Who Better than a Librarian

Image via Henriksent on Flickr Creative Commons

I've been thinking about using apps in storytime a lot. I've been on the fence for awhile. I've been reading the arguments on the list serves, and blog articles online. I was not sure why I was reluctant to join this new library storytime movement, but it made me uncomfortable.

Last week I went to a Growing Wisconsin Readers workshop and the presenter, Gayle Tylka (Early Childhood Response to Intervention Statewide Coordinator and Early Literacy Instructor at Viterbo University), gave me an aha moment. I can't quote directly because the aha did not happen until after she was done with her presentation, but to paraphrase. . .  you as librarians are modeling for young children and families. Your goal is to build a desire in children to want to learn to read.

I am choosing to not use apps and screen time in my storytime sessions. Here is why:

1. American Association of Pediatrics: "Television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age 2. A child's brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens." 

I strongly agree with this statement. There is a time and place for everything and if we are modelling best practices, then we as librarians should not be including screen time in our toddler storytime sessions at all, period. I live with a medical professional, and I hear his complaints about how people don't listen to doctors and disregard their advice when it conflicts with what they WANT to hear, rather than what they actually hear. Jessica Simpson (cough, cough).

Here is a disturbing statistic for you (also from the AAP): Today's children are spending an average of seven hours a day on entertainment media, including televisions, computers, phones and other electronic devices. It does go on to say: Children and teens should engage with entertainment media for no more than one or two hours per day, and that should be high-quality content. This part of the statement seems to be where most people who do use apps in storytime get their arguments for their choice. I agree, that as librarians we should be recommending the best web sites and apps, but most people using the apps are tech savvy enough to figure out how to use them for themselves. A list would probably suffice.

AAP Press Release Statement from 2011:
"Parents who watch TV or videos with their child may add to the child’s understanding, but children learn more from live presentations than from televised ones. 

The report recommends that parents and caregivers: 

Set media limits for their children before age 2, bearing in mind that the AAP discourages media use for this age group. Have a strategy for managing electronic media if they choose to engage their children with it; 

• Instead of screens, opt for supervised independent play for infants and young children during times that a parent cannot sit down and actively engage in play with the child. For example, have the child play with nesting cups on the floor nearby while a parent prepares dinner; 
• Avoid placing a television set in the child’s bedroom; and 
• Recognize that their own media use can have a negative effect on children."

The last bullet, really hits the nail on the head. If parents see librarians using apps with children, they are definitely going to think it is okay to be using apps with their children when they are not at the library. 

2. YOU CAN HAVE FUN WITHOUT AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE IN YOUR HAND! 

No really, you can. 

This is my own personal argument, which probably has all of you millennials rolling your eyes at me! I am disturbed by the number of kids and adults at restaurants on devices, in waiting rooms at the doctor's office, or at the grocery store in a cart, I can go on and on. At some point someone has to step up and say, Whoa! You can have fun without an electronic device! Who better, I ask, than a librarian? 

I know that librarians out there rock storytime with their songs, stories, flannel props, puppets and more. I've seen many of them in action.

What librarians do in their storytimes is individual to each librarian, so I am not saying those who use them are WRONG, because hey, if they feel using apps enhances their storytime and helps them get excited about sharing early literacy with families, that's great. I, on the other hand, will be enjoying my screen free storytimes.

Picture Books: Six Months In

I was really freakin' nervous honored and privileged to present a session about our library's picture book reorganization project at the Wisconsin Library Association's Annual Conference! Now that some of the results are in, I can let the whole world know how it is going!

Comments from REAL patrons!

The increase in circulation numbers is awesome, but I had to take into account that everything in the children's collection is up as well. The difference between the two: 25%.

 I will let the numbers speak for themselves!

Most Rewarding Job EVER!

Best moment of the week (okay, probably month)! I was walking by the desk yesterday and I noticed a little boy from my Monday Storytime putting movies in the drop box. Monday had been his, and his dad's, first time at the library EVER! A little collaboration with the school got them in the door. Monday morning they did not have time to sign up for a library card, and on Wednesday, they were returning some movies they had checked out. So doing the math, they came back once to get the library card and then came back a THIRD time to return them and look for more stuff to get. While they were here, I could hear the dad talking to the little guy as they spent time together in the children's area. AWESOME!!!

Graph Nerd and the Easy Reader's Non-Fiction Section

There was a question on one of the list serves today about separating non-fiction Easy Readers into their own section, so of course I had to make a graph to show how well it worked at my library!

When I started at my library the Easy Readers non-fiction books were in with the fiction Easy Readers and the general children's Non-Fiction books. I separated them out, we have 50, and now they have their very own shelf at the beginning of our Easy Reader shelves. 

The year before I separated them, the books went out 19 times. I separated them in December of 2011. Since then, they went out 121 times in 2012, and 112 times so far this year!  So in the end, I would recommend separating them out. Why does that make them circ more? I have no idea. I can make guesses as to why. . . the main reason I would have to say is that they are easier to find. If one is looking for easy reader non-fiction they do not have to skim the shelves of the easy readers AND non-fiction, or they do not have to enter a complex search string into our OPAC. 

Summer Reading is Over!

Six weeks of summer reading has me BURNT OUT! Here's the run down:

Rubber Ducky Club (Birth through 2 years)

• Monthly literacy activities (this is a VERY passive program). The first month they get a duck, and the second month they get a free book.

Kid's Program (3 years through 5th grade)

• Opening day carnival (First Monday).
• Weekly Reading logs (kids have to read 15 minutes on four different days) with prizes and raffle tickets. Week six prize is a free book.
• Weekly in house activity (for raffle ticket).
• Weekly coloring sheet (for raffle ticket).
• Closing day party (Last Friday)

BRAND NEW Tween2Teen Program (6th through 12th grades)

• They get one log with 8 hours broken up into 15 minute chunks. After they read 8 hours they get a free book to keep, 5 raffle tickets and a bonus sheet with 5 more hours broken up into 15 minute chunks (for extra raffle tickets). 
• They can also write a "Book Blurb" for bonus raffle tickets which we hang on the shelves near the books' shelf locations (we had 63 on our shelves!).
• We had a 'Til Midnight Movie Marathon for them on the last Friday.

Mondays: Toddler Storytime, then Movie Matinee

Tuesdays: Preschool Storytime

Wednesdays: School Age Explorers

Thursdays: Junior Gardeners

The great news is that numbers have excelled expectations tremendously. The bad news is that they love it so much they want more weeks next year. I'm not sure I could handle one more week!

Just When You Thought it was Safe to Go Into the Library

This last week has felt more like working at the daycare than at the library, not because I feel like I am watching everyone's kids for them, but because I am dreaming of sitting at my desk for more than twenty minutes at a pop. Since last Wednesday, I've had my school age Crafternoon, a day of last minute summer decorating and running copies for the 200 kids for library visits on Friday, (thankfully the weekend off) a funeral and four hours of work at the circulation desk and a Friends meeting yesterday, 200 more kids through the library today and another twenty kids for an hour and a half of programming after the tours! I'm exhausted and haven't craved wine this badly since my daycare days. Summer Reading Program is A LOT of work for youth services people! Vent over...

Kudos to all you fabulous people conducting your own SRPs! Also, kudos to all of you daycare people who don't even have a desk to escape to!

The Center of Everything

is the latest book by  Linda Urban. I just finished up this book and it was okay for me. There was not a lot of action in the story it was more about self-reflection (something I don't do consciously enough). Ruby makes a wish to relive part of her grandmother's last day in order to right her perceived wrong. She has always done and been what and who she is "supposed" to do or be. Supposed to do. . . it got me to thinking. . . oh yeah, by the way this is not a book review.

Two recent blog posts really got me to thinking about how I go about this whole librarian thing: Hey You MLIS grads and You Don't Have to Do All Things to be an Awesome Librarian.

I have had my MLIS for one year now, and my job for a year and a half. It has been a super busy year with a lot of changes going on in my library (mostly by me). It got me to wondering if I have been jumping the gun. . . have I done too much? Am I doing what I am "supposed to do"?

One of the first changes I made was to level the easy readers in our collection. We had many, many parents coming in for "really easy" books for their kids to read. I was not familiar with the collection (like the parents) and thought it would be an easy, quick way for parents to find what they needed. Looking back a year later, and after talking with the local elementary school's principal, I am regretting that choice a little. I would still label them, but instead I would use the guided reading levels that the school uses for consistency for the parents. Yes, I could make a list of them, but really what is the point. I (as a former non-librarian parent) would rather go to the shelves, pick up a book and know whether it was the "right" level or not (that instant gratification thing that is so popular these days). So, yeah jumped the gun there.

The second big thing I did was buy a loft with donation money for the kids area. AWESOME decision! I would make it again and highly recommend it if you are short of space and have a few thousand dollars laying around. Yes kids throw things off of it (I put soft blocks and puppets up there), but the kids really love it. It is "their space" in a library with very little space. It doubled our little kids area and I am not done tinkering with the space under it yet. I am thinking rope lights, bean bags and a kitchen to promote the literacy activity of PLAY!

The third thing I changed was the way we shelved (I use that term loosely) our board books. They were in one of those crappy blue plastic crates. I participated in a Military Grant and was able to buy a super cute shelf for the board books. In 2011, the year before I started, we had 97 board books go out. In 2012 after I added the new shelf. .. wait for it (these are amazing numbers). . .347 circs! The new shelf more than tripled the circ numbers. (I know that is some shameless back patting on my part, but none the less super exciting).

I also added a Wii. . . some days yeah, some days aargh.

There are a lot more changes you can read about in my other blog posts (especially the picture book reorganization).

I have been super busy, I am a one woman department. I do all of the things you are "supposed to do" like preschool and toddler storytimes, but I really don't always know what the rest of the "supposed to dos" are.

I am super lucky to have a director who is extremely supportive of youth services and usually always wants more kids in the library. The two of us together are quite the pair. . . constantly dreaming up ways to make things more user friendly and easier to access. Last week we reorganized half the library (with the help of our coworkers). We kicked the Young Adults out of the kids side of the library!!!! Best day ever. There is so much more room now it is amazing.

I'm rambling. . .basically, I love this job. I love my boss and coworkers. I feel constantly challenged to do things better yet easier. When I started, I felt like I had got thrown into the lion's den/ shark tank/ under the bus (take your pick). It was overwhelming not to have my schedule for the day mapped out to the nearest quarter hour. Workshops, conferences, supportive coworkers, and many of you bloggers out there have helped me see the limitless possibilities in library services for youth. Not necessarily what I am "supposed to do" but what I can dream of doing.

"Be Ruthless in Weeding Juvenile Fiction"

Re-reading the CREWing Children's Materials really got me geared up to seriously look at my Juvenile Fiction Collection.

There are about 1500 books in our Juvenile Fiction section. I ran a list of books that had only been checked out 1 or less times in the past 2.5 years (which is as far back as our data goes because of a system update).

I ended up with a list of 454 books (28% of the collection). I used the CREW method as a base for weeding this section and the first sentence was, "Be ruthless in weeding juvenile fiction."

I tried to be ruthless, I really did. I weeded 138 books, which ended up at about 30% of the books on the list. My only relief from getting rid of that many books is the hope I have that somebody will buy them at the Friends' book sale this summer and take them home to read them!


Newbery Medal Winners and Honor Books were hard for me to weed. The CREW method recommends getting rid of roughly worn award books and award books that there is no demand for in the juvenile fiction section. "Unless your library serves a school of education or a library school, there may be little or no demand for decades-old award winners." Although we have nice new copies of Newberys that are only three years old, I got rid of the all of the ones that had been checked out ZERO times on the list. Most of them were from before 1990, if not 1970.

Little House Knock-Offs and other 19th century books that show little respect for American Indians. . . I got rid of many of them. . . good bye Sarah Noble (zero circs), good bye Orphan Train Quartet, and The Days of Laura Ingalls Wilder series (1 circs each).Some of them were hard to let go... I will ponder the infatuation with those books at a later date.


Multicultural books were the hardest for me to weed. I live in holy-white-bread Northern Wisconsin. In my Multicultural lit class, one of the most important things that I learned was that kids like to read books about kids like themselves. I bet you can guess how often multicultural books go out around these parts and how many of them were on the list. Thankfully some of the teachers require the kiddos to read multicultural books for assignments and many of them have gone out, but Buddy Not Buddy and Elijah of Buxton?? Oh no, those two are staying. I did get rid of several with bad covers or spines and some with brand new shiny spines that were four years old and had never been opened.

I Can't Believe This is a Real Book Cover! There were a few books with the most horrible covers. I've heard two different teenage girls talking about how they would not read a book with a weird cover in the past week. Some of the books with covers that looked way old had to go. There were a lot of classics in this group. I have a pile over a foot high on my desk that I'll need to find newer editions for to make them look like they didn't come out of the last century.

Yeah, weeding sucks, but my shelves are less crowded, look better and there's room for new books!

Thank you CREW method!

Crew: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries.https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/crew/index.html Texas State Library and Archives Commission

Time to Unwind... with Teens?

My daughter, who is a senior this year, asked me to accompany her on a field trip to the Bahamas. I was a little reluctant and wouldn't have gone with her if she hadn't asked. Why not? you ask. Let me explain: 30 hours on a bus, 3 nights on a cruise ship, 30 more hours on a bus. . .with 300 high school students! Yikes I say.

So I went. I was seriously impressed that she asked me to go, how could I say no? So, I spent six days in close proximity to three hundred teenagers. The trip was for the high school music department and thirteen different musical groups performed on the ship. It was amazing and fabulous. The kiddoes were great, the music was wonderful, and did I mention the weather? Sunny every day and it was ninety degrees for our day on the island! (Wisconsin got 5 inches of snow while we were gone- ha! ha! ha!)

How is this in anyway related to the library? I was able to immerse myself in teen culture for close to a week. They were impressed when I knew some of the movies they would like and even more so when I knew what the Harlem Shake was. The number of kids running around at rest areas looking for outlets was laughable. . . priorities people. First the phone, then the running water and food!

On a bus tour in Nassau I managed to get a picture of the Nassau Public Library and Museum sign as the bus drove by.

                                  

The library was in an octagon shaped building that was PINK!!! I was probably one of the only people on the bus who was interested in stopping to visit the library, and sadly the bus did not stop near there. 

Would I go again? You bet!

Like a Mirror

I am not exactly sure why I started on this crazy journey of blogging.

As I joined Children's Librarian land in the last couple years, I started reading blogs by librarians and other professionals. They seemed to have a lot to share with the world. I was interested in joining in, but I was convinced I didn't have a lot to share.

Then I started to play around on Pinterest. I was finding that I had already done some of the same activities, or similar versions of them in early childcare. I started thinking to myself. . . I could do this. I could share what I have been doing with others. Oh yeah (thinking to myself). . . that's right it has already been done. So I put the idea of blogging away again.

I continued to read librarian's blogs and I discovered book reviews by other librarians, again I thought to myself I could do this, but again, it is already being done.

I was asked to write something about how my experience in early childhood influenced my work as a children's librarian for Leah over at Keeping Up With Kids. As I was working on the write up, I realized that what I was writing would make a good first post for the blog I had thought about starting. I told Leah I was sorry to bail on her, but I was going to use my story to start my own blog and this blog was born. Leah is great and was so supportive that she promoted my blog in place of my story! Thanks Leah!!


mirrors by "flo"

So now I guess that I am keeping this up as a sort of scrapbook of my career. I have a ton of stuff flitting around in my head and sometimes forget what I've done and how it went. As part of my Master's in Ed and Professional Development we were trained to reflect and reflect again. So I will be reflecting like a mirror on the programs and experiences as I go about my days as a Children's Librarian. Some day down the road I will look back and revisit those ideas that excelled or failed and reflect on those moments with a more objective view.

One Year In

 
I have been at this children's librarian gig for 14 months now. Time really flies when you ARE having fun! Thinking back on my first year, I had a lot of ups and not very many downs. Some disappointments yes, but really life at work has been grand. Kudos to my co-workers for putting up with my zaniness, and my last minute running around because I forgot the camera for a program AGAIN!

It has been an interesting transition to public persona. I run into people I have met at the library all over the place. About six months in, I found myself riding the mechanical horse in Dairy Queen after a program. As I was riding the horse, I started to get off when I realized that some of the people there might know me (and may never want me near their children again). But what the heck, I was already on the thing so I figured that I might as well get my quarter's worth- Ride Like the Wind, Bullseye! That was an eye opener for me. When you work at the public library, the public sees and knows you. When you go out into the public, the public sees you and might recognize you... after they can place you. What is a crazy librarian supposed to do? Act more responsibly?

Responsible? On my time off, well that hardly seems fun.