I know – summer hasn\u2019t even begun yet! But if your library is anything like mine, while you are preparing for the incoming summer chaos, you are also looking ahead to events and services you\u2019ll be offering this fall. Those marketing deadlines never stop coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I work at a medium-sized, suburban public library in central Ohio. We\u2019ve offered a Homework Help Center for over a decade, where students bring in homework assignments and library staff and volunteers help them work through the material. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the last few years, we\u2019ve been starting to see a change in student needs that has caused us to think about what services we offer and what we are truly experts in. Our local schools are assigning less and less homework. We are seeing families, especially families learning English, who are really looking for free tutoring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our staff are great at helping students find the resources they need to complete an assignment, but we aren\u2019t content experts with the skills to teach a subject (that\u2019s a different master\u2019s degree!). We don\u2019t have the funding to pay enough teachers or tutors to provide the kind of free, one-on-one help that our families are looking for. Where does that leave this service? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the benefits of being an ALSC member is the amazing community of experts at your fingertips. When your library is considering adding a new service, is adjusting to changes in community needs, or is thinking about sunsetting a long-time offering, you\u2019ve got access to a team of experts who have likely already gone through, or are thinking about going through, the same change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some options available to ASLC members:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So ALSC experts: what are your experiences with offering homework help in your library? Are your local students still being assigned homework? Have any medium-sized, suburban libraries had success with free tutoring programs? Is homework help and tutoring, beyond connecting students with resources, in the scope of children\u2019s services in public libraries?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019d love to hear your experiences in the comments!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This blog post relates to ALSC core competencies of: II. Reference and User Services and VI. Administrative and Management Skills.\u00a0<\/em> Homework Help I know – summer hasn\u2019t even begun yet! But if your library is anything like mine, while you are preparing for the incoming summer chaos, you are also looking ahead to events and services you\u2019ll be offering this fall. Those marketing deadlines never stop coming. I work at a medium-sized, suburban public library in central Ohio. We\u2019ve offered a Homework Help Center for over a decade, where students bring in homework assignments and library staff and volunteers help them work through the material. Meeting Student Needs In the last few years, we\u2019ve been starting to see a change in student needs that has caused us to think about what services we offer and what we are truly experts in. Our local schools are assigning less and less homework. We are seeing families, especially families learning English, who are really looking for free tutoring. Our staff are great at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":307,"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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35883","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\/307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Annamarie Carlson<\/strong> is the Kids & Teen Services Manager at Westerville Public Library and is a member of ALSC\u2019s Membership Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"