Category: News of Interest

Blogger Jonathan Dolce

The Art of the Con – plan, host, conduct and maintain!

| Jonathan Dolce|Leave a comment
star wars cosplayer

The Art of the Con The Art of the con or convention is a fine art, but thankfully for you fearless reader, we have on hand Elise VanCise, creator and coordinator of the Annual Astor Library Geek Fest, now in its fourth year!  Elise is the young adult coordinator for the Astor County Library in sunny Astor, Florida. First Things First! J – For the purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on what it takes to plan, host, conduct and maintain a successful con.  But first, what exactly is a Geek Fest and why would a library want to have one? VanCise – Geek Fest is the name we gave to our mini-comic con or convention.  It’s a one-day con where we have cosplay, anything you geek is basically our theme – superheroes, science fiction, horror – anything you want!  This year we have exhibitors that do everything…

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Blogger Mary R. Voors

Happy Birthday, ALSC Blog!

| Mary Voors|4 Comments

Earlier this month, the ALSC Blog celebrated its 12th birthday. Since 2007, we have been working to fulfill our stated mission “to provide a venue for coverage of time sensitive news in children’s librarianship, current issues in the field, and programs, conferences, initiatives, resources, and activities of interest to ALSC members and those interested in children’s librarianship.” This seems an appropriate time to reflect on some milestones.

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Blogger Lisa Nowlain

What made me read?

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The new Scholastic Kids and Family Reading Report was released last month, and it has some interesting statistics in it. For instance: “Three critical measures of a school-aged child’s (ages 6–17) relationship with reading have remained fairly steady since 2010. In the seventh edition of the Kids & Family Reading Report: -Fifty-eight percent say they love or like reading books for fun. -Fifty-two percent agree reading books for fun is extremely or very important. -Thirty-one percent read books for fun 5–7 days a week (known as frequent readers); 41% of kids read for fun 1–4 days a week (known as moderately frequent readers); 28% of kids read for fun less than 1 day a week (known as infrequent readers).” “In the past two years, both kids and parents are less likely to say that when picking a children’s book to read for fun, the type of book doesn’t matter, it…

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Blogger Alexa Newman

Running Background Checks on Outside Performers

| Alexa Newman|4 Comments

Recently there has been discussion on the Facebook group Library Think Tank  (#ALATT) about running background checks on outside performers. It has been a rather animated debate, and caused me and my coworkers to do some serious pondering.   The subject under debate:  Should all performers have background checks run before they appear at a library? There were two incidents that sparked the discussion. One was a Drag Queen Storytime that was held at the Houston Public Library.  After the performance, it was discovered by a pro-family activist group called MassResistance that one of the performers was a registered sex offender.  The group brought the criminal status of the performer to the attention of the media. HPL didn’t run a background check on the performer, although Library policy does require checks be run on all performers. (It should be noted that Since March 2008, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)…

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Blogger Jonathan Dolce

Women’s History: A Universe of Stories

| Jonathan Dolce|2 Comments

Women’s History: A Universe of Stories I’m not going to state the obvious.  You know…It’s March…It’s Women’s History Month.  I refuse and I resist.  INSTEAD!  We’re looking forward to summer reading.  Any writer of summer reading guides will tell you, while pulling their hair, these themes can go all. year. round!  So why not adapt your WHM line-up and do some prep for summer at the same time? Breaking news, folks!  29 years after Sally Ride broke the astronaut gender mold: ‘For the first time in history, an all-female crew will conduct a spacewalk at the International Space Station, NASA confirmed to CNN. As part of Expedition 59, NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch will carry out the spacewalk on March 29. They’ll be supported on the ground by Canadian Space Agency flight controller Kristen Facciol, who will be on the console at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston….

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Blogger Renee Grassi

Lessons Learned: IFLA Satellite Conference in Singapore

| Renee Grassi|1 Comment

      Last month, I experienced the incredible honor of representing Dakota County Library and the United States of America at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Satellite Conference in Singapore. Hosted at Singapore’s National Library Board, this Satellite Conference brought together members of IFLA’s “Children and Young Adults” (CYA) and “Library Services to People with Special Needs” (LSN) Sections for a day of learning, cooperation, and collaboration. The focus of the conference was to discuss how to promote inclusive library services to children and young adults, leaving no one behind, in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.  My article Stronger Together: Successful Community Partnerships Serving Youth with Special Needs in American Public Libraries was one of eight that were accepted and published by IFLA’s CYA and LSN and featured at this conference. And in Singapore, all of the authors were invited to present a summary of their articles to conference attendees….

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Blogger Jamie Campbell Naidoo

A Hive of Activity: Board Updates, Committees, and Volunteers

| Jamie Naidoo|Leave a comment

ALSC’s Busy Worker Bees What’s that sound? Do you hear it? Sounds like a buzz or maybe a hum. If you think it is a colony of busy bees you are 100% correct – ALSC Member Busy Worker Bees! With summer reading in full force and school (public and university) starting for others, ALSC members are hard at work engaging their communities to build healthy, successful futures for all children. At the same time, hundreds of you are also serving on ALSC process and award committees, moving the association’s work forward. In July many process committee members began new appointments and these committees started examining current and future projects to prioritize their work. I have been hearing from committees about some of their work and reading with interest the blog posts of various committees. As always, I’m amazed and humbled to be working alongside all of you – our awesome…

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Blogger Jonathan Dolce

Children in Crisis: Literacy brings Hope

| Jonathan Dolce|3 Comments

Supporting Detained Children It’s little wonder that on ALSC’s listserv that the topic of supporting children caught up in a web of immigration policy came up.  Frankly, it’s in the youth services librarian’s DNA.  We do all we can every day for every child who walks through our library’s doors.  And for those we encounter in our outreach efforts, we do that much more.  It is not an unreasonable leap that librarians nationwide would want to get library materials and services to detained children. Why Literacy Behind Bars is so Important Before we delve into efforts by REFORMA and other non-profits and NGOs, the question that you need to be ready for is simply “why?” If children are being detained, whatever the circumstance, literacy is integral – key – to their chances for success. Here’s your top-5 why’s and ALL of these are about kids right here: 2/3 of students…

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