As School Outreach Coordinator, the collaboration I have with the amazing school librarians is priceless. From storytimes to starring in Summer Reading Program videos, from booktalks to program promotion, the school librarians are up for just about anything! In this post, I’ll share five simple ideas for collaboration.
Category: Collaboration
All Together Now 2023 SRP
But It’s Still Winter… Believe it or not, this is my 20th year working – as a paid employee – in Central Florida libraries. If you include volunteering…well…that’d be most of my life. From all I’ve ever experienced, you can never be fully or overly prepared for a season of summer reading programming. As a matter of fact, I am known for ALWAYS having a backup plan for each program, right down to duplicates of mission critical equipment. Sounds like a military operation, doesn’t it? So, yes, it’s January and we are talkin’ All Together Now, our 2023 Summer Reading Program! Nitty Gritty, Nuts and Bolts I always love a tool kit, a place I can have everything in one spot, like a Swiss Army knife. I’m based in Florida, but this seems to have universal appeal: CSLP 2023 Program Resources 2023 Summer Program (and beyond) Resources: Overview of popular…
The Digital Tools of an ALSC Virtual Committee
Hello! Manuela Aronofsky and Tina Bartholoma here. We’re the current co-chairs of the ALSC Children and Technology Committee. The ALSC C&T Committee is a virtual committee, so to stay connected and collaborate with members across time zones, we have adopted a handful of favorite digital tools. Today we will share what they are and how we use them for our committee work.
It’s a Beautiful Day in Your Neighborhood: Creating a Serviceable Service Map
My system is rethinking, relaunching, and rediscovering what our community and neighborhoods are like right now, and how the library can fit into our local communities. It feels like the perfect time to start this work, as our neighborhoods have been pretty closed off the last couple of years to keep us safe. I warned my staff when our fiscal year started in October, that pretty much all they would hear from me this year is the word: Resetting. And that word is perfect as a launch to reset yourself in the community, and reconnect.
Learning Beyond: 21 st Century Summer and Out-Of-School Time Toolkit
Long before COVID-19 upended what we know about informal youth learning in libraries, ALSC commissioned a Task Force to consider the shift in core activities that would mark learning in the 21st Century. From this planning task force, an Implementation Task Force was formed in 2019. The Summer and Out-of-School Time Task Force was charged with creating a national tool predicated upon evidence-based approaches for developing quality and impactful programs and services for children. Learning Beyond: 21st Century Summer and Out-of-School Time Toolkit is the culmination of the ensuing work. The Toolkit reveal happened at the 2021 Annual Conference of the National Summer Learning Association in Washington, DC, where ALSC President Lucia Gonzalez introduced the work as “an integral part of the roadmap we need to help our children move forward through public library service.”
Hidden Figures Trading Cards
This post is in honor of my colleague, Julia Pflager, who created an amazing passive/self-directed program that should be shared with all. Julie and I used to work together, and one of our favorite things to do was to plan bimonthly big programs where we would decorate the children’s room with larger than life items and self-directed activities and programs that featured different programming themes. It was so much fun!
Food Pantry Storytime
Earlier this year, my library opened a food pantry as one of the services we offer. It’s been a huge success, a lot of work but a huge payoff for our patrons. Last month, I hosted a food pantry storytime to help promote our pantry. I don’t get to do storytime too often anymore and it was a lot of fun. Here’s what we did!
Collaboration Wins: Our Trail Tales Story
We launched a big addition to our library collection last month: eleven podiums that make up our new Trail Tales! Trail Tales is based on StoryWalk®. This project was long in the planning. My colleague had tried to find funding to create a literacy/walking experience at the outset of the pandemic, but was unable to secure a source for us. However, we didn’t give up our dream of a StoryWalk® of some sort! We kept our eyes open for potential partners.