Diverse books reflect the varied experiences of people around the world, including people of color, people with disabilities, people with a variety of religious beliefs, and people on the GLBTQ spectrum. The American Library Association and many library cultural organizations, like the American Indian Library Association, recognize outstanding books each year that may be a … Continue reading Diversity on My Mind
Last fall, I paid assiduous attention to early childhood literacy, striking up conversations on the subject and creating lengthy lists of resources. My obsessive information seeking supports students in my community engagement class who are helping Sioux City (Iowa) Public Library (SCPL) staffers locate area organizations with an interest in children’s reading. Library Director Betsy … Continue reading Mind the Gap
Three-dimensional printers, apps, social networks. It’s easy to get caught in the trap of responding to the newest technology or educational stratagem when planning your program of service for youth and their families. Instead, start by thinking about the impact you want to have on children and teens and develop services that support those. For … Continue reading Outcomes-Based Futures
Storytime Underground, an informal idea-sharing website where youth librarians can learn from each other, started with Guerrilla Storytime—gatherings of children’s librarians sharing ideas, brainstorming, and troubleshooting issues related to early childhood librarianship—at the 2013 ALA Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago. Since then, Guerrilla Storytime has been held at conferences all over North America, creating … Continue reading Storytime Underground
When library staff members serving youth tell me how much busier they are when school is out for the summer (and in preparing for students’ vacation time), it makes me a little crazy. I say to myself, “Shouldn’t library staff be this busy all year long?” And really, what message does it send when talking … Continue reading The Myth of Busy Summers
The era of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in American education carries both promise and peril. Pundits readily discuss varied perspectives about CCSS in everything from traditional journals to social media. While it is vital for school librarians to participate in this discussion, many are realizing how important it is to work with fellow educators … Continue reading Knowing What Readers Need
Can you provide excellent readers’ advisory without reading widely yourself? This question, posed to my Twitter followers (whose replies shared a refrain of “No way”), led me to rethink the way I train my staff on readers’ advisory. Of course there are ways to become familiar with books without actually reading entire works—reviews, first chapters, reliance on … Continue reading Reading Wildly
Often statistics tell a story that spurs us to action. Consider: Only 13% of African-American male 4th graders and 11% of African-American male 8th graders scored at or above proficient on national reading tests; Barely half of all African-American males graduate from high school, and only 5% go to college; Black male teens are eight … Continue reading It’s Time to Act
As I wrote this column, I decided to check my go-to dictionary, the Merriam-Webster, about the definition of “outreach.” It stated: “the extending of services or assistance beyond current or usual limits <an outreach program>; also: the extent of such services or assistance.” Youth services outreach frequently centers on luring young people inside the library … Continue reading Moving Beyond Same-Old
What does a commercial-free space mean to you? With corporations doing their best to surround children with advertising from birth, providing commercial-free spaces is essential to our continued democracy, which depends on creativity and critical thinking, skills that pervasive marketing can repress. Libraries, with our continual campaign for intellectual freedom, are the perfect places to … Continue reading Sponsored by Your Library
School librarians across the country participate in an annual ritual to mark the end of the academic year. They diligently distribute summer reading lists and encourage students to participate in their public library’s summer reading programs.This ritual is not without scholarly support. A 2010 Dominican University study, Public Library Summer Reading Programs Close the Reading … Continue reading Ramping Up Summer Reading
It’s probably no surprise to you that sometimes library staffers prefer to work with one age group over another. Children’s services staff members may love working with kids but may not be so crazy about working with teens or adults; young adult staffers may be wild about teenagers, but preschoolers and adults may be another … Continue reading The Whole Library Approach
