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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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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…
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Daisy to the Rescue: Book Review
Daisy to the Rescue: True Stories of Daring Dogs, Paramedic Parrots, and Other Animal Heroes By Jeff Campbell and illustrated by Ramsey Beyer, with a foreword by Dr. Mark Bekoff / Published by Zest Books and distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / ISBN-13: 978-1-936976-62-1 / $17.99 Hardcover, 320 pages, Ages 12+) As a single woman with two cats, I’m…
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See You Later, Alligator
I’ve just started a new “stop the summer slide” session of Beginning Reader Storytime, the first time I’ve presented this program at my new library (it’s still new to me, really, even after almost two years here). For this community, I made this program drop-in, and the ages are entering K to entering 2nd grade…
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Programming for Preschoolers: Take a Tip from Preschool Centers
When I was still teaching preschool (oh how I love to talk about when I taught preschool) one of the early literacy tactics we employed was to integrate literature and literacy skills into every center. This meant having books with building themes in the block center, books about nature in the science center, having pads…
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egotism vs self worth
In January 2013 I wrote a post that touched a raw, exposed nerve for many in the library world. One year later, I’m still amazed at the outpouring of reactions to that piece, and the variety of reactions it provoked. I’m also very proud of some of the projects that it inspired, including the very…