June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month! How does your library commemorate Pride Month and/or welcome rainbow kids and families throughout the year? My library is planning a month of Pride programs for the first time this year. I am really excited because this programming and outreach is way overdue. When you’re new at Pride programming, where can you turn? I’ve collected some great resources for you to check out here.
Author: abbylibrarian
I'm the Children's Services Manager at the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library in Southern Indiana.
Free Audiobooks with SYNC
Do you know about SYNC? Each summer, AudioFile Magazine partners with over a dozen publishers and with Overdrive Education to offer free audiobooks to listeners. Starting this week, SYNC is back for 2022! Each week, they make two free audiobooks available for download.
Advocating for Diverse Books
I went to a grown-up pre-conference at the 2022 PLA Conference: Actively Anti-Racist Service to Leisure Readers (check out our PLA 2022 live blogging here!). Many times when choosing conference sessions, I look for content specific to youth librarianship. It’s what I know, it’s what I do. But here’s your sign to look outside our youth librarian box now and then. Although the presenters, Robin Bradford, Alene Moroni, and Becky Spratford are experienced in adult services, everything they said translates easily to youth collections. I want to share my takeaways advocating for diverse books in your collections.
The Children’s Author Panel of My Dreams at #PLA2022
Thursday morning I had the absolute pleasure of sharing breakfast with a room full of librarians and listening to four stellar authors speak about their books. I tweeted that it was the author panel of my dreams: Dhonielle Clayton, Alex Gino, Rex Ogle, and Traci Sorrell.
Braille Enhanced StoryWalks® at #PLA2022
Y’all know I love the StoryWalks® at my library, but you know what could make them better? Increased accessibility for those with disabilities! In this morning’s session Braille Enhanced StoryWalks®, we learned about adding Braille text to StoryWalks®. The Library of Michigan and the Michigan Braille and Talking Books Library partnered to make this happen for dozens of library districts in their state, serving millions of residents.
Pilgrimage to Powell’s at #PLA2022
Portland, I am in you! I arrived Monday night and attended an amazing pre-conference yesterday (more on that later). And of course my colleagues and I had to make a pilgrimage to the City of Books, Powell’s Books.
What Marketable Skills Do Children’s Librarians Have?
I was having a conversation with a friend recently about librarians moving to jobs in other fields. Taking the leap from libraries to a corporate job sounds scary. But it did get me thinking about what marketable skills we develop as children’s librarians. Being a children’s librarian sounds like a very specific career. And we certainly develop specific expertise. But many of the programs and projects we undertake build very marketable skills. I hope for you that you’re in youth librarianship because you love it. If you’re feeling like a change might be nice, though, consider the following as you peruse job ads.
Circulate Hotspots at Your Library
Does your library circulate hotspots to your community? Ours is just about to. Like many libraries, we were lucky enough to receive an Emergency Connectivity Grant. This provided funds for us to purchase 150 hotspots and 20 Chromebooks to circulate to our county. I know many libraries have circulated hotspots for years, but this was brand new to us. Here’s what we thought about as we got our hotspots ready for our community.