Category: OPINIONS!

• The Cockroach Approach: Outreach

  Part One of a four part series. Read the introduction here. Children’s librarians have cornered the market on outreach. We go out to schools, preschools, daycares and present book talks, storytimes and other programs that promote our services, materials and meet a developmental need for our users. Some librarians go even further and perform at…

  Miss Julie

  June 8, 2012

  awesomeness, babies, be the best you can be, Librarians, librarians…for TEENS!, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, libraries now!, libraries…of the FUTURE, libraries…of the PAST!, library workers, marketing, OPINIONS!, outreach, participation, personal experience, professional development, schools

  advocacy, books, community, librarian, libraries, literacy, literature, oak park public library, outreach, outreach librarian

• Want to Save Libraries?

  I think every library, be it public, school, academic, or special, can learn a lot about survival from the children’s departments of public libraries–because we’re not going anywhere. Even if the rest of the library as we know it collapses and crumbles, children’s librarians will still be around, in some form or another, doing what…

  Miss Julie

  June 5, 2012

  awesomeness, be the best you can be, Librarians, librarians…for TEENS!, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, libraries now!, libraries…of the FUTURE, library spaces, literacy, marketing, OPINIONS!, personal experience, politics, professional development, programming, Uncategorized

  books, literature, outreach programming

• Read, Eat, and Be Snobby

  I have a post up at the BEA Librarian blog all about summer reading, literacy, and snobbery. Go read it!

  Miss Julie

  May 25, 2012

  awesomeness, be the best you can be, OPINIONS!

  books, literature, research, science

• May the Fourth Be With You: 2013

  May 4th is on a Saturday next year and so help me, I’ll be planning and implementing a large scale, fun for the whole family “May the Fourth Be With You” Star Wars nerdamondium party that will be so awesome I may just explode. Other libraries have done it with much success. You can get…

  Miss Julie

  May 24, 2012

  awesomeness, be the best you can be, events, fathers, kids, Librarians, librarians…for TEENS!, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, libraries now!, library spaces, mothers, OPINIONS!, participation, programming, scifi, technology, teens, toddlers, video games, weirdnesss for the sake of weirdness

  community, star wars, technology, yoda

• Stifled: or, the exact wrong way to think about storytime

  Oh, dear sweet baby Picard Jebus, there’s a rage making thread on pub-yac about a children’s department being forced to do all of their storytimes the same. Here’s a quote: […A]ll the storytimes for one age group should be the same because: Patrons get disappointed when they can’t get into a certain storytime because its…

  Miss Julie

  May 17, 2012

  awesomeness, be the best you can be, early childhood, ethics, kids, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, libraries now!, library school vs. real libraries, OPINIONS!, participation, professional development, programming, stories, storytime

  community, creativity, culture, education, literature, politics

• Boundtracks: Pete the Cat and “New Shoes”

  Oh, Pete the Cat! I can practically recite you from memory, and there isn’t a group of kids and adults in existence who aren’t magically swept up in your bouncy tale of sloppy shoes. (Although some more savvy color mixers insist that first your shoes should turn pink then purple but I call it a…

  Miss Julie

  May 17, 2012

  authors, awesomeness, be the best you can be, books, boundtracks, different ways to read, early childhood, early literacy, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, OPINIONS!, participation, picture books, preschool, programming, reading, stories, storytime, toddlers

• Muffins with Mom

  Years ago, at one of my first library jobs, I had a weekend morning program that I called “Doughnuts with Dad.” I believe it was around father’s day, but it might not have been. All I did was brew some coffee, buy some doughnuts and juice, gussy up the tables with some table cloths, throw…

  Miss Julie

  May 13, 2012

  artsncrafts, awesomeness, be the best you can be, events, Librarians, librarians…for TEENS!, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, libraries now!, mothers, OPINIONS!, participation, personal experience, professional development, programming

  community, food, gadgets, librarian, love, mothers

• Listen, I’m Telling You Stories

  Funerals are not for the dead, they are for the living. They are for those left behind, to act as a comforting play in which we know all the roles and there is no twist in the second act. My mother would have hated her own funeral. It was a maudlin, religious, church bound affair,…

  Miss Julie

  May 3, 2012

  be the best you can be, bibliotherapy, largely unsubstantiated, mothers, OPINIONS!, personal experience, stories

  love, mama cass, mothers, music, songs

• Fashion (buns to the left) Fashion (cardigans to the right)

  So, fashion. Or style. Or wardrobe. Or costume. What do we librarians wear, anyway, and why does it matter–if, in fact, it does? (Per usual, my discussion is pretty child and teen librarian focused. Allow me to wear my bias like a hot dog button on my sleeve). For myself, I’ve been known to wear:…

  Miss Julie

  April 6, 2012

  awesomeness, be the best you can be, Librarians, librarians…for TEENS!, librarians…for the CHILDREN!, OPINIONS!, personal experience, politics, Uncategorized

• Be Authentic

  Lately I’ve really felt a yearning to work more with teens. I recently had the opportunity to booktalk some of Adam Selzer’s books to some fifth grade classes, and it was amazing. To prepare, I asked Adam for some fifth-grade related biographical tidbits to share with the kids. One question was, “What did you think…

  Miss Julie

  March 26, 2012

  awesomeness, be the best you can be, Librarians, librarians…for TEENS!, libraries now!, libraries…of the FUTURE, OPINIONS!, personal experience, professional development, programming, teens

  community