{"id":10290,"date":"2015-02-14T00:01:39","date_gmt":"2015-02-14T05:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=10290"},"modified":"2015-02-13T18:13:26","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T23:13:26","slug":"blogs-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/blogs-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogs to Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since it\u2019s Valentine\u2019s Day, it\u2019s a great day to show some love to my favorite blogs. Early in my career, blogs became my go-to resource for program planning and I follow quite a few in an RSS feed I can barely keep up with. (Am I the only one who still uses an RSS feed? I hear they are not widely used anymore, but I still find it quite useful!)<\/em><\/p>\n

These are blogs, all authored by children\u2019s\/teen librarians, that I use time and again when planning programs, whether technology-based or otherwise. I hope you\u2019ll find them useful in your own program planning!<\/p>\n

Robot Test Kitchen<\/a>\u2014I don\u2019t think this newish blog has been mentioned here before and I am super duper excited to tell you about it. Run by four librarians in Illinois (hi Heather, Jacquie, Michelle, and Sharon!), it covers all things tech as they relate to children\u2019s and teen services in public and school libraries. They do product reviews (littleBits, Cubelets, LEGO WeDo, Sphero, Bee-Bots\u2014they\u2019ve all been covered), share program plans, and have a series called Ten Dollar Tuesdays<\/a>, which features inexpensive programs that cost\u2014you guessed it\u2014under $10. My favorite feature is their True Confessions<\/a> posts, in which they lay bare their doubts, fears, and frustrations. If you\u2019ve ever experienced imposter syndrome or felt like you failed at a program (and haven\u2019t we all?), these posts are so reassuring!<\/p>\n

Library Makers<\/a> is run by librarians at the Madison (WI) Public Library and features \u201cnon-traditional\u201d programs they do for all ages. There\u2019s WonderWorks, a series of STEM classes for preschoolers; Supper Club, an evening app-based storytime; Toddler Art Class; Craft Lab for teens; and even NeedleWorks, a sewing class for teens and adults. They provide everything you need to know to replicate the programs at your library, including materials lists and \u201chindsight tips.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jbrary<\/a>\u2014If you haven\u2019t taken a look at all the fabulous resources offered by Jbrary, you must do so immediately! Dana and Lindsey, the two librarians who run Jbrary, write about a wide range of library programs and services, including storytimes, tween book clubs, reading lists, booktalking, and many other varied topics. And what\u2019s really amazing is the wealth of additional resources they produce. Looking for new songs and rhymes to use in storytime? Look no further! Check out their YouTube station<\/a> (which has over ONE MILLION views) or their Pinterest boards<\/a> (which have almost 4,000 pins).<\/p>\n

Thrive Thursday<\/a>\u2014Ok, so this isn\u2019t a blog so much as a monthly round-up of blog posts about programming for school-age kids. But if you\u2019re looking for program ideas for the elementary school set, you\u2019ll definitely want to check this out! All their round-ups can be found on this Pinterest board<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hopefully some of these are new-to-you resources that you’ll find invaluable. I also want to give a shout out to a few other favorites: Little eLit<\/a> (new media in libraries), Mel\u2019s Desk<\/a> (baby storytimes) and Storytime Underground<\/a> (all things storytime). If they\u2019re unfamiliar to you, I encourage you to check them out as well!<\/p>\n

Liz Fraser is Coordinator of Children\u2019s Services at the Belmont (MA) Public Library and serves on the ALSC Children and Technology Committee. She writes about library programs for kids at Getting Giggles<\/a> and can be found on Twitter as @lizfraserlib<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since it\u2019s Valentine\u2019s Day, it\u2019s a great day to show some love to my favorite blogs. Early in my career, blogs became my go-to resource for program planning and I follow quite a few in an RSS feed I can barely keep up with. (Am I the only one who still uses an RSS feed? I hear they are not widely used anymore, but I still find it quite useful!) These are blogs, all authored by children\u2019s\/teen librarians, that I use time and again when planning programs, whether technology-based or otherwise. I hope you\u2019ll find them useful in your own program planning! Robot Test Kitchen\u2014I don\u2019t think this newish blog has been mentioned here before and I am super duper excited to tell you about it. Run by four librarians in Illinois (hi Heather, Jacquie, Michelle, and Sharon!), it covers all things tech as they relate to children\u2019s and teen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[155,38,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-children-and-technology-committee","category-programming-ideas","category-web-site"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}