You may have heard the phrases, “Slow Parenting”, “Low-Tech Living”, or “Analog Living”. Whatever you decide to call it, the underlying trend is to have more screen-free experiences and unplugged moments. It’s not about removing devices and technology entirely. Instead, it’s creating healthy relationships with devices, which is an important skill to teach and model for children.
Tag: social media
Staying Sane while Going Viral
For some communities, librarians are local celebrities that sometimes get identified in the grocery store. For the librarians at New Berlin, it turned into something completely different. On October 3, 2025 the New Berlin social media team consisting of Kate Krause-Blaha, Sarah Poppie, and Delaney Dorothy, posted a video of a trust fall fail that reached millions of users, gaining attention from media outlets everywhere. Their video, featuring a library worker refusing to save another worker from falling over, then immediately telling the viewer that they “can’t trust everyone but can trust libraries” has reached 42 million views and had 1.4 million reactions.
Staying Safer on Social Media: Suggestions for Media Mentors
As library professionals, we are uniquely positioned to support youth and their families by fostering media literacy and providing guidance for safer digital engagement. In this post, you’ll find three actionable recommendations to help families create safer social media experiences for young users.
TikTok as a Form of Advocacy
Despite the fate of social media platform TikTok still being in limbo, librarians, authors, and educators continue to embrace it as a place for advocacy. As social media has grown and evolved over the past two decades, one thing is certain: people will always find ways to gather and create community on these virtual platforms. And while many parents and educators lament their children’s time being consumed by smartphones and social media, #BookTok seems to be having a positive impact on people’s reading habits. Below is just a small sample of the types of community being centered around libraries, books, and intellectual freedom via TikTok (and Instagram). If TikTok is indeed banned, there is no doubt people will find other places to gather in community, but as of right now, the advocacy work continues. This is just a selection of people/institutions doing the advocacy work. You do not need a…
A Friendship Born Online: Author Mitali Perkins and Me
“One of life’s greatest joys is to create spaces where young people feel safe, welcome, and beloved. Stories are one such space.” — Mitali Perkins When I read Mitali Perkins’ article in School Library Journal in 2007, No Place Like Home: Books Can Create a Strong Sense of Place, I knew I had found a kindred spirit. She, like I, had lived many places before seventh grade, and geography and place were very important to her. She wrote: “Many of the books I read again and again as a child shared one attribute: they offered a strong sense of place.” I wrote to her after reading the article, but I no longer have access to that original email because my Yahoo! account is no longer accessible.
I Learned It on TikTok: Professional Development from an Unlikely Source
TikTok is my favorite resource for professional development. That might seem unlikely, if you associate the platform with teens dancing in silly ways to trending songs. But TikTok can be a fantastic resource for storytime songs, reading recommendations, and learning more about childhood development – provided you use it thoughtfully. Here are some of my favorite things I’ve learned from TikTok since I started curating an account around all things library.
TikTok and Libraries: A Powerful Partnership…was a Powerful Presentation!
Monday was my last day at #ALAAC2022, and I started it with a really informative presentation about using TikTok in your library. When the pandemic first started, I created a TikTok account but never used it. (I am not sure I even remember my login information.) Delving into a new social media platform can sometimes be daunting, so, I was really excited to attend TikTok and Libraries: A Powerful Partnership and to learn how to use TikTok to promote books and my library. Presentations about TikTok seem to be just as popular as the social media platform itself—it was a packed house in the Convention Center!
Promoting library programs, Social media is only part of the answer
I’ve been around long enough to remember when my library system decided to centralize their social media accounts. Some of our branches didn’t care, they weren’t on social media anyway. Some of our branches almost held protests. They had branch social media teams which had slowly built up their followers through years of effort. I was on one of those teams. We had a posting schedule, we had gone to trainings, we followed tips about always including a photo and using variety in our types of posts. Having to give up control was really hard. Sorry for the long intro, I’ll get the point. Last year, during the months that our library branches were completely closed—after we had started offering online programs, but before we were able to start curbside delivery—our librarians (no, it wasn’t just me) wanted our social media guidelines to change to meet our new program promotion…