Holiday Ideas for Libraries

News November 30, 2007 (mp3 file; 3:25 min.)




Links from Today's Podcast

• SWILSA Current Announcements
• SWILSA Sites of the Week
• SWILSA Die Cut Collection

Book Reviewed by Marcia This Week:

Something Funny Happened at the Library: How to Create Humorous Programs for Children and Young Adults by Rob Reid, American Library Association, 2003.

Just ask; "Readers' Advisory Service in the Public Library"

News November 16, 2007 (mp3 file: 4.25 MB,4:32 min.)
Just ask; "Readers' Advisory Service in the Public Library"

It’s been one of those weeks again when several things come together to start me thinking. I’d been pondering, on a back burner, a study I heard about in a webinar, and then an article appeared in Library Journal, “Know Your Students.” It describes Rochester’s two-year ethnographic study of what students do on campus and how the library fits in. They discovered some interesting things. It’s an academic library but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have ideas and implications for those in public libraries.

Then a couple of days ago I was doing a video walk-through at one of our libraries and as we talked after the “filming” we thought about what they might do in the teen area to make it more ‘their” place. And I thought of this study. It’s a bit different for high school students but he underlying idea is the same—take a good look at that they do, when, and how. We think we know, but do we? Maybe yes, but….maybe no.

Then I got an IM from a librarian in a very small community: 15 teens had just come in after school Two things here: 15 of any group, much less enthusiastic, energetic teens, is a LOT in this small space and, 2) the librarian was excited that they were there. They were mostly waiting for computer time and I suggested that she take advantage of their presence—“Just ask.” What books are they reading? What would they like to read? What would they like for their space in the new building? Yes, they want computer time, but what else? And what do they want to do on computers? What about a computer game club? What kind of seating and furniture would they like for their space? Ask them to draw their ideal library space (Ask *adults* to draw their ideal space.)

Physicists and mathematicians like elegant solutions. Me, I like simple solutions. And sometimes we just run right over the simplest solutions. Sometimes we should just ask. --Karen

Book reviewed by Marcia:

Readers' advisory service in the public library, 2nd ed., by Joyce G. Saricks and Nancy Brown. ALA, 1997

Library Story Times

News November 9, 2007 (mp3 file, 4:35 min.)




Links from Today's Podcast:

• Early Childhood Literacy site
• Susan Dailey's website

Book Reviewed by Marcia on Today's Podcast:
Travel the Globe: Multicultural Story Times by Desiree Webber, Dee Ann Corn, Elaine Harrod, Donna Norvell, and Sandy Shropshire; Libraries Unlimited; 1998.

Exponential change;

News November 2, 2007 (mp3 file: 4.9MB,5:14 min.)
Exponential change; more thoughts about early literacy and reading to children

Change. I've talked about it in previous podcasts, and it continues to come up. Earlier this week Sharon sent me a link to a video, "Shift Happens" that one of her patrons (who is also on the library's long range planning committee) sent to her. It's a great video, illustrating the world in which our children are growing up, and in which they will be living--the ever-growing ubiquity of technology and these new (well, not so new anymore) methods of communication. The final point of the video is to urge parents (and presumably other adults who care about children) to make sure educators are preparing our children to live and work in the world that is evolving.

That's an important message, I agree completely. But it started me thinking....what about us, in my generation and older? Two things about us, actually. We are working in that wold NOW, and it's a bigger change for us than for the young people, who were born into that world and have been growing up with it. We have had to learn it outside of school, after we were already living and working in a different world. And I think this was Sharon's patron's point in referencing the video--lifelong learning is essential, not ony for all the reasons is always has been, but because the way we will be learning through the rest of our lives is different, the delivery mechanisms are changing. We have to be ready to learn how to learn with those new mechanisms.

AND we need to know about them because we can't expect the educational system and "someone else" to be the only ones preparing kids to live and work in the world. It's always been the responsibility of parents and caring adults to help children prepare for life in the world on their own. It's just that there has been, what seems to us, a huge change in the world and maybe we sometimes feel like we're sliding down the learning curve as we try to catch up to the technology comfort level kids have. They are comfortable using the technology, we need to help them with the pieces about good judgment and ethics and impact of decisions they make. That's what our parents passed on to us, after all. It's not so different--it's the context that is changing, and sometimes seems overwhelming to us. We have to understand that context in order to be able to give them what they REALLY need to operate in the world. We need to know how to operate in that same world--because we live in it, and it just isn't going to back to "the good old days" (whatever those were) and because our children need to learn how to live successfully in it in the future.

We have to learn the technology to communicate with the next generations if we want to pass on our experience and any wisdom we might have developed. It’s triply important for us, then, to learn about the changing world, or at least changing communications; we need it to live in the world that has embraced it, we need it to continue to learn about our world, and we need it to communicate to those who will be taking care of that world in the future.

Hang in there! We’ll get there together. --Karen