What’s a potentially overwhelming experience for an introverted librarian at 9 AM on a Monday morning? An experiential workshop on building joy. What’s a really rewarding and inspiring way to start your conference day? Also an experiential workshop on joy. Becky Hass and Grace Hudson started this morning big with their session Building Joy-Centric Libraries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Joy. It’s a simple concept, but it can have really big impacts on ourselves and our libraries. Joy can increase retention and improve morale. It can build your library’s customer base. Even more, it can encourage innovation and prevent burnout. So why aren’t we talking more about how to build joy into our libraries and our lives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This workshop talked about how we can each become joy gardeners, sowing the little joy seeds that will build our resilience and increase our joy. Here are some easy ways for you to get started:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Intentionally look for something that brings you joy, especially in a difficult moment. Maybe it’s looking for a specific color in the room. Maybe it’s holding a specific object that inspires a particular memory or feeling. It can be anything, as long as it bring you joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, think of the people who consistently model or inspire joy in your life. Then, think about whether they know their impact. Have you thanked them for inspiring joy? Or, can you incorporate some of their ideas and practices into your own life? If no one comes immediately to mind, that’s okay. Remember, you can be your own joy buddy, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This acronym encourages you to look at p<\/strong>ositive <\/strong>emotions, e<\/strong>ngagement, r<\/strong>elationships, m<\/strong>eaning, and a<\/strong>ccomplishments. First, think about what can bring your joy about a process. Then, think about what skills would encourage you to have more joy. Next, think about who your joy role models are for this specific situation. After that, think about how your joy supports your community goals. Finally, think about how you will intentionally celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s important to celebrate all the wins you have, even the little ones. Create intentional spaces where you celebrate your wins. Even more, celebrate your team’s wins, too! No matter how small, make time for recognizing accomplishments. Ideas for this include adding joy as an agenda item or creating intentional sharing spaces as part of regular reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joy is fun, but it’s also important to remember that it’s something that takes time, energy, and resources. It takes intentionality to build a joy practice as part of your work or personal life. The good news: You can take small steps that have a huge impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s your favorite way to incorporate joy in your life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s guest contributor is Jaime Eastman<\/strong> (she\/her\/hers). Jaime is a senior Public Services Librarian and Family Place Coordinator at the Harrington Library, one of the Plano (Texas) Public Library locations. She\u2019s currently serving as a member of the ALSC Board of Directors. This will be her second Annual Conference. She is looking forward to many things, including finalizing the strategic plan with the rest of the Board, seeing great educational sessions sponsored by ALSC, and connecting with members both in person and through the blog. Jaime is currently working on at least two ambitious cross stitch projects, dreaming of future travel plans, and reading far too many books at once. As a child, she wanted to grow up to be an author. Writing for the blog and publishing with Children and Libraries<\/em> feel like a good start, and she regrets nothing about her adult decision to be a librarian doing storytimes who didn\u2019t have to grow up too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What’s a potentially overwhelming experience for an introverted librarian at 9 AM on a Monday morning? An experiential workshop on building joy. What’s a really rewarding and inspiring way to start your conference day? Also an experiential workshop on joy. Becky Hass and Grace Hudson started this morning big with their session Building Joy-Centric Libraries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":378,"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":[2559,134,151],"tags":[2575,2594],"class_list":["post-29191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ala-annual-2023","category-guest-blogger","category-live-blogging","tag-alaac23","tag-joy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29191","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\/378"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Celebrate small wins.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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