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: Partnerships
work of ALSC Priority Group VII as well as other items dealing with partnering with other organizations
COVID Babies in the Library
In a Disability Scoop article about so-called “COVID-babies”, author Adam Clark explores various ways that the pandemic has affected children’s development. Clark begins with a vignette about a two-year old named Charlie who is in speech therapy to help him learn to speak more than one-word utterances. Nancy Polow, one of the speech-pathologists interviewed in the article, is quoted as saying “I have never seen such an influx of infants and toddlers unable to communicate. We call these children COVID babies.” The good news is that lots of the kids like Charlie who are now turning up at speech therapy centers quickly make strides. After reading this, I found some emerging evidence that being gestated during the early part of the pandemic is associated with some developmental lags. Babies born to two groups of mothers (those who were and those who were not infected with COVID during their pregnancies) were…
Planning for SRP 2023 STEMming Summer Slide
Summer slide. I know I am preaching to the choir here, but it is still a thing. Ideally, addressing summer slide should be a part of your annual goals or tasks, much like summer reading or Banned Books Week. Even more ideal, if there is such a thing, is partnering with schools and other local agencies. First, though, as my old college professor used to say, we can’t discuss a topic without defining it first. So, here we go. What is summer slide and why should I care? Summer slide, and I think Colorado Dept of Education puts it best is: (T)he tendency for students, especially those from low-income families, to lose some of theachievement gains they made during the previous school year. Why you should care Summer slide can affect almost any child. However, the children it impacts the most are the most socioeconomically disadvantaged. Here’s a thousand words…
SRP: All About Connections!
Our Summer Reading Program (SRP) kick-off date is just around the corner. I like to think of SRP as all about connections!
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.
Program in a Post: Local Art!
With this post, a talented local artist, and some space, you can host a successful art show for kids and families!
Collaboration and Equity for Summer Programs: A Recap of a #PLA2022 Preconference
The PLA conference was over a month ago, but I’m still unpacking the preconference I attended. “Best Practices for Summer Learning Based on Racial Equity” was a half day workshop presented by Christy Estrovitz from the San Francisco Public Library, Sheryl Evans Davis from the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, Christi Farrah from the Massachusetts Library System, and Elizabeth McChesney from the National Summer Learning Association. The workshop revolved around the 2021 “Everybody Reads” summer program sponsored by the San Francisco Public Library along with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. Like everyone else, the Library had to think fast about how to offer a summer reading program during the pandemic. The program consisted of a kit that included a 38 page full color booklet that featured eleven books for a variety of ages. Each book is a positive portrayal of an underrepresented community. The booklet includes activities to go along…
Head Start Night at the Library and at #PLA2022
What does your library do with weeded books? Do you, like my library, check them out to discard and send them on their merry way in a cardboard Better World Book Box? What if, instead, you used those weeded books to connect with community partnerships and get books into the hands of people who might not otherwise know about the library?