Category: schools
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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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reasons I despise banned books week
BBW is already widely used internet lingo, and it ain’t about books. Why are we promoting something we’re against (banning books) instead of promoting something we are FOR (the freedom to read)? It confuses library users. I’m sure nearly every library worker has a story about someone seeing a “banned books” display and saying something…
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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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Picture it: a program
Do you want a program that you can do at your library that is: intergenerational? collaborative? creative? involves multiple departments, including tech services? celebrates picture books and novels? Well, here it is: Buy a bunch of blank books from Bare Books. They have paperbacks, picture books, graphic novels, board books–all of them blank and ready…
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Out of STEAM
I have a confession to make: I don’t care about STEM. Or STEAM. Or even STREAM. I just don’t care. .fin. Ha, no, just kidding. Here’s what I love: The Boombox at Skokie Public Library. They had a ton of middle schoolers who needed something to do and exposure to teach, so they decided the library…
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Why Kids Need to Read What They Want
In the most recent edition of Cover to Cover by K.T. Horning, there are no early childhood, middle grade, or ya distinctions in books for children. Encompassing fiction and nonfiction, the breakdown is: Picture books (including board books) Readers/Beginning Readers/Easy Readers Transitional books Chapter books That’s it. We have those formats, and within those formats, every genre is…
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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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Where Do The Teens Go?
Where do the teens go? (saxophone solo) Where do the teens go? I’ve long had a belief that service and programs in the public library, especially Youth Services (if you define Youth Services as 0-18), is a conveyor belt of sorts. We start with children in lapsit storytime, and our ultimate goal should be to create…
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Talk the Talk
Talk the Talk: The Art of Booktalking to Young Adults Whether you’re talking to a single 12-year-old or an entire classroom of high school seniors, an effective and engaging booktalk can be a challenge. Learn best practices for presenting to young adults and how to find your finest booktalking voice. Try your hand at constructing…
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The Librarian Dating Game
I started writing this post in October 2015; finally published August 2016. Once upon a time some librarian colleagues and I presented a program at our state conference talking about how public, school, and academic libraries can and should work together. We formatted it as a game show–The Dating Game, obviously–and had different librarians ask…
Hi, Miss Julie 