Pursuing excellence for library service to children
Interview with Stephanie Smallwood, Youth Services Coordinator for the Springfield Greene County Library District discussing various ways to advocate for early literacy and libraries.
In a recent ALSC blog post, we got to know Eric Stroshane, ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom Assistant Director for Member Services. If you’d like to know more about censorship and the resources available if your library is facing a book challenge, it’s certainly worth checking out. But what is Intellectual Freedom, and why does ALSC have its own Intellectual Freedom Committee? Here’s the definition of Intellectual Freedom, according to ALA: Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. The charge of the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee is as follows: To serve as a liaison between the division and the ALA Intellectual Freedom committee and all other groups within the association concerned…
Libraries around the country are taking on sustainability initiatives. These initiatives can include building improvements to make them more efficient, implementing new policies and procedures to minimize waste and increase equity, and increasing library resiliency efforts in the face of natural disasters. These are all big, library wide and even community wide efforts. Where does children’s services fit in? To get us started, let’s make sure we’re on the same page. When I think about sustainability, I think about the Triple Bottle Line, which is the definition used by ALA and the Sustainable Libraries Initiative: To be truly sustainable, an organization must embody practices that are environmentally sound AND economically feasible AND socially equitable. Learning about sustainable habits early on is the best way to make them stick. How many kids automatically buckle their seat belts as soon as they sit in a car? Hopefully all of them, because they…
I am the kind of person who likes to create New Year’s resolutions. Things like: stretch for 10 minutes after working out, make one night per week phone free, or solve the global climate crisis. After creating these resolutions, I immediately forget about them and go on living my life without stretching. This year is different though. Why? Because this year my #1 resolution is to be an Everyday Advocate. What does that mean? An Everyday Advocate practices Everyday Advocacy, of course! Everyday Advocacy is an ALSC initiative to give all ALSC members the tools to feel comfortable advocating for libraries to any and all members of their community, and realize that advocacy efforts come in different shapes and sizes. You may picture advocacy efforts as writing letters to legislators or marching for a cause. However, it can also include going to community events to share the importance of library…
Sharing the Library and Its Resources with our Two-Year-OldStudents and Their Teachers Last week, one of the teachers of our school’s two-year-old program asked if she could bring her class to the library because they were studying “community helpers.” At my school, while the library serves all of the faculty with books and resources, students do not come to my library classes until they are in pre-kindergarten. I was thrilled to be able to show them around and to talk about the library and what it means to the community.
A school library builds on partnerships with public libraries, independent bookstores, and non-profits. Learn how to form your own partnerships for collaboration and synergy.
For years, debates have raged over the appropriate volume levels in libraries. Should they maintain a serene quiet, with librarians ready to shush any loud disruptions? Perhaps there could be designated quiet zones for those seeking focused study, while allowing for a slightly livelier atmosphere in areas designated for children. The time of librarians expecting hushed whispers from children as they browse the stacks seems to have passed.
I will admit that I was not familiar with poet and storyteller Sophia Thakur before her featured presentation at #ALAVirtual20. Several minutes into it, my family could find me crying in the kitchen at her beautiful and inspiring words. (Shedding tears of joy/inspiration/amazement is a common occurrence for me at ALA, and now my family gets to witness this during the virtual conference). Thakur is a “performance poet” from the United Kingdom. Throughout her presentation, she recited some of her poems, but EVERYTHING she said was itself a poem. I am hoping for a transcript because I was desperately trying to write down every word that she said. She epitomized her statement that “Poetry is in the gap between art and conversation.” She talked about literacy and empathy. She encouraged people to tell their own stories because literacy is a tool to explore the self. Reading empowers through windows, mirrors,…