Blogger Amy Steinbauer

Book List: Books About Being Sick

| Amy Steinbauer|1 Comment
Llama Llama Home with Mama book cover

Six weeks ago, I was in a bad car accident. I was driving along, minding my business and probably singing a song, and then a tractor-trailer lost control and veered into my lane. After almost a year of being extra vigilant with my health and safety to protect myself and others against COVID, I was suddenly thrust into a hospital and a painful recovery. Despite the scary accident and loss of two cars (my partner was in the car behind me), we are okay, healing, and happy to have each other still. That being said, sickness is on my brain! Since this is a common question for both caregivers, teachers, and parents– below is a list of my favorite sick picture books. (Don’t worry, I am okay!)

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Blogger Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee

ALSC Community Forum – February 25

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The Association for Library Service to Children is excited to announce its upcoming community forum, Our Work Matters: Advocating for Children’s Services. The forum will take place on February 25 from 12:00 to 1:00 pm Central Time. The topic of the February Community Forum was developed from a blogpost by ALSC President Kirby McCurtis on Nov. 10 – Our Work Matters. As libraries respond to the circumstances of the pandemic by tightening budgets, it is vital for children’s library workers to advocate for the value of their work. First, members of ALSC’s own Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee will invite ALSC members to consider how they define advocacy before highlighting current ALSC and ALA advocacy resources and sharing simple and concrete ways ALSC members can step up their advocacy game. This brief presentation will be followed by a member feedback and Q&A session. Next, the Community Forum will feature an…

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Blogger Library Service to Underserved Children and Their Caregivers committee

New Toolkit to Address Accessibility to Technology

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The Library Service to Underserved Children and Their Caregivers committee is devoting the 2020-2021 calendar year to creating a vibrant, dynamic toolkit that provides ALSC members with up-to-date resources for working with marginalized populations.  Each toolkit page will provide professional and leisure reading recommendations, support for programming, and materials for families.  As dynamic documents, these pages will continue to grow and develop as we find new resources, share our experiences, and continue to learn. The LSCUTC committee welcomed a collaboration with ALSC’s Children and Technology Committee, who created this month’s toolkit. February’s Toolkit focuses on accessibility to technology and its impact on children. With the onset of COVID-19, gaps in the digital divide became chasms. The inequities that technology – or lack thereof – created became impossible to ignore.  When librarians transitioned to providing online programming, it became all the more apparent that large swaths of children were missing out…

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Blogger Elizabeth Serrano

Sharing Our Impact #wearealsc

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ALSC Annual Report Cover Squares

Members of the Association for Library Service to Children engage communities to build healthy, successful futures for all children. This is ALSC’s vision statement, but what does the work look like to achieve it? We recently published our 2019-2020 Annual Report, which covers our Association’s work from September 2019 – August 2020 (fiscal year 2020). This report includes a message from 2019 – 2020 ALSC President, Cecilia McGowan, strategic plan progress, initiatives, and much more! It’s a 20-page wrap-up of important activity, and each year I’m amazed at the amount of work accomplished by our members and staff in fulfilling our vision. Below, I’ve highlighted two sections from this report, but I hope you’ll explore the report in full and share it with others. Membership and Involvement At the time of publication of this report, March 2020 membership statistics showed ALSC having 3,932 total members. Since then, estimates show we…

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Blogger School-Age Programs and Service Committee

Refreshing Online Engagement in the New Year

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For almost a year now, school and youth services librarians have been working hard to teach lessons, create programs, and share those programs online. From virtual storytime and other programming to Zoom book clubs—we have had to change everything we do to suit a virtual environment. At this point in the pandemic, we are all very familiar with platforms like Zoom, Facebook Live, and Instagram Live… and we are all getting a little bored with them too. Need to add a little life into your virtual programming? Check out these virtual tools. 

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Blogger Abby Johnson

AILA’s 2021 Read Native Challenge

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Have you committed to a reading challenge in 2021? There are all kinds of reading challenges on the web, challenging you to step outside your reading comfort zone and check off certain reading tasks throughout the year. I think it can be a really beneficial for librarians because I think we’re able to provide better service to our patrons if we challenge ourselves to read widely. I wasn’t going to commit to one this year, but then I saw that the American Indian Library Association is presenting their first ever Read Native reading challenge and I knew that was the one for me!

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