Pursuing excellence for library service to children
Ahead of Valentine’s Day, it’s a good time to think about the love languages of your colleagues/staff. This is always important to think about, but it feels more important with the low morale, stress of Covid & handing out test kits, and winter blahs; I want to ensure that my staff feel appreciated and supported as much as possible. Below is my riff on the five long languages as they apply to working in the library.
Tis the season for antsy children who can’t wait to get out of school, grandparents who feel nostalgic for quiet libraries filled with story hours, exhausted parents, nannies who don’t want to comply with food rules, and children’s library staff who are DONE.
If you have studied psychology or self-improvement at all, you may have come across Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I am not a scientist, but basically it’s a pyramid breakdown of what you need in order to master your life. The things you need to achieve a self-fulfilled life. At the bottom of the pyramid, is the physiological needs like safety, food, water, etc. This moves up until you get to the top where you are self-actualized because you have all your needs met and can really dream.
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.
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…
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…
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.
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.