“…I thought about the fact that although books don’t have feelings, the librarians forced to remove them from the shelves do.” Xochitl Gonzalez, “The Librarians Are Not Okay.” The Atlantic, March 15, 2023 Book challenges, protests against gender and racial inclusivity, salary stagnation, skyrocketing inflation, opiate overdoses, bad branch managers, years of being ‘essential workers’ -– we all know there isn’t a bath long or bubbly enough to repair the damage that long-term chronic stress does to the body and mind. Public librarians are housekeepers, zookeepers, referees, therapists, mandated reporters, front line emergency workers, cleaners of unidentified effluvia and other duties as assigned. This is why bubbles-and-polish commodified self-care simply does not suffice. Most of us have, at this point, heard about the Urban Librarians Unite’s 2022 Urban Trauma Study, so I will not go into great detail about it here. In short, public-facing librarians experience significant trauma on a daily…
Author: Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee
CSMCL DÍA GRANT WITH AN AFRICAN AMERICAN FOCUS
INTERVIEW WITH DR. CLAUDETTE S. McLINN Dr. Claudette S. McLinn is Founder and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature (CSMCL). Since 2011, Dr. McLinn created the CSMCL Día Grant with an African American Focus, which is funded by CSMCL in partnership with the ALA/Association of Library Services to Children (ALSC) and author Pat Mora, the founder of Children’s Day, Book Day/ El día de los niños, El día de los libros; often known as Día. Día is celebrated every year on April 30. Here, we will ask her a few questions about this grant. 1. What brought about this grant in 2011? I became interested in Día because of the concept of family, children, and literacy. I love that families and children share literacy activities together in any library, school, or public setting. Thinking that it would be a good idea, I wanted to…
Building Bridges for Better Advocacy
Learn how to advocate to underserved communities by building your personal network.
Black History Month at the Library!
Read on to see how to advocate for black history every day in this post by the Public Awareness and Advocacy committee.
Planning A Year of Advocacy: Month by Month
What better time than a new year to look at professional goals and see how you can incorporate advocacy into every month of the year.
The Importance of Pronouns
Author and illustrator Maya Christina Gonzalez is known for her award-winning bilingual (English/Spanish) books such as My Colors, My World and I Know the River Loves Me. But this Progressive Educator and Independent Scholar/Researcher has also delved into the world of pronouns. Call Me Tree was written without any gender identifying pronouns and she has since written substantially on the topic as well as writing and illustrating three children’s books on the topic — They She He Me: Free to Be!, The Gender Wheel, and They, She, He Easy as ABC. I asked Gonzalez to tell us about the importance of pronouns and that resulted in the following conversation. Maya, why are pronouns so important in creating a gender-inclusive environment? I believe, as we go through these changing times, keeping track of the big picture helps us make important connections and gives us a guide to steer by. When it…
It’s Only Natural! Bringing the Outdoors In to the Library
The next time you take a walk/hike/bike ride in nature, pause and notice how you feel. Do you feel calmer? Happier? More energized? Believe it or not, being in this kind of environment can have the same effect on children. The benefits are numerous: it builds confidence, promotes creativity and imagination, gets them moving, helps them think, and reduces stress. When I took my current job in an urban library system, I learned about an initiative that had already been created there called NatureConnect. The purpose is to try to create anytime activities around nature or somehow incorporate nature into our programming. Being downtown in a city as well as on the 2nd floor of the building definitely creates unique challenges for me as we don’t have easy access to the outdoors like our branch libraries do. I’ve worked very hard to create indoor nature experiences for kids by creating…
The Benefits of Community Partnerships
September is here, school bells are ringing, public youth services librarians are wrapping up their Summer Reading programs and the ambitious may have already begun brainstorming for next summer’s program. As you evaluate and plan for your programs, think about the benefits of involving community partners in reaching your goals. Summer Reading is not just a program, for my library it’s also our biggest public awareness campaign. One of the goals I had for our 2022 Summer Reading Program was to increase community partner involvement through a couple avenues, business sponsorships and outreach. For 2022, local businesses sponsored the Summer Reading Program by donating prizes, off-site programming spaces, and food for various events. The reciprocal benefits of engaging with community partners are invaluable in library success. Our sponsors enable us to provide more engaging programming through funds and in-kind donations, and in return we provide them placements on our promotional…