For the past few months at the library, it’s all about the book displays! I’ve been working on our new centralized display area, as well as some other face-out displays on acrylic holders. It’s been wonderful getting to work on displays again and I love promoting our materials this way! And now…I give you my five quick tips for book displays: Keep your sign short and sweet. I love being creative and creating display pieces, but I have recently adopted the idea of “less is more”. Since I manage so much more at this library than I did in times past, I love taking advantage of signs that are already pre-made or tweaking signs to serve my purpose. My library uses LibraryAware and I love it, but there are other sources such as Canva. Diversify your displays. Make sure that you’re reflecting your community in your book displays. I make…
Author: Katie Salo
My Year with the 2018 Caldecott Committee
Hi, ALSC blog friends! I can’t believe it’s been almost a year and a half since I’ve “seen” you/written a post. I’ve been very busy this past year, working with the rest of the 2018 Caldecott committee, but I’m eager to be back here on the blog. So, let me tell you ALL the secrets of my year with the Caldecott committee. (No, not any discussion secrets. Those will remain in the Governors Square 15 ballroom in Denver.) I will tell you the secrets to what I think made an incredibly successful year and committee: Make friends with your mailpersons. I let my regular mailperson know that I would be receiving a lot of packages this year, for the Caldecott committee. Since they knew it was important, they left a plastic US Postal Service bin over the packages on rainy days to protect them. Post-it notes. I should have invested…
Summer’s Over: Time for Rest and Dreaming
After eight weeks of programming, and five months of planning and promoting: my library’s summer reading program is over. We’ve entered that period of time where the humidity hovers around 90% keeping patrons at home in their air conditioning. That time when staff members are rotating out to take some hard earned vacation time and desk shifts get longer. That time where the summer days seem to slow down instead of fly by. That time that is absolutely perfect for rest and dreaming.
Community Storytimes and Programs
Storytime shouldn’t just exist in the library. There are often a lot of barriers for families to use the library. They might have scheduling conflicts during morning storytimes or not have reliable transportation to the building. Registering for a storytime may not be possible or they have other children that need to attend. For these reasons (and more), my library makes it a point to do community storytimes and programs out of the library.
Tips for a Successful Music & Movement Program
2016 marks my third year of running the incredibly popular Music & Movement program “Shake, Shimmy, & Dance” during summer reading. This crowd-pleasing, high-energy program packs in 70-120 multi-generational participants each week. I’ve thought a lot this past week about what has made the program so successful and about some tips to pass on to other youth librarians looking to replicate this program. Top Ten Tips for a Successful Music & Movement Program Know your music collection. If you’ve got a particular artist that your community knows and loves, pop them into your playlist. For my kiddos, it’s Jim Gill and Laurie Berkner. If they hear the beginning of The Goldfish Song anywhere, they squeal with joy. Empower your grown-ups to get involved. Don’t let them sit down on the sideline and help lead them by providing instructions or dance tips. I include a ton of dance tips on the…
Lessons Learned from Storytime
Storytime is a learning environment and we all have lessons learned — including librarians. While I am a better storytime librarian than when I started, I am still far from perfect. And I’ve learned a lot about what kinds of books and materials work best for me in storytime. But in order to do that, I had to make some mistakes. Five Storytime Lessons Learned Never Repeating Themes At my first library, I never repeated storytime themes. I figured I had to get five years worth of themes since I was primarily doing an all-ages storytime and my youngest patrons would age out in five years. That led to some great creative themes, but it also meant shelving dinosaurs storytime for FIVE YEARS. And besides, repetition is great for kids. Lack of Inclusive Books Whoa, have I made this mistake more than once! I used to do holiday storytimes because…
Circulating Kits for Early Literacy
In the past few years, I feel like I’ve become an expert in circulating kits for early literacy. Since I started at my library two years ago, I’ve created thirty-nine circulating kits and have collaboratively helped seventeen more get on the shelves for our patrons. I thought I’d take some time today to highlight some of the kits. LeapFrog Kits I have four different kinds of LeapFrog kits on the shelf with a total of sixteen kits: LeapPad 2.0 (4 copies) LeapPad Ultra Tablets (4 copies) LeapFrog Junior Tag Reader (4 copies) LeapFrog Tag Reader (4 copies) Each LeapPad tablet comes with cartridges in the kit and each LeapFrog reader comes with preloaded books. I do basic maintenance of these kits. As each one comes into the library, I check to make sure it’s charged or that the batteries are still in good condition. I also wipe the tablets clean…
Parent Teacher Collection Re-Organization
Earlier this year, I took over the responsibility of the Parent Teacher Collection at my library. It was a natural fit since I had to keep bringing picture books to my boss and spending time together to figure out what collection a picture book like Todd Parr’s The Goodbye Book really belonged in. I was also asked to re-organize the collection by de-Deweying and creating browseable subjects. Instead of writing through every step, I made a quick infographic detailing my process: Collection Facts: Collection has ten shelves; roughly 650 books. Books are a mixture of adult books and children’s materials. We decided on seven main subjects: Development, Health, Relationships, Safety, School, Special Needs, and Travel. There are sub-subjects under every main subject except Travel. While the collection is mostly comprised of books, it does have some DVDs and software. At the bottom (in the red polka dot totes) are our…