At PLA 2016, I attended the “How Two Libraries Quit Summer Reading and You Can, Too” program with the real hope (deep in my heart) that I would never, ever, ever do a summer reading program (SRP) again. You already know where this is going. That program title was a trick to get me in the door, but the presentation was full of good stuff that re-invigorated my team to finally make the changes to our SRP that we had been imagining for years. That PLA session was the inspiration that made us examine everything we were doing and start over. Let’s begin with a tour of the past. Our SRP wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t a team effort, but rather a task on someone’s to-do list. Since SRP isn’t an easy program for one person to put together, we knew this was a practice that needed to change. Also,…
Category: PLA 2016
By Design: A New Way of Thinking #PLA2016
I was first introduced to Design Thinking last August while attending the ALA Leadership Institute. Seeing it in action was what drew me to this session hosted by librarians from San Jose Public Library, Rancho Cucamonga Public Library, and YOLO County Public Library, who have implemented this process in planning for new services such as trivia nights, pop-up outreach, and after-hours craft events. It’s no surprise that many great ideas come from using one’s imagination to think broadly about services. Design Thinking most notably came out of Stanford’s d.school, where students were asked to think of a creative way to make a new type of incubator for infants in developing countries. After much research, a visit to Nepal, and abandoning pre-conceived notions, the student team created the Embrace Infant Warmer, and have made a lasting global impact. How can we bring this new method of thinking to libraries? The presenters…
Anythink Open House at #PLA2016
I was lucky enough to snag a free ticket for the Open House at the Anythink Huron Street location held Wednesday morning. We met the very friendly Anythink staff at the Convention Center and were ushered into a party bus-like shuttle to travel the 12 miles to Anythink. It was a great time to meet some other people, see more of Denver and talk about branding and the Anythink philosophy and service. “Anythink” comes from the idea that “anything” is possible. The library gives us access to and endless array of possibilities. When we arrived at the branch, we were able to explore and see the branch working in action. I was so impressed by their emphasis on hospitality (rather than “customer service”). The entire branch was focused on making users feel welcome from babies to adults and there were clear places for everyone to enjoy the library in their…
Every Child Ready to Read and Its Impact on Parents in your Community @ #PLA2016
My job title is Early Literacy Specialist, and I’m pretty I would neither have that job title, nor would my job even exist (in it’s present form), without Every Child Ready to Read. I discovered ECRR shortly after it was introduced in 2004 and it was, in all honesty, career-changing. I was hooked on empowering parents through 5 simple practices (or, 6 skills in the first iteration) to help their children get ready to read and fascinated by the brain science behind it. Libraries around the country, including mine, began being more intentional in their storytimes about talking to parents about how the things they were doing were helping children develop vital pre-reading skills. ECRR changed the focus of storytime from the child to the parent. Has this change in focus been effective, though? Are we having an impact? It was, then, with great pleasure that today I attended Susan Neuman’s…
The Forgotten Years
It’s Friday at #PLA2016! Today I attended a session entitled Middle Childhood Matters: Revitalizing Services and Programs for School Age Children by Peggy Thomas and Diane Banks of the Toronto Public Library. This was an excellent presentation covering what they did and why they did it. A lot of their reasoning rang true for me personally. The trend to bring a lot of light and attention to the importance of reading to children birth to age five is particularly strong. As it well should be! The developmental stages that children go through in this time period and the importance of early literacy is well documented. However, it seems that we don’t have the same elevator speech for why library programming for six to twelve years is just as important. We need to be able to tell stakeholders such as parents, teachers, and funders why library programming is imperative for this…
Out at the Library in comics at #PLA2016
All illustrations copyright Lisa Nowlain, 2016. Lisa Nowlain is the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Fellow and Children’s Librarian at Darien Library in Darien, CT. She is also an artist-type (see more at lisanowlain.com).
Pew’s Lifelong Learning in comics at #PLA2016
All illustrations copyright Lisa Nowlain, 2016. Lisa Nowlain is the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Fellow and Children’s Librarian at Darien Library in Darien, CT. She is also an artist-type (see more at lisanowlain.com).
Out @ the Library #PLA2016
This afternoon Jared Mills and Misha Stone from Seattle Public Library shared their outreach and programming initiatives to the LGBTQ community, including successful events like Banned! Books in Drag and Legendary Children. Both librarians were led to reach out to this underserved community after discovering the LGBTQ population was growing at an estimated 57,993 in the city of Seattle, and moving beyond such areas as the Capital Hill neighborhood. Before hosting such events, Mills and Stone, had to do their research and make a case to both the organization and their LGBTQ neighbors. One realization that was difficult was discovering that the library was not necessarily perceived as a safe space. Finding out where community members felt safe, and spending time outside the library walls was crucial. Mills understands that sometimes releasing control and working with outside organizations can be difficult, but stated, “We have to take a step back,…