heading to the front office periodically to retrieve something from a mailbox or request a purchase order, making my way to a classroom to check in with a teacher, wandering into the stacks with a student to hunt down a misshelved book.
And then there are days when I’m grateful to stay in one place for a while.
Like today, when another teacher pointed out I have a four inch rip down the back of my pants.
My crisis is a small one–the school accountant is having her husband drop off her sewing kit (and a pair of sweats, I’m hoping, lest I be sequestered while my pants are being repaired!) and I’ll survive the minor embarrassment–but the whole thing has me thinking about emergency preparedness. What do I need to have in my library emergency kit?
1. Tools for a natural disaster. If you don’t already have a plan for inclement weather, particularly leaks and floods, now is an excellent time to start. When I worked in my college library, new employees were all introduced to the emergency binder, which included the number to call immediately for water damage.
2. Basic first aid supplies. I’m fortunate enough to be around the corner from the school nurse’s office, but I also keep a stash of band-aids in my desk drawer, and I went through epipen training at the beginning of the year. Do you know who to call in your building if there’s a major injury or a spill involving blood?
3. Backup circulation procedures. While a power or network outage means your computers are toast, ideally other services can continue with or without your barcode scanner. Is your circulation heavy enough that you need backup circulation cards, or can you write down patron and item numbers by hand? And do you have a procedure manual in general, in case you’re out of the building (and lucky enough to get coverage)?
4. Fire drill and other emergency protocol. Are your exits clearly marked? Do you have a fire route clearly posted? If you had a fire, earthquake, lockdown or other alarm–drill or not–would you know what to do for your staff and patrons? If you’re in a school, make sure you know exactly what the expectations are for the library during a drill. You may need to take attendance once you and your students are in a safe location, and in a lockdown situation you may need to gather students from surrounding hallways. If emergency procedures involve rooms or areas of the library you don’t usually use, make sure you test phones there regularly.
5. Keep a supply stash. You never know when you, a co-worker or a teen might need an umbrella, a quarter for a parking meter, or a spare change of pants. Pay attention to frequently requested items and try to keep a spare on hand, whether in your office, car, or desk drawer. And if you happen to have sewing skills, keeping a needle and thread nearby might not be a bad idea.
What’s in your library emergency kit? Have you had to use it?
Last month I posted an interview with Perry Moore, the executive producer of the Chronicles of Narnia films and author of the Y/A novel, Hero, to the YALSA blog. Did I know Moore personally before interviewing him? No, I didn’t. How did I get to know him? I blogged about his book. Yes, you read it right. I posted a blog entry on my own blog about his novel, Hero. Moore read my review, liked what I had to say, and suggested an interview. I contacted MK to find out if it was something she would like posted to the YALSA blog (it gets more traffic than mine) and she said, “yes”. The moral of the story? Get blogging. If you want to get to know people who can help you develop and practice professional skills – like interviewing – get blogging.
Some, like Huei-Tse Hou, et al (2009) http://www.informaworld.com/smpp.content~db=all~content=a916755380 suggest that teacher blogging has limited value in the area of knowledge construction and one could extrapolate and apply the same reasoning to librarian blogging. I beg to differ. For one thing, blogging is practice writing. And, while teachers may already know how to write, it never hurts to practice expressing your opinion in the written form. Back in my M.A. days it was publish or perish. Now it is post, publish, or perish (pun intended). Employers want to know not only that you can and have read, but also that you can write and have a well thought out opinion. Blogging is a public forum in which to show them. Research from the National Literacy Trust in the U.K. (Wilce, 2009) finds that “[...] blogging and social networking greatly improve [student] attitudes and make[s students] much more confident about their writing.” The same can be said for teachers and librarians.
Blogging also provides you with a network of professional colleagues – it provides a forum for discussion by way of comments to your posts. It gives you a way of contacting other people with similar interests who you might otherwise have never had an opportunity to communicate with. Leuhmann (2008) discusses the case of “Ms. Frizzle” (does this name ring any bells?), a science teacher who used her blog to work through dilemmas, solicit feedback, and display competence, among other things. Her case study provides empirical support of the potential of blogging for teachers’ (and I add librarians’) professional development.
Blogging on a professional site like the YALSA Blog might even be considered a peer reviewed form of writing. You know you wil
It was bound to happen sooner or later.
I had stocked my library with edgy titles. Where once the shelves were mostly full of “classic” YA titles and somewhat aged adult mystery novels, now they’re full of books about queer teens, unexpected pregnancy, parents with drug habits, and graphic novels. (Books with pictures! The horror!)
They’re all appropriately reviewed, of course, and many of them are award winners, some several times over–but when it comes to content, they don’t pull any punches.
So it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that I recently got my first book complaint.
As librarians, we tend to talk a lot about intellectual freedom and defending our teens’ right to read whatever they want. But when push comes to shove, how do we really respond to book challenges in the heat of the moment?
As my pulse raced and I struggled to maintain eye contact and speak clearly (stammering is a personal struggle for me when I’m on the spot), I felt immensely grateful that I’d attended Sex in YA Lit: From Blume to Block and Beyond at last year’s Annual Conference in Chicago.
For those of you who weren’t able to attend, the panel–made up of librarian (and author!) Lynn Biederman, sex therapist Marty Klein, and YA author Laura Ruby–discussed the history of sex in young adult books, but also offered up some practical suggestions for handling book complaints, since so many challenges involving YA titles have to do with sexual content. The most valuable piece of advice they offered:
1. Sometimes the parent or community member just needs to feel like someone is listening. Indeed, many face-to-face complaints will never turn into a formal challenge if you let the complainant get it all out of their system. It’s crucial not to interrupt or talk over anyone, no matter how much you might disagree with their opinion.
To this advice, I would add some of my own, gleaned from my recent complaint–an experience that turned out overall to be a positive one:
2. Don’t fake agreement. This one can be tough. Many of us were taught that active listening means body language like nodding. While it’s true that nodding and occasionally saying “Sure” or “Mm-hmm” indicate that you’re listening, they can also suggest you agree. You can acknowledge a complainant’s point of view without agreeing with it.
3. Let your policies back you up. If you don’t have a collection development policy, write one now. It’s vital that your policies support you, and it’s equally important that your co-workers and supervisors or directors are familiar with those policies so that they can back you up. Make sure these documents are available to the public, but be familiar enough with them that you could discuss them face to face as well.
4. Know your materials. We all have to rely on reviews and recommendations to some degree. While I’d like to believe there are librarians who have read every book in their YA collections, for most of us that’s not a realistic goal. (I know I’ve certainly been guilty of not reading as much of my collection as I’d like.) But the more books you’ve read, the more you can meaningfully discuss if they’re ever challenged. For those titles that you haven’t read yet, make sure you know at least the basic plot points.
5. Acknowledge that not every book is right for e
I started out this post by titling it “Libraries are not Cool.” But then, the more I wrote, the more I realized I don’t really agree with that statement. For some people, they really are. And it’s important for librarians to talk up their libraries, find out ways to make them more appealing to all age groups, and allow for the library to approach levels of coolness — by lifting food and cell phone bans, bringing in video games, and talking in normal voices, for a start.
But here’s the thing. When it comes to teens: we should just forget about trying to be cool. I, for example, am not cool. I am in my own head, but I’m not in reality. I watch MTV. I read gossip blogs and listen to top 40 radio and I even pay attention to fashion, though I dress like I don’t. But I am also in my thirties. I dress like I don’t care about fashion. I sometimes accidentally start sentences with “when I was in high school…” or “that band used to be cool when…” And top 40 radio + gossip blogs does not = cool for all people anyway. All teens and all communities are different. Which is why we should forget about trying to be cool. In the words of mothers of teenagers everywhere: libraries, you really should be yourselves, and people will like you.
Teens have a super-high BS meter. They see right through you if you’re faking it. This came up in a comment on my “Speidi” post, in which one wise librarian said that really, we just need to care about things—be passionate about things—no matter what they are. Teens will respond to that. And I agree wholeheartedly. In my experience as a librarian (and dorm parent) at a boarding school, I saw a lot of teachers try hard to be friends with their students. It was tough to watch. Kids do not take kindly to that. I know it sounds cynical, but many teens will just take advantage of adults in those situations. Once you’re “friends” with your students, it’s very difficult to enforce boundaries.
Many responded to mk Eagle’s post about the boundaries issue to say that yes, indeed, teens want them. It’s even mentioned in the 40 Developmental Assets, which as we all know is the teen librarian’s Bible. Kids like to know what the line is so that they can avoid it, bump up against it, or decide to cross it altogether. And if you’re trying to promote yourself as their peer, then how will they feel when you turn around and try to show them the line? Like you are full of baloney.
A few of the girls in my Teen Advisory Board complained to me once about being able to see the Facebook profile of an adult in their lives. She friended them to keep an eye on them, supposedly — so she could see if they posted any photos of themselves drinking or doing anything else against the rules. But in turn, she opened up her own photos to them, and they were uncomfortable with that. They didn’t want to see her friends, her boyfriend, or anything about her personal life. And that is why I have a separate Facebook account that I use for work-related stuff. Yeah, it’s not the best solution, but I’d rather have to manage two accounts (including one that makes me look work-obsessed—and hence not like a real person—since all I do is talk about my li
Following AASL’s recent vote to adopt the professional title of school librarians, I’ve been thinking a lot about identities and labels and what they mean for us as librarians.
And as media specialists.
And as library teachers.
And as facilitators of learning commons.
And as information overlords.
Okay, so maybe no one’s putting “Information Overlord” on their business cards (though I wouldn’t discourage it, personally)–but you get the point: we call ourselves, and our spaces, by a variety of names. During a job interview last summer, a principal asked me at one point what the difference was between a librarian and a library media specialist.
So what is the difference?
Your title, mission statement and the name of your physical space can say a lot about you and your program. Does it reflect your philosophy about teens and learning? Does it convey all you do?
Personally, I’m a school librarian. I’m certified as a library media specialist, but I don’t use that language to describe myself because I believe “librarian” is what I make it. I wouldn’t look down on anyone’s decision to use a different label for themselves–maybe you feel the same way about “library media specialist” or “library teacher”!
So what do you call yourself? How do you make sure the language you use supports the work you do, and vice versa?
A few weeks ago, after yet another #1styrlibs tweet chronicling my first year as a full-time librarian, a colleague who follows me on Twitter marveled, “I don’t know how you do it all without an assistant!”
And here’s my secret: a lot of it doesn’t get done.
At a time when budgets are slashed, volunteers are being trained to fill in for librarians, and so many are out of work, complaining about the job you have may seem anything from gauche to downright dangerous. But for those of us who have ever had the good fortune to work as part of a team, or even with a regular volunteer or two, the contrast is clear: working alone is hard work.
There are advantages to being the only teen librarian (or librarian) in the building, of course. My position as a department head within my high school is somewhat of a running joke. (Any sentence beginning with “Our friends in the library” is sure to elicit a chuckle at faculty meetings.) I don’t have to get my “department” to agree with me, I don’t have to schedule departmental meetings, and I have a lot of freedom to set my own agenda.
But on the flip side, there’s so much I’d like to do with this library that I just haven’t yet. I have a massive shelving project in the works–right now circulating non-fiction winds around into the room with the photocopier–but so far it gets done only in small bursts when I have help from students. The whole collection needs weeding, which I do in haphazard chunks. Any time I need to cover a hardback, catalog a donation title or make new bookmarks, I do it myself.
Sometimes working alone is fun. I get to be the first to see new books when an order comes in, and I’m the one who handles any reader’s advisory question, from the impressively specific to the maddeningly vague.
Sometimes working alone is frustrating. If I don’t like a particular task, tough luck–if it’s getting done, I’m the one doing it. When upward of sixty students descend on the library during study hall, I’m the only one keeping track of who’s here and whether they’re behaving.
How do you do it all in your library?
View Next 9 Posts
