As Children’s Librarians, updating our approach to storytime can be scary. Storytime is often the core programming service provided and the first thing families think of when they think of library youth programming.
Author: ALSC Managing Children’s Services Committee
Rock Your Next Interview!
Getting an interview for a position you are interested in is super exciting, but also can be pretty scary because many times you only have one chance to make a great impression. After 8 years of hiring for youth services positions at all levels, here are some of my tips for rocking your job interview. Be prepared to share your experience and successes. This seems like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised by the amount of candidates I’ve interviewed that struggled with effectively sharing their qualifications. Before the interview, review your resume and think about how your previous experience has prepared you to succeed at this position. What are the highlights you want to be sure you share? Are there any programs, partnerships, or initiatives you helped to develop, implement, or improve? If there are any specific qualifications or skills that this position calls for, like understanding childhood development,…
Staying Out of Trouble
Whenever I look at something going bad, I ask: Are there systems in place? Are they up to date? Are they implemented? It all leads up to making decisions on high consequence, low probability events, or what many call high risk – low frequency. Think of your library. Each library consists of a distinct set of offices, branches, departments, or at a minimum, colleagues each with set of things for which they are responsible. Let’s just call them the things we do; each of us. Your job is complex. There may be hundreds or thousands of things you do that need to happen correctly so that your library, office, branch, or department can function; consistently delivering upon its mission. Those things all have one singular goal; doing it right. In youth work, if you are going to recommend titles, you do it right. If you are presenting a story time,…
Using Yoga in Storytime
Welcome to Ask ALSC, where the Managing Youth Services Committee asks leaders in children’s libraries to share their response to an issue or situation. We hope to showcase a range of responses to topics that may affect ALSC members. If you’d like to respond to today’s topics, or suggest a topic for the future, please leave a comment. As libraries reopen, some have in-person storytimes, while other libraries are still exclusively online. Others have created a hybrid using both. No matter which way storytime is presented, we are all looking for fresh and inventive ways to help children learn and have a positive time during storytimes. One simple and fun way to welcome children back is to include yoga. Incorporating yoga in storytime is very easy to plan, given some simple dos and don’ts. Here are a few resources to help guide you.
Building a Great Team
You have a vacancy in your youth services department. How can you make sure that you get the right person for the job and that they will be successful?
Katrina to Ida: Staff Communication and Community
There has been a lot written, in this blog and in other publications, about the role libraries and librarians can play in helping communities that experience a natural disaster. Children’s librarians play an especially important role in providing kids and families with resources for recovery and resiliency. But library staff are also going through the disaster and aftermath themselves. Having gone through two major hurricanes, 16 years apart to the day, I would like to share what I’ve learned about taking care of the library’s greatest asset during and after a disaster-the staff.
Applying the SOAR Model to Virtual Children’s Programming During a Pandemic
How did the Parkway Central Children’s Department at the Free Library of Philadelphia get a head start on virtual programming before the pandemic? In November of 2019, I attended a series of Skills for Community Centered Libraries training sessions with a cohort of my colleagues at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The training was developed by the Free Library with funding from IMLS, in partnership with seven other libraries around the United States & Canada. This curriculum will soon be available to all public libraries. In that setting, I was inspired with a spark of an idea about putting bite sized pieces of Storytime programming on Instagram Stories – this idea developed and blossomed into so much more as our world changed. I had no idea, in late 2019, that our job was about to change so drastically and we would have to bring all of our programming to the…
Lets Talk: Finding the Balance While Reopening During Summer Reading
For the past year or so, libraries around our country have either been closed completely or opened with lower capacity and hours. Now libraries are reopening with limited capacity and hours while other libraries find themselves opening at 100%. Although we are all looking forward to reopening and seeing the little faces lined up for reading logs and arms filled with books, librarians are scrambling to adjust summer programming that was already set for the virtual scene. This includes reading logs online, virtual programs and events, and books reserved online for pick up — no browsing the isles. How do we find a balance in such a rushed environment of reopening? In my local community, we have different library systems and all systems have been faced with the task of reopening. Patrons are excited about our reopening and want to browse and attend in-person events. As we created our summer…