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It’s not too late to become a Friend of ALSC!

Friends’ projects have a powerful impact not only on our members, but also on their larger communities as a whole. Friends of ALSC support activities such as innovative conference programs and institutes, 21st century challenges, professional development and early literacy projects.

As you are making your plans for the holidays and your final year-end donations for the 2015 tax year, we hope that you will include Friends of ALSC in those plans and show your continuing support for creating a better future for children. Every contribution helps ALSC support the work of our members and meet new challenges.

Be sure to check out the new 2015 Friends of ALSC Annual Report as well to read about all of the great things the Friends did in 2015.

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What’s new in the ALSC Competencies? The Education Committee asked Lisa Nowlain to just show you.

Original illustration by Lisa Nowlain, 2015

The post Core Competencies in Comics appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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General tips for literacy coaches to use when facilitating writing workshop lab sites.

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Most recently, I read about it in the ALSC campaign Babies Need Words Everyday.

It was such a clear campaign with great graphics that we immediately hung up in our library’s bathroom. And, it had research to back it up – the introductory flyer said “By the time children from low-income families reach the age of four, they will have heard thirty million fewer words than their more advantaged peers.” The initiative was created in response to the Obama Administration’s 2014 call to increase early literacy initiatives to bridge the word gap. It uses the research that coined the 30 Million Word Gap as a talking point, and integrates newer research done by LENA or Dr. Dana Suskind, both of which use the “30 Million Word Gap” research as a framework for theirs. My colleague Claire Moore and I were curious about this statistic, and did some digging to learn more.

The “The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3” by University of Kansas researchers Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley was a 2003 article in American Educator (Spring: 4-9), which was an excerpt from their 1995 book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children. The research, although it has been used as a rallying cry in campaigns across the country (including Too Small to Fail, Thirty Million Words, and local initiatives), has been shown to have some disturbing issues.

The issues that other researchers and educators have found in this study include:

Here is a breakdown of their critiques.

Sample size

In their most cited body of research, the researchers visited 13 high-income families, 10 families of middle socioeconomic status, 13 of low socioeconomic status, and 6 families who were on public assistance in Kansas City one hour per month for two and a half years. They made 1,318 observations and counted vocabulary words spoken to children by parents. The families only included African-American and White families that spoke English; bilingual children do have slower rates of learning vocabulary, but have other skills that monolingual children do not have (Dufresny & Madsey, 2006). They then looked at the number of words heard by each child by SES and saw the gap that has been trumpeted over and over again. The average child on public assistance heard 616 words per hour, the working class child 1,251 words per hour, and the professional family’s child heard 2,153 words per hour of observation. This number was then greatly extrapolated to show that by age four, there was a 32 million word gap between the child receiving public assistance and the child in the professional class. This assumes that the year had 5200 hours and the big assumption: that the number of words heard in an hour during observation was typical.

Data coding

After the observations, the researchers coded the words the children were hearing from parents. They coded for “quality of interactions” and spent very little time explaining how these codes are backed up by research – in fact, their explanation cites extensive research, but the footnotes only contain a reference to look at their earlier research. Sarah Michaels, Professor of Education at Clark University, said, “Hart and Risley coded for upper middle class/academic or professional politeness and interactional patterns, found that the upper income families used more of them, and simply asserted that more of the quality features is better in producing learning-related outcomes. They identified upper and middle class features of talk, coded and counted them and found, guess what, they correlate with class” (p. 26, 2013). Other researchers say “…by taking the language practices of the middle- and upper-SES families in their sample as the standard, Hart and Risley transformed the linguistic differences they found among the welfare families in their study into linguistic deficiencies” (Dudley-Marling & Lucas, p. 365). The Hart and Risley study set up the working class families and families receiving public assistance to fail. Teresa McCarty, from the University of California Los Angeles, puts it well: “Cloaked in well-intentions— ‘giving children the competencies they need to succeed in school’ (Hart and Risley 1995:2)—gap discourse simultaneously constructs a logic of individual dysfunction, limitation, and failure while masking the systemic power inequities through which the logic is normalized” (Avinerini, et al, p. 71).

This deficiency thinking is similar to the reaction to a 1961 book by Oscar Lewis called The Children of Sanchez which coined the term “culture of poverty.” The book was an ethnographic study of small Mexican Communities that attributed 50 shared attitudes, such as violence and poor planning skills, to the larger culture of all poor people. Unfortunately, this deficit thinking is incredibly harmful to both those under the microscope and the educators (and librarians) who work with them. Paul Gorksy says “Deficit theorists use two strategies for propagating this worldview: (1) drawing on well-established stereotypes and (2) ignoring systemic conditions, such as inequitable access to high-quality schooling, that support the cycle of poverty” (2008). Again, by using a deficit framework, we obscure structural inequalities.

“Valence” or the emotional character of the words was also coded: affirmative, open-ended statements were seen as quality, whereas directive were seen as low quality. Again, no research was cited. There are many reasons why coding in this way without an explanation is wrong – mainly, that white, upper and middle class ways of speaking to their children were valued as quality. In a 2015 article, Gulnaz Saiyed says, “While middle-class activities do lead children to develop a sense of entitlement, individuality, and set them up to feel comfortable in schools, they deemphasize other childhood experiences. For example, many working-class parents do not overschedule their children with extracurricular activities. Instead, they provide opportunities for play, development of curiosity, creativity, and respect for different perspectives.” Another point brought up by Saiyed is how African American children are disciplined more harshly in school, and parents may be preparing them for that. Michaels (2013) agrees, saying “Again, I want to remind you that people from different cultures talk differently to infants, and no one approach or style has been shown to be cognitively superior to another in helping children acquire their native language or grow up to be smart” (p. 29).

In addition, mobile technology has changed parenting for all social statuses. In other research conducted by Dr. Dana Suskind, middle and upper class parents have other bad habits: “[Anne] Fernald, who sits on the scientific advisory board for Providence Talks, told me, “Some of the wealthiest families in our research had low word counts, possibly because they were on their gadgets all day. So you can see an intermingling at the extremes of rich and poor. Socioeconomic status is not destiny” (Talbot, 2015). The blanket assignation of the bad culture of poverty is harmful to all parents.

Extrapolations

The research makes sweeping extrapolations for its findings. In their book Meaningful Differences, Hart and Risley assert that vocabulary is an important indicator for future success, but spend very little time explaining why: “Because the vocabulary that individuals can command reflects so well their intellectual resources, we still have oral examinations, and vocabulary plays a major role in tests of intelligence” (p. 6). There are no citations of other research that describes why vocabulary is indicates “intellectual resources” – instead, they talk about how it is easy to measure.

As a librarian, I understand the importance of vocabulary as one aspect of literacy. However, I don’t understand why this study allows vocabulary to be the main indicator for school success, or why specifically children as partners in the conversation (as opposed to overhearing conversations) was seen as so important. As Susan Blum says in “Invited Forum: Bridging the ‘Language Gap’” (Averini, et al, 2015), “Anthropological research shows, in fact, that addressing the youngest children as conversational partners is extremely unusual in the world” (p. 75). Are we sure that makes it better?

Michaels says, “The deeply destructive, pernicious thing about the Hart and Risley study is that it presents what seems like totally rigorous, careful, objective science (what under careful inspection is nothing more than pseudo-science)—that gives teachers, educators, policy makers the ‘proof’ they need to believe that these poor kids aren’t smart, aren’t good learners, don’t have adequate language to think well with” (p. 35).  As librarians, when we cite the 30 Million Word Gap, we run the risk of continuing to enforce the bias and classism that this study did, as do some of the initiatives that have cropped up around this study. “In effect, the word gap interventions propose that improving social and economic outcomes for poor and minority families can be as simple as training them to act more white and middle-class (and monitoring their compliance with a ‘word pedometer’)” (Saiyed, 2015). While Babies Need Words Everyday does not go as far as to install word pedometers on parents, and instead simply encourages them to speak with their babies, the issue is very different – but by using word gap and deficit thinking, we may be treading in dangerous territory.

What can we do?

As librarians, we can help support literacy skill-building for both parents and children with Babies Need Words Everyday’s colorful posters and in our storytimes and outreach efforts. As public libraries, we provide free support to parents of all classes who may be struggling to find time or resources to provide early literacy practices to their children. Families in poverty also get support from public libraries to help them combat the structural inequalities they face. We also have to make sure we are creative and reflexive about encouraging multiple literacies, such as (all of which are strengths of a diversity of groups):

As centers providing informal learning opportunities, libraries are the perfect spaces for encouraging multiple literacies. For instance, “Low-income children are more likely than their higher-income peers to be in factory-like classrooms that allow little interaction and physical movement. As a result, these children spend more time sitting, following directions and listening rather than discussing, debating, solving problems and sharing ideas” (McManus, 2015). ALSC members have many brilliant ideas for programming to combat this issue on this blog. What else can we do?

If we are truly invested in literacy equity as librarians, being engaged in understanding our own attitudes and resources is important. I feel hesitant to use the 30 Million Word Gap as a statistic in my storytimes because of what it implicates, and I wonder what you all think. Even the newer research by the LENA foundation and Dr. Dana Suskind use Hart and Risley’s flawed framework. The newly updated ALSC competencies are full of guidance about recognizing and responding to structural inequalities, being self-reflexive, and culturally competent. I’ll end with one of them.

-Many thanks to Claire Moore – this piece is the result our meetings and conversations and her editing skills.

Lisa Nowlain is the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Fellow and Children’s Librarian at Darien Library in Darien, CT (you can be the next one! Apply by April 1 at www.darienlibrary.org/mcgrawfellowship) She is also an artist-type (see more at www.lisanowlain.com).

Sources cited

Avinerini, N., et al (2015). Invited Forum: Bridging the “Language Gap.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 25(1), pp. 66–86. Retrieved from  http://www.susanblum.com/uploads/4/7/2/1/4721639/jla_-_language_gap_forum_2015.pdf

Dudley-Marling, C. & Lucas, K. (May 2009) Pathologizing the Language and Culture of Poor Children. Language Arts, 86(5), pp. 362-370. http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/med/langpoor.pdf

Dufresne, T. & Masny, D. (November 2006). Multiple literacies: Linking the research on bilingualism and biliteracies to the practical. Paediatr Child Health, 11(9), pp 577–579. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528653/#b12-pch11577

Gorski, P (April 2008).  The Myth of the Culture of Poverty. Poverty and Learning, 65(7), pp 32-36. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr08/vol65/num07/The-Myth-of-the-Culture-of-Poverty.aspx

Hart, B. & Risley, T.R. (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children. Paul H. Brookes: Baltimore.

Hart, B. & Risley, R. (Spring 2003). The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3. American Educator, 4(9).

McManus, M. (2015, October 12). Are some kids really smarter just because they know more words? The Conversation. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/are-some-kids-really-smarter-just-because-they-know-more-words-47819

Michaels, S. (Autumn 2013). Déjà Vu All Over Again: What’s Wrong With Hart & Risley and a “Linguistic Deficit” Framework in Early Childhood Education? LEARNing Landscapes, 7(1), pp 23-41. Retrieved from http://www.learninglandscapes.ca/images/documents/ll-no13/michaels.pdf

Saiyed, G. & Smirnov, N. (2015, January 9) OpEd: Does ’30-Million Word Gap’ Have Gap in Authenticity? Chicago Bureau. Retrieved from http://www.chicago-bureau.org/oped-30-million-word-gap-gap-authenticity/

Talbot, Margo (2015, January 12). The Talking Cure. The New Yorker. Retrieved from  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/12/talking-cure
Other Resources

• https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/the-word-gap-a-reader/
• http://www.researchgate.net/publication/273158753_How_Can_Book_Reading_Close_the_Word_Gap_Five_Key_Practices_From_Research

The post Is the 30 Million Word Gap a stat we should be using? appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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Do you see a trend in youth services that needs to be addressed? Have an idea for a great program proposal?

The ALSC Program Coordinating Committee has opened a call for two Hot Topic Programs to be presented at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, June 23-26, 2016.

Participants attending ALSC programs are seeking valuable educational experiences and are critical of presenters or sessions that are self-promotional. Presentations should advance the educational process and provide a valuable learning experience. The Program Coordinating Committee will not select a program session that suggests commercial sales or self-promotion.

Further information and the online application are available on the link above. All proposals must be submitted by Sunday, December 13, 2015.

Image courtesy of ALA

The post What Is Your Hot Topic for #ALAAC16? appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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Last month I was privileged to represent ALSC at the NBCDI Conference. What is NBCDI, you ask? Good question.

NBCDI is The National Black Child Development Institute focusing on improving and advancing “the quality of life for Black children and their families through education and advocacy” (from www.nbcdi.org/who-we-are/who-we-are on 11/1/2015). This year was the 45th annual conference held in Arlington, Virginia, that included a host of sessions on a variety of educational topics. Several national speakers were featured in the plenary sessions, including Geoffrey Canada, Founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone. On the final day of the conference, I participated on a panel for the program, Early Learning in Museums and Libraries: Tools, Partnerships, and Promising Practices.

Tim Carrigan, Senior Program Officer at the Institute of Museum and Library Services organized the program and invited the Association of Children’s Museums and the ALSC to share our perspectives and initiatives around early learning. Tim gave an overview of IMLS priorities, as well as national programs and partnerships including:
•BUILD Initiative – better integrating libraries and museums into statewide early childhood systems.
•Reach Out and Read – Prescription for Success fosters collaborations between medical professionals, libraries, and museums.
• Growing Young Minds – a call to action to fully use libraries and museums to close the knowledge and opportunity gaps.

Tim also spoke about IMLS funded projects like Every Child Ready to Read, Family Place Libraries, and LEAP into Science. All these programs are focused on supporting early learning in libraries through a collective impact model; so that by working together children will start school ready to learn to read.

Jennifer Rehkamp, the Director of Field Services at Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) presented information from the children’s museum perspective. Some of the early childhood focused programs and activities from ACM include:

• Eat Play Grow – collaboration with the National Institutes of Health on heathy nutrition and healthy physical activity choices

 

Museums for All – a program to ensure museum access for all with free or low cost admission.
Jen also spoke about the importance of play in the lives of young children and how play is essential in helping children develop critical thinking, problem solving, innovation, and collaboration skills.

With support from the ALSC Leadership and Staff, I presented some of our flagship programs for young children (below), highlighting not only these important initiatives, but also the everyday work that children’s librarians do every day to support young children and families.

• Babies Need Words Every Day – Helping families bridge the 30 million word gap!
• Día – Emphasizing the importance of literacy for all children.
• Every Child Ready to Read
• White Papers on Diversity and Media Mentorship

Overall we had a great discussion with the participants and they were very excited to receive the ALSC program handouts and to hear about so many opportunities to collaborate with libraries. Don’t be surprised if a community member reaches out to you to ask about ways to work together – take advantage!

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Our guest blogger today is Christine Caputo. She is the Interim Chief of Public Service Support at The Free Library of Philadelphia, where she manages youth services programming, outreach, and special projects. Chris is a current member of the ALSC Board of Directors. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].

The post On the Road with ALSC at the NBCDI Conference appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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The ALSC Board of Directors and ALSC President Andrew Medlar will be hosting an ALSC Community Forum live chat on the freshly updated ALSC Competencies for Librarians Serving Children in Public Libraries.

Join us to discover how these recommended professional standards, newly revised to reflect our ever-evolving field while honoring our best traditions, can support you and your colleagues in providing the best service possible to the kids in your community. This event will be co-hosted by the ALSC Education Committee.

ALSC’s next forum will be held on Monday, November 9, 2015 at:

• 2pm Eastern
• 1pm Central
• 12pm Mountain
• 11am Pacific

Members are invited to logon to learn more about the revised competencies and to discuss their implications on the field.

Accessing the Forum

ALSC Community Forums take place on Adobe Connect. A few days prior to the event, ALSC members will receive an email with a URL link to the forum. You can also find a direct link to the forum from the Community Forum site.

Questions? Contact ALSC Membership and Marketing Manager, Dan Bostrom, or by phone, 800-545-2433 ext 2164.

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Here is a summary (in comic form) of the Center for Childhood Creativity’s Report: Inspiring a Generation to Create: Critical Components of Creativity in Children. I highly recommend giving it a read. It’s got a lot of information that apply to our work as children’s librarians, and lots of interesting frameworks for thinking about creativity!

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No matter how long we've been in the profession, we all need mentors.

Pixabay Image

Jessica Olin over at Letters to a Young Librarian has a brief post post about the importance of peer mentoring and it got me thinking about my own experience.

I was lucky, throughout my career, to have experienced librarians take me under their wings in my library jobs, in my state association work and at the national level. Their support helped me navigate alot and taught me a ton.

But I can also say, forty years down my library career path, I have relied - and still rely  - on my peers for a tremendous portion of my professional support. Often referred to as PLNs (personal learning networks), our peer mentors can be life and sanity saving. These men and women, from libraries of all types and sizes, were my go-to reality check, my support, my place to dish, to unload, to problem solve, to listen and learn.

Without these peers who shared the same journey I did and were kind counselors and ardent thinkers, I would have been far lonelier and isolated; unconnected and unchallenged in my practice and my perceptions. I've always said I learn at least one new thing everyday, and my peer mentors often led that learning. Our frequent contact (emails, calls, twitter, FB, in person lunches and visits) informed my career and helped me navigate a thousand good and bad experiences.

I am profoundly thankful to all of you who are/were there for me. And I encourage everyone to reach out to link to your peers and share and grow together.

As I commented in Jessica's post: "While all mentors have had a profound and lasting impact on my long career, my peer mentors have saved my bacon (oh, or tofu) time and time again. The support, commiseration, problem-solving, uplift, shoulder to cry on, bold "let's hatch a plan," collaboration and sassytalk have enriched my practice every day in every way!"

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November 1 is a significant deadline for three ALSC professional awards. Fall is professional award season for ALSC. Every year, more than $100,000 is given away through ALSC’s professional awards, grants, and scholarships. These funds are awarded to deserving individuals and libraries across the country. Submit your application or nomination for one of these great awards soon:

Applications open!

• Louise Seaman Bechtel Fellowship – Due Nov. 1, 2015
• ALSC Baker & Taylor Summer Reading Grant – Due Nov. 1, 2015
• The Maureen Hayes Author/Illustrator Award – Due Nov. 1, 2015
• ALSC Distinguished Service Award – Due Dec. 1, 2015
• Light the Way: Library Outreach to the Underserved Grant – Due Dec. 1, 2015

Opening soon!

• Bookapalooza

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Skye: Greetings from the land of famous potatoes! This two weeks ago, energetic and passionate librarians from all across Idaho descend upon Boise for the annual Idaho Library Association Conference. The theme this year was “Libraries Leading the Way,” and what better way to kick it all off than with an early morning keynote address that challenged listeners to adapt and grow in the areas of character development, contextual awareness and competence, since no organization can rise above the capabilities of its leaders.

From lively sessions focused on innovative STEAM programs, to an entertaining and informative guerrilla storytime, to a legislative panel that affirmed the vitality of the library in early childhood learning – there was much at this year’s ILA Conference to excite, challenge, and inspire.

What made the conference extra-special, though, was the presence of the ALSC Roadshow booth. Since it is true that an organization is only as strong as its leaders, I am grateful to have had ALSC leaders with the foresight and wisdom to bring the ALSC booth to this year’s ILA Conference. Being a first-time volunteer at the booth was a great way to meet fellow ALSC members, a great way to share the benefits of ALSC membership with those who were not yet members, and a great way to work together to create a better future for children through libraries. Since Gretchen was the one responsible for bringing the ALSC booth to ILA, I’ll turn it over to her to describe the process!

Gretchen: I was already familiar with the ALSC Roadshow and when Dan (Bostrom) told me that Idaho only had 16 members in the state it seemed obvious that having a booth at the conference was a place to start! It was SO EASY to do. I filled out the form, connected with the few members in Idaho over email, Dan sent some handouts to have at the table, and then all that was left to do was to show up and set up! I even cut off my address on older Children & Libraries issues so people could see the excellent journal ALSC members receive.

We set up a schedule in advance to try to get volunteers arranged in time blocks, but once we got there I realized that wasn’t going to work. We just came over during breaks so we could still attend the conference sessions. In times dedicated to networking on the schedule, we’d head over to the booth. By crowdsourcing “staffing” the booth with fellow members, we had much better coverage throughout the whole conference. Unlike some of the other vendors, many conference attendees knew us so they would stop to chat and we had the chance to make sure they know about the Día resources and Babies Need Words posters as well as other other fabulous ALSC programs and initiatives. We encouraged Trustees and Directors who stopped by to make sure someone from their library is a member to get the maximum value of the professional development and support that ALSC offers.

Having a booth at our state association conference was an easy and fun way to meet the other members in the state and to help raise awareness of ALSC programs and initiatives. We definitely would like to do it again next year and hope it results in adding a few new members to our roster!

Photos courtesy of guest blogger.

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Today’s guest blogger is Skye Corey. Skye is a Youth Services Librarian at the Meridian Library District in Meridian, ID. You can reach her at [email protected]. 

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].

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It’s ALSC professional award season and our goal this year is to see you apply for one of these great grants and scholarships. To help you understand why, we’ve prepared a list of the top ten reasons why you should apply for award or grant this fall!

1. Programs are expense

ALSC has a bunch of great grants that will help cover the cost of materials, speakers fees, and other assorted costs.

2. Your boss will love it

Nothing says, go-getter like going and getting a grant or award. Especially for early-career professionals! Go get ’em!

3. Your community will love it

Awards and grants are great public relations fodder. When you win, you can share the news with your local newspaper. Brag a little!

4. A gateway to becoming more involved

ALSC professional award winners are in a special community among themselves. Winning an award with ALSC shows that you are ready for bigger things. Think of the places you’ll go, for instance, if you won the Bechtel Fellowship and spent four week studying children’s literature at the University of Florida’s Baldwin Library!

5. Take advantage of membership

Most ALSC professional awards are open to ALSC members, so make sure to use this benefit to your advantage.

6. Host a famous author or illustrator

This is specific to one amazing award…the Maureen Hayes Author/Illustrator Award. You could bring a recognized author/illustrator to your school or library!

7. Showcase your great ideas

Think you have a really innovative and exceptional program? This is a great way to show it off. Apply for a grant like the Light the Way or Baker & Taylor Summer Reading Grant which recognize outstanding ideas.

8. We tailored these specifically to librarians involved in youth services

You’re probably already doing these things in your library, so why not get recognized for it?

9. You can also recognize someone else!

The ALSC Distinguished Service Award recognizes an ALSC member who has made significant contributions to and an impact on, library services to children and ALSC. Know someone like that? Nominate him or her!

10. Money doesn’t grow on trees..nor do books!

Maybe your parents told you this at one point, but it’s true! ALSC grants and awards are a great way to supplement your library budget. If you’re in a small library that wants to build your collection, consider applying for the Bookapalooza program (applications open soon)!

Hurry! Many ALSC professional awards have deadlines of November 1, 2015. 

The post Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Apply for An ALSC Professional Award appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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Are you a Voxer skeptic? Read on to find out how Voxer can enrich your teaching life and an opportunity to use Voxer with others in our TWT community.

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We know this. We have been working with schools for decades and our summer reading programs are an integral part of our service to customers. With the advancement of research in summer slide, and libraries role in reserving the adverse effects of summer slide, we have new colleagues at our table. One of our most stalwart and enlightened partners are the folks at the National Summer Learning Association.  This year their annual conference is in my home town!! The speakers promise to be informative and inspiring. Join us and find new partnerships at every turn.

Our colleges at Urban Libraries Council ULC, partnered with the National Summer Learning Association, to collect a significant amount of information about the many innovative and meaningful ways in which public libraries are providing summer learning opportunities for youth and their families; contributing to closing the achievement gap and mitigating the summer learning slide. Both partners would also like to thank the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) who made this work possible.

Read more about these great summer learning programs at libraries across the country.

• Summer Learning Challenge at Chicago Public Library, which was just awarded the first-ever Founders Award by the National Summer Learning Association!
• Literacy Leaders at the New York Public Library

• READy for the Grade at the New Haven Free Public Library

• Science in the Summer at the District of Columbia Public Library

• Summer R.E.A.D.ing at the Broward County Library

• Summer Spark! at the St. Paul Public Library

• Worth Reading at the Fort Worth Library

• Read! By 4th at the Free Library of Philadelphia

ULC will be highlighting the innovative summer learning programming developed by public libraries during NSLA’s Summer Changes Everything National Conference held October 12-14, 2015, in Baltimore. ULC will be hosting Schools + Libraries = Power to Leverage Summer Learning, a working session demonstrating how libraries and schools can leverage resources and develop partnerships to support summer learning initiatives. ULC members Chicago Public Library and Virginia Beach Public Library will also host sessions highlighting their programs. Click here to learn more about the Summer Changes Everything library programming and ULC’s special registration discount!

The post LIBRARIES ARE IN THE LEARNING BUSINESS!! appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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Fall is professional award season for ALSC. Every year, more than $100,000 is given away through ALSC’s professional awards, grants, and scholarships. These funds are awarded to deserving individuals and libraries across the country. ALSC has several awards to choose from:

Applications open!

• The Penguin Young Readers Group Award – Due Oct. 1, 2015
• Louise Seaman Bechtel Fellowship – Due Nov. 1, 2015
• ALSC Distinguished Service Award – Due Nov. 1, 2015
• ALSC Baker & Taylor Summer Reading Grant – Due Nov. 1, 2015
• The Maureen Hayes Author/Illustrator Award – Due Nov. 1, 2015

Opening soon!

• Light the Way: Library Outreach to the Underserved Grant
• Bookapalooza

The post Apply for an ALSC Professional Award Today! appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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According to FaceBook, September 3rd was Anita Silvey's birthday. As someone who has been an outspoken advocate for quality literature for children, and an author of several nonfiction titles, The Nonfiction Detectives would like to wish her a very Happy Birthday. As as a publisher for Houghton Mifflin and editor of the Horn Book Magazine, Anita's conviction that children deserve only the very

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I was recently able to represent ALSC at the Public Libraries & STEM Conference in Denver, CO. The conference was kept very small–around 160 people total–and thus was very concentrated, with plenty to learn from and discuss with colleagues from libraries, STEM organizations, and other institutions with missions for informal learning. And while the small size necessary means that the participant pool was limited, the takeaways weren’t. I particularly want to share with you one of my major takeaways: the library as a single element in a larger learning ecosystem.

Note: I tried visual note taking at this conference. Since my handwriting isn’t always great, I’m transcribing text in the captions of images.

Here’s what I learned and have been itching to share:

There were several goals of the Public Libraries & STEM Conference, but one in particular resonated with me immediately: to figure out what STEM/STEAM in public libraries could/should look like in our age of technology and innovation. What is the library’s role now, and what should it be? It’s within our collective power to create a framework for STEM in public libraries.

That said, while we, libraries, can certainly make some decisions and create some practices around this (or any other) topic, it’s imperative that we recognize that we are NOT the only institutions with a vested interest in STEM learning and experiences. Yet if we think of ourselves as wholly separate from other organizations even when  they possess similar goals to our own, we’re muddying the waters. Or, rather, as Marsha Semmel (formerly at IMLS) shared from an organization called FSG, each individual organization is moving in its own direction. It’s a little bit of chaos, no matter how well intentioned. But when we collaborate, however–and this is meaningful collaboration, in which we set a common goal and common pathways to achieve it–we can actually accomplish meaningful progress and change.

An integral part of meaningful collaboration: trust, said Marsha Semmel. If we observe together, learn together, and act together out of a trust that we truly are working toward a shared goal, we can accomplish transformative change much more quickly than independently, or even working parallel to one another.

Part of developing that trust is recognizing that we as libraries are a single aspect of a larger learning ecosystem. When it comes to STEM learning for youth, we fit into a larger puzzle of groups and individuals supporting students. Ellen Lettvin, of the U.S. Department of Education, emphasized some of those other players in this ecosystem, including students’ families; their schools; their out-of-school programs and activities; community businesses; institutions of higher education; and STEM-rich institutions, of which libraries may be one.

Why do we need to recognize that we’re part of a larger learning ecosystem? John Falk, from Oregon State University, has researched this very topic, and has oodles of evidence supporting the fact that all of those experiences that youth–any age person, really–have out of formal school contexts are more and more important to overall STEM learning. Schooling isn’t sufficient in and of itself.

That’s because, says Falk, learning is continuous and cumulative. It happens all the time, and it constantly builds on what a learner already knows. There is no place or situation that is not ripe for learning. As such, if the library is a place people spend time, the library is necessarily a learning place.

Now, we know this. We know that libraries are institutions of learning. But in what capacity? Are we mostly places of individual discovery? Of information support? What if we really embraced that concept of library as learning place to its fullest extent and intentionally and proactively support the public who use us? We could be intentional hubs and hosts of STEM learning–or, truly, any type of learning that our communities need.

David Lankes, from Syracuse University, was careful to emphasize, however, that our being hubs and hosts of STEM learning does NOT necessitate that we ourselves be the be-all, end-all experts. Should you tap staff expertise and interests in creating STEM programs and services? Absolutely. But remember that whole bit about collaboration for collective impact? Here’s where it really comes in. There’s a very legitimate school of thought that says that libraries’ best role in supporting STEM learning, across the board, is to meaningfully collaborate with organizations who are unequivocal experts in STEM so that we can connect our patrons directly to the experts. We are mediators, introducers. That makes our capacity so much greater than it could ever be on our own.

This sentiment was echoed by Sharon Cox, from the Queens Library Discovery Center. It’s an entire library dedicated to children’s STEM learning and exploration, and even with that mission, focus, and staff expertise, they add huge value to what they are able to bring to their community through partnership with organizations who are expert in STEM and whose goals align with the library’s. As libraries, we’ve always thought of ourselves as the people who connect our public to the resources they need. This type of collaboration means that the definition of “resources” our public requires may very well include organizations other than our own.

Or, in other words, we continue to do what we do best and then connect our patrons to the rest of what they way. That was the overarching sentiment from Lee Rainie from Pew Research Center–that libraries are strongest not because they can do everything, but because they can connect you to people and organizations who can.

So if we’re deliberately not doing everything, and we’re also going to best support our patrons’ STEM learning through collaborating with expert STEM learning organizations, how do we collaborate? Dale Creedy, who works at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and is a collaborator with the Free Library of Philadelphia to offer a LEAP into Science program, says that the first step in cultivating collaboration is to reach out to other organizations and straight up have a conversation. Your intent: to identify what, if any, are your shared interests and goals. If you determine that you don’t have sufficient shared interests/goals to merit the time and resources that would go into a formal collaboration, it’s no real loss–you now know more about the organization and can better identify when to direct your patrons to them. But if you do have sufficient overlaps in your interests and goals, the foundation is primed for you to work together. Now you can shift your conversation to what, specifically, your shared goal is, and how you might reach it together.

This type of conversation can actually be a little clumsy for libraries. We tend to think in terms of the library being the sole solver of a problem, rather than just one player in a larger solution–that’s according to Miguel Figueroa from the Center for the Future of Libraries at ALA. Collective impact necessitates that libraries be part of a collective solution, which may require a bit of a mindset shift.

So what to do to enact that mindset shift, to form those meaningful collaborations? Dr. Scott Sampson, Vice President of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (and also Dr. Scott the Paleontologist from Dinosaur Train), gave some suggestions in the form of a few progressively-more-involved strategies. Starting small, figure out how to bring people to libraries, and vice versa–that is, how to bring libraries to people. Where are the people in your community who do not come to the library? What spaces do they tend to use? Figure out collaborations with those places to bring the library to them.

Next in the spectrum is re-envisioning the library with the input of the community. We tend to get into a library echo chamber and create new programs and services based on what other libraries are doing or what we think would be appealing to the community. But that’s not the same thing as asking the community what they need the library to be. It could be through surveys, focus groups, inviting a cultural organization to the space… the possibilities are endless, and the results fruitful.

Last on that spectrum is actively participate in a robust learning ecosystem. Sound familiar? It should, and the concept is repeated here because it is so important. When we work on our own, we are limited to reaching the people we personally serve. But when we are part of a larger ecosystem, however, we not only draw on the strengths of fellow elements in the ecosystem but we draw from the people they reach as well. Maybe a person child will just never come to the library; that’s just the reality of their life. But they do go to school and out-of-school activities. So if the library is part of a learning ecosystem that includes that school and those activities–if we collaborate with them–we do reach that child in a fundamental way.

Dr. Sampson’s best suggestion for a model for collaboration comes from the Heart of Brooklyn, a cultural partnership involving the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Public Library, Prospect Park, and Prospect Park Zoo. Their method: Install a collaboration team whose first task is to find a common goal that al of the partners can get behind. Then listen to the community; is your goal their goal, too? From there, the partners and the community can generate ideas for collaborative programs and services–these should be in play with one another, building off one another, not simply a list of isolated programs that take place at isolated institutions. With those ideas in mind, it’s time for the collaboration team to prioritize and implement select programs. Obviously there will also need to be some evaluative piece after this implementation, but that’s a bit beyond the main takeaway of this post: collaboration.

And collaboration is vital for transformative, dynamic support of STEM learning by libraries. Yet many of the smart people at this conference indicated that, right now, collaboration–and the vision of collective impact that can inspire and support it–is in short supply. We need to recognize that libraries need not go it alone when it comes to supporting STEM. That is not to say that we shouldn’t invest in doing some STEM programing and providing relevant services ourselves; it is just to say that we can do so much more when we collaborate with others who also aim to support the STEM learning of our communities.

That vision of what we can do together is huge.

The collective impact we can have when we collaborate meaningfully is massive.

And what, after all, is our overall goal as libraries if not to support our communities in transforming their lives?

The post Collaboration for Learning: Notes from the Public Libraries & STEM Conference appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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I’ve recently changed jobs, moving from one public library to another 25 miles east. The new-to-me position is in a different city, with different coworkers, different policies and procedures, and a different organizational culture. It’s the same kind of job that I did previously, but in a different setting.

Changing jobs is frequently included in the lists of most stressful life changes. This most recent move has me thinking about compiling a list of tips for myself and others who may change positions, either within their current organization, or shifting to a role at a different institution. I’ll start with several that are somewhat specific to Youth Services, and we’ll see what you think too in the comments.

My list of things to consider for Youth Services Librarians (ok, and others) when changing jobs:

1. Compile favorite program ideas (e.g. story time themes and extenders, past successful elementary and family events, and teen programming ideas that you don’t want to forget). Also while working on the programming idea list, save bookmarks of favorite places to visit online when creating new programs, so they available and ready when needed.
2. Save work-related contacts to be imported into the new e-mail system – especially the local performer and vendor contact information if you’re not moving far. Also get the personal contact information for your colleagues if you want to keep in touch. (I forgot to do that last bit when I changed jobs most recently.)
3. Purge the documents and files that you’ve been saving – you know which ones I’m talking about. Changing jobs is a good time to declutter.
4. Put things in writing for the person who will be taking on your responsibilities – best practices, your planning notes, even a To-Do list. (I’ve written about this before.) Make the task delegation easy for your supervisor by creating a list of your current responsibilities.
5. Be ready, willing and open to see new ways of conducting library services. You have your way of doing things (and you might think it’s the best way), but it’s not the only way to be successful.
6. Remember that there will be things left undone at the previous job – that’s just how it goes.

Have you changed jobs recently? What are other things to consider? This could also be addressed from the perspective of a team that is taking on a new member. What are good tips to help new coworkers feel welcome?

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Claudia Wayland is the Youth Services Manager at the Allen Public Library in Allen, TX and Adjunct Professor at the University of North Texas College of Information. She was a participant in this year’s TLA TALL Texans Leadership Institute, and is a member of the ALSC Managing Children’s Services Committee.

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].

The post Tips when Changing Jobs (in the Library Profession and Beyond) appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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Have you been a children’s librarian for less than 10 years? Have you been yearning to attend ALA Annual Conference, to get energized and inspired and learn from others in the profession?

The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Grants Administration Committee are now accepting online applications for the 2016 Penguin Young Readers Group Awards. This award, made possible by an annual gift from Penguin Young Readers Group, provides a $600 stipend for up to four children’s librarians to attend their first ALA Annual Conference in Orlando.

Each applicant will be judged on the following:

• Involvement in ALSC, as well as any other professional or educational association of which the applicant was a member, officer, chairman, etc.
• New programs or innovations started by the applicants at the library in which he/she works
• Library experience.

Applicants must be personal members of ALSC, as well as ALA members to apply. The deadline for submissions is Oct. 1, 2015. For more information about the award requirements and submitting the online application please visit the Penguin Young Readers Group Award webpage.

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Today’s guest post was written by Sondra Eklund, this year’s Grants Administration Committee Chair.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].

The post 2016 Penguin Young Readers Group Award Applications Are Now Open! appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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ALSC and the Grants Administration Committee are now accepting online applications for the 2016 Penguin Young Readers Group Awards. This award, made possible by an annual gift from Penguin Young Readers Group, provides a $600 stipend for up to four children’s librarians to attend their first ALA Annual Conference in Orlando.

Each applicant will be judged on the following:

• Involvement in ALSC, as well as any other professional or educational association of which the applicant was a member, officer, chairman, etc.;
• New programs or innovations started by the applicants at the library in which he/she works;
• Library experience.

Applicants must be personal members of ALSC, as well as ALA members to apply. Deadline for submissions is Thursday, October 1, 2015. For more information about the award requirements and submitting the online application please visit the Penguin Young Readers Group Award Web page.

The post Apply for the Penguin Young Readers Grant Award appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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93% of educators and program leaders use books from First Book to develop a lifelong love of reading in their students.

But how can we help kids develop this love of reading? First Book hosted a Twitter chat last week wherein educators around the country convened to discuss their experiences and tips for fostering a love of reading in the kids they serve.

Here are some of the highlights from our chat. To see full answers to all six questions, visit the hashtag #FirstBookEDU on Twitter or read our full recap on Storify.

Why is it important for kids to love reading?

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ALSC and the Special Collections and Bechtel Fellowship Committee are now accepting online applications for the 2015 Louise Seaman Bechtel Fellowship. The Bechtel Fellowship is designed to allow qualified children’s librarians to spend a total of four weeks or more reading and studying at the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature, a part of the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

The Baldwin Library contains a special collection of 130,000 volumes of children’s literature published mostly before 1950. The fellowship is endowed in memory of Louise Seaman Bechtel and Ruth M. Baldwin and provides a stipend of $4,000.

Each applicant will be judge on the following:

• the description of the topic of study for the fellowship period;
• the applicants’ demonstration of ongoing commitment to motivating children to read;
• the applicants’ willingness to spend a total of four weeks in Gainesville. The time spent does not have to be successive weeks.

Applicants must be personal members of ALSC, as well as ALA members to apply. Deadline for submissions is Oct. 1, 2014. For more information about the requirements of the fellowship and submitting the online application please visit the Bechtel Fellowship page.

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Greetings from the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee! Our committee is tasked with keeping ALSC up-to-date on IF issues being discussed across the ALA divisions. We’ve got a few exciting projects on the horizon that we’re looking forward to sharing with all of you!

Need support materials on Intellectual Freedom? ALSC has a number of useful links on the Professional Tools for Librarians Serving Youth webpage. Our committee has recently updated the links dealing with issues of Access as well as Intellectual Freedom. Read something recently that you think might be useful for others? Let us know! We’re looking to add some more recent articles and online resources.

Looking for something to empower kids and teens to stand up for their rights? Over the next couple of ALA conferences, our committee will be updating the Kids! Know Your Rights handout originally created in 2007. In particular, we plan to add information specific to the Intellectual Freedom implications of leveled reading programs, and we hope you’ll share it with the young readers and future advocates in your communities.

Do you or your staff feel ill-equipped to handle community concerns? Do you wish you had a better understanding of what the right to read means in your library?  We’re working on that, too! Over the next two years, we will develop a general framework for basic IF training that any library can implement as part of new staff training as well as continuing education. We’ve heard from many ALSC members that there is a need for staff at all levels to better understand the principles of IF and how they apply to daily public service, including fielding questions and concerns from parents and community members. If you already have a similar training at your library, we’d love to hear your best practices!

And one last thing – consider joining the Freedom to Read Foundation to support their work, to spread the word about censorship and to defend everyone’s freedom to read. FTRF is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending the first amendment through participation in litigation and by providing education and grant programs. Membership is only $35 and that money helps FTRF accomplish good work and support these creative Judith F. Krug Memorial Grant projects. The FTRF Board meets the day before the official start of the ALA annual and midwinter, and guests are always welcome. It is a great way to get caught up on current issues across the country.

And that’s what’s new with the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee! Feel free to use the comments to share your own ideas.

The post What’s New With IF? appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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Sometimes, school life and library life overlap.  Sometimes they don’t. Often I read the posts of my public library friends and find myself nodding my head and then I read the posts of many school librarians and my experience doesn’t mesh with theirs.  There are two hot topics that are happening right now in both the arenas of education and libraries and we should definitely be expanding our thinking and reading outside of the library and the school publications proper.

Makerspaces.  Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past 3-5 years, you’ve been reading about, learning about, or implementing some aspect of making whether you are in a school, a school library or a public library. I know that as children’s librarians we have been participating in maker culture for years, but the new focus really is more than a rebranding.  The blending of digital and analog, the open ended and problem solving nature of presenting students and patrons with possibilities instead of directions are both different from some of the making that we were doing early in my career as a youth services librarian.

Design Thinking. I recently participated in my own school’s Innovation Institute which brought together members of the faculty to use design thinking to solve a problem or create something new to share with our faculty and students.  The Gates Foundation and IDEO have created a Design Thinking Toolkit for Libraries.  While this way of thinking and problem solving is definitely taxing on the brain, it does tend to lead to innovation. We are always telling our students to take risks in their learning, and as librarians we should be willing to take some risks in ours as well.

The following are some links from the education world that easily lend themselves to library environments.

Edutopia – Design Thinking

Maker Ed – Projects and Learning Approaches

Teacher Librarian – The Philosophy of  Educational Makerspacea

Knowledge without Borders – Design Thinking for Kids

I’d love to hear back from librarians who have successfully used design thinking either with colleagues or kids. Also, feel free to drop your favorite maker link into the comments!

The post Ideas with Crossover Possibilities appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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On Tuesday, July 21, 2015, ALSC is offering a free webinar on media mentorship. Presented by Amy Koester, Youth & Family Program Coordinator, Skokie (IL) Public Library, Media Mentorship in Libraries Serving Youth: A Primer is an opportunity to learn more about the core ideas behind the white paper. Registration is free and open to anyone.

Media Mentorship in Libraries Serving Youth: A Primer
Tuesday, July 21, 2015

• 12pm Eastern
• 11am Central
• 10am Mountain
• 9am Pacific

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