Category: Guest Blogger

Guest Blogger

An #alsc20 Highlight by Sarah West

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Institute Graphic Plain

This year I had the chance to attend ALSC’s Virtual National Institute. I was so excited, I had never been to the National Institute, virtual or in person. Thanks to the 2020 Friends of ALSC Virtual Institute Scholarship, I got to attend. Of course the first thing I did when I got the email was to look at the schedule. I saw that this year there was a panel called “Diversity Needs Jewish Books: A Missing Piece of the Diversity Conversation.” I stopped in my tracks. As a 26 year old Jewish woman, I had grown up with just a handful of books about Jewish people, but how many times can I read Joseph Had a Little Overcoat? I didn’t know I’ve been waiting for this panel my whole life, but now I knew.             “Diversity Needs Jewish Books: A Missing Piece of the Diversity Conversation” was hosted by four…

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Guest Blogger

Dinovember… In the Before-Times or During a Pandemic

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November is Dinovember and dinosaurs have invaded the children’s department! Inspired by Refe and Susan Tuma’s What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night and librarians everywhere, Dinovember is a special month where dinosaurs come out to play. In 2019, our children’s department staff helped me celebrate our first Dinovember with programming, displays, and crafts. 

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Books

Batchelder Award – Call for Suggestions

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Books are arriving and the 2021 Batchelder Award committee is busily reading, but we need your help in ensuring we are identifying the very best in children’s literature published in 2020.  Please consider suggesting a title to the committee for consideration.  Visit the Batchelder Award page, log into your ALA account, and fill out the suggestion form.  It’s that easy! The Batchelder Award is awarded to a United States publisher for a children’s book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originating in a country other than the United States and in a language other than English and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States during the preceding year. More information can be found on the Submission Process page and FAQ’s about ALSC’s Book & Media Awards pages. Hurry – suggestions close on October 31, 2020! Today’s guest blogger is Suzanne Harold , 2021 Batchelder Award Committee Chair. This…

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Guest Blogger

An #alsc20 Highlight by Samantha Mairson

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Curiosity Kitchen Promoting Healthy Living through Programming and Partnerships at #alsc20 This session interested me because my library launched a “Cooking with Kids” virtual cooking class program during COVID and it has been incredibly successful. Unfortunately, I went on lunch break at the time this session aired live during the conference.  I desperately needed the break so I watched the archived video recording of this session instead of attending live. I easily navigated to the archived recording via the ALSC Institute conference webpage. The recording is hosted on Vimeo. It is captioned and shows as being posted to Vimeo on Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at 6:37 PM EST… but the session wasn’t hosted until October 2 at 2pm so I must be reading placeholder metadata. The ALSC Institute team has also provided a session chat transcript in the WordPress conference attendee portal. Unfortunately, the chat transcript for this session is…

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Children and Libraries (CAL)

“Children & Libraries” … and YOU!

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Children and Libraries  (CAL) is the journal of the Association for Library Services to Children. “[I]t primarily serves as a vehicle for continuing education for librarians working with children, and showcases current scholarly research and practice in library service to children and significant activities and initiatives of the Association”  (http://www.ala.org/alsc/publications-resources/cal).

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Guest Blogger

So You Just Attended a Conference. Now What? with #ALSC20

| Chelsey Roos|Leave a comment

Every time I get a chance to take in ideas from other library staff, be it at an in-person conference, virtual conference, webinar, book, or blog, I leave positively bustling with ideas. For about a day. Then the problems and doubts begin to set in. My manager says no. I don’t have the budget. We don’t have the space. I don’t know enough about this topic to do this. There are so many ways we need to improve.

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Guest Blogger

Finishing out #ALSC20 with Muslim Representation, Institute Trivia, and Edible Book Hilarity

| Rebecca Ballard|Leave a comment

The awesome afternoon continued with a panel on Muslim Representation with educator and author Marian Hassan, teacher-librarian Ariana Sani Hussain, librarian Madeline Tyner from Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC), and moderator Katelyn Martens-Rodriguez. Muslims are a huge percentage of the global population, and are located all over the world; they are also the most ethnically diverse faith community. The CCBC is a research and evaluation library, and one of its research studies is on diversity statistics in youth literature. The panelists noted that Muslims are most often portrayed in the media in a negative light, while Muslim youth are revered by Islamic adults. Hussain noted that YA and children’s books with Muslim representation are generally more positive than adult titles, but there are fewer titles in general, and many are not created by #OwnVoices. Representation provides windows, mirrors, sliding glass doors, and prisms. It builds positive identity and can be…

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Guest Blogger

ALSC 101 & Play-Based Engagement at #ALSC20

| Rebecca Ballard|Leave a comment

I popped into the ALSC 101 short session to get some background from experienced ALSC members, and to learn more about getting involved in committees. There are tons of awesome ways to get involved! Next I dove into Play-Based Community Engagement with Donna Zick, Caitlin Tormey, and Nate Halsan from Sacremento Public Library. They hold an annual Play-Summit and circulate play kits, so they decided focus library outreach and library areas on family-friendly play spaces. Their outreach areas are wide spaces to play, with comfortable floor seating, and informational tables off on the side. They also staff these spaces with staff members who are ready to get on the floor and play, too! They bring a range of activities for babies and toddlers. This type of outreach gives staff a lot of time to chat with and get to know families. The panel gave examples of awesome toys and play-exploration…

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