This next phase of the “new normal” as I so often hear it phrased, means indoor programs are on the horizon. Of course, there are many heroic libraries and librarians that have been doing in-person and indoor programs for many months, or maybe over a year. Indoor programs and relaunching a regular service of programs brings a lot of feelings and emotions to the front of my mind. Now that I am in management, I won’t have to do any of the programs, but I want to ensure that my staff feels safe and comfortable. However, I also want to provide an opportunity for education and fun at the library for youth and their families.
Tag: pandemic
Everyone is Welcome at PRIDE!
One of the things that patrons missed the most during the pandemic has been the ability to browse and see displays. My library has been offering a robust collection of “Grab and Go” items of curated books and bundles to offer patrons in even the most limited iterations of pandemic library service, a little something extra to take home. The pandemic has also made us rethink the physicality of the building. In before times, displays were in shelves or on bulletin boards, but now, we need to think about where people see us. As a result, we have been putting more displays on our windows! Window displays or “Library on the Glass” as I have coined it, can be anything from booklists, pictures of book covers, patron-created Haikus, notes of love for the library, etc. Since we opened fully for browsing and hanging at the library on June 1st, it…
Statewide Virtual Performer Showcase: Lessons Learned
When school is dismissed for the summer, and excitement around library Summer Reading Programs (SRP) begin, library traffic increases dramatically. Here in Kansas that means staff at approximately 323 public libraries have been planning a schedule for months. This schedule includes challenges for a reading program, educational or entertaining performers, and crafts or hands-on activities. This winter, two regional youth consultants designed and offered a virtual showcase of performers to help meet social distancing guidelines and other changing needs librarians face, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The showcase is now available via the state’s regional library system webpage. This showcase helps staff make informed decisions when scheduling performers. The showcase used an existing Statewide Performer’s Directory to contact performers and gauge interest. Then, youth consultants divided the performers expressing interest into categories and scheduled recording dates and times. Reception from the performers was overwhelmingly positive. Consultants recorded ten minute segments using…
Pandemic Takeaways, Part 2
ALSC’s Children and Technology committee has been reflecting on the past year, about our roles and practices in our learning environments. This is the second of two posts we created that share our experiences. Today, we are focusing on some of the public librarians in our group. Rita Christensen is a Children’s Librarian at the Orem Public Library in Utah. Tina Bartholoma is a Community Engagement Senior Librarian/School Liaison at the Salt Lake County Library in Utah.
Pandemic Picture Book Picks
Prince Harry has written the foreword to Hospital on the Hill, an upcoming book by author Chris Connaughton. The book reportedly tells the story of a young person whose parent worked—and died—on the frontlines of a hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. The royal’s introduction discusses the loss of his mother, Princess Diana, when he was 12 years old.
Brain Exhausted? Streaming Media to the Rescue!
While I am not having quite as much difficulty concentrating as I did early on in the pandemic, delving deep into research articles has not gotten any easier. As part of my work on the Early and Family Literacy Committee, I have Google Scholar alerts for articles on the topics “early literacy” and “family literacy”. I receive a digest semi-weekly and skim through looking for articles relevant to our charge.
Glimmers of Hope: Sidewalk Stories
Hope! I can feel it in the air! Spring is upon us, COVID numbers are down, vaccinations are rising, and we here in California are moving down the color tiers of restrictions. We moved from the unrelenting purple tier to red last week, and more and more places are opening their doors to the public for the first time in a year! We are gearing up for our own rapidly approaching re-opening date at my library. Our doors are still closed to the public at the time of this writing. We have, however, started to do some outdoor programs, most notably Sidewalk Stories! The name is the program’s descriptor. We plunk down hula hoops at socially distanced intervals, crank up the sound system, make a little barrier, and away we go! We’ve completed three weeks of stories so far. I’ve learned a few things that I wanted to share in…
Where are you at now?
It’s been a year and change since the pandemic upended our lives and changed how we worked in our buildings, how we performed our story times, how we handled materials, and so much more. In a year, so much has changed and so much more remains unseen. I don’t know about your region, but with spring in the air and vaccine eligibility opening up, it seems like the whole world has reawakened from some drastically bad dream and is ready to begin again. In May of last year when my system started discussing reopening the buildings and resuming limited services at the branch, a few images started circling to facilitate staff talking about what their risks seemed to be, like this one: Most staff seemed to be in the lowest risk or moderate risk categories before we went back into the buildings. Once we resumed service in the branches, we…