Category: libraries…of the PAST!
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The Freedom to Be Totally Ignorant
“I’m not afraid anymore so go for it.” — Jane Elliot The Oprah episode above aired in 1992. Jane Elliott first did her blue eyes/brown eyes experiment the day after MLK was assassinated. (Note, that transcript contains offensive racial terms.) (If you’re not familiar, in brief, Jane did a lesson in prejudice with her class…
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to all the garbage library leadership I’ve loathed before
To the male manager who told me I needed to work two nights when everyone else only worked one because I was “single and had no one to go home to”; To the same male manager who cited my musical ability as a pro when I was hired, but then wrote on my performance evaluation…
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Outreach in a Time of Uprising
My first job out of college was working as a preschool teaching assistant in a state funded preschool program. Children in this program were “at-risk”, meaning they were growing up in poverty, or with only one parent, or with parents who didn’t speak English. An essential part of our work were home visits, where my…
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Management According to Hamilton: Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton Their name is Alexander Hamilton, and don’t you forget it. In fact, you couldn’t, even if you tried. This employee doesn’t usually stay around too long, but when they’re in your organization, you can’t avoid hearing their name. They work their way into the best projects and onto the most interesting committees,…
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Hi, Miss Julie’s Loves of Librarianship
Libraries are for everyone Everyone benefits from libraries, whether they use them or not Make every interaction delightful, wherever it happens A degree does not a librarian make Every library its community, and every community its library Libraries are for everyone Libraries are for everyone in your community, whether they are homeless, trans, on the spectrum,…
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libraries are not neutral spaces, and neither is the human heart
I’ve heard it in more than one training and workshop that part of customer service is when you’re faced with an unhappy or even irate patron, you should consider what has happened in their day, their week, their life, up until that very moment, that might be causing their distress. If there is an outburst,…
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Every Action Has an Equal, Opposite Reaction
In my post Where Do The Teens Go? I posited a Youth Services Department which is formed around a core staff of four two-person teams. Ideally they would all be full time, but that might vary depending on the size of your community and the number of schools you serve. Certainly some of the positions…
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Accentuate the Positive
You’ve got to accentuate the positive Eliminate the negative And latch on to the affirmative Don’t mess with Mister In-Between You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum Bring gloom down to the minimum Have faith or pandemonium’s Liable to walk upon the scene Johnny Mercer I like being nice. It’s true. There’s nothing…
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Make It So
As she so often does, Marge Loch-Wouters hit the nail on the head with her post Everything Old is New Again. I wonder, how many libraries with MAKERSPACES consulted their youth departments before creating this BRAND NEW THING? Because, seriously, been there, done that, have the stained shirt to prove it. Some of you might…
Hi, Miss Julie 