Youth Librarian as Guide and Sister?

I appreciated this recent reflection on "parenting like a librarian" from Michelle Woo, writing for Lifehacker. In the article she references the work of John Holt, unschooling pioneer, and his belief that parents need to "get out the way" and allow kids to discover.  Woo then compares that advice to how we in the library world do just that: offer diverse choices; don't dictate what to read; take part in the cultural conversation; and help people follow their interests.

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This dovetails with something I share with grad students in my classes when we examine history and current practice in youth librarianship.

"Precepts and Practices" by Christine Jenkins published in the September/October 1999 issue of Hornbook has a much quoted set of  beliefs or central concepts in children's librarianship  that are part of our history as well as very present in our current librarianship. One of the seven beliefs she explicates is the the belief that children's librarians have "a friendly and unsentimental older sister's attitude towards children."

This particular description is one that often elicits the most discussion and controversy from students. (sometimes I wonder whether its because students might have fraught sibling relationships). So as I teach, I have given alot of thought to this. I think part of this belief description is turning away from the concept of youth librarians as motherly or grandmotherly; away from the concept of youth librarians as bosses; away from the concept of youth librarians as teachers.

Rather, the description enfolds the best of what an older sibling can provide: pathfinding guidance; experience; and support. Woo's article comes at this in much the same way and really speaks to me about how we approach our work with people of any age that use the library.

I like it!

Wanna Know ALL.THE.THINGS. in YS-ville?

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Well, actually I can't *quite* guarantee that but I can open the door to learning a passle of useful information on creating amazing Youth Services in the library.

I'm back in the CE saddle again in September teaching an 8 week basics course on Youth Services called Youth Services 101 at University of Wisconsin-Madison iSchool Continuing Ed Dept.  This course is perfect for library assistants, associates, directors of small libraries who wear ALL the hats, part-timers and full-timers...really, anyone who would like a more solid grounding in working with kids birth though age 18 and their families.

We'll look at child and adolescent development, programming power, outreach, library spaces, advocacy, savvy planning, service trends, teamwork and more. Its a chance to take a course based on the youth services coursework of Masters Degree in Library and Info Science students - so you'll be in the know.

The course is practical, lets you share your thoughts, challenges and successes and gives you the big picture thinking to increase your confidence in working with youth in your community.

Hope you can join me this fall as we learn and share together!

Need More Programming Chops?

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One of the most difficult parts of our work is often giving ourselves permission to try new things in our programming.  Sometimes we feel pressure from our administrators, our veteran colleagues or patrons to do - or not do - certain things. Combine that with tight budgets, tight staffing and tight time and the challenge really ramps up. We read exciting efforts in blogs and online but just can't seem to jumpstart them at our own place of work.

If you are looking to re-think, get re-inspired or explore programming a little more in depth, I invite you to join me in an upcoming online CE course: Power Children's Programming on a Budget.

This asynchronous course which starts on January 26 and runs for six weeks gives participants a chance to learn - and share experiences and tips that work wonders. We also explore strategic ways to plan, be a strong advocate and fit what you want to try into a busy work schedule. A bonus is our blog that will preserve ideas and thoughts.

Whether you live in Wisconsin or another state, this course is a great one to hone your programming skills! Hope you can join me!

I Get By with a Little Help From My Friends

Image: Pixabay

As some of you know, I've recently been teaching as an adjunct and occasional instructor for continuing ed courses. I pretty much fell into it - never pictured myself teaching. With encouragement, I applied to teach a basic youth services in public library grad course online a few years ago. What's to lose?

Holy academia! I got hired! That first time, I had six weeks to develop a syllabus and content for the fifteen week grad course, find my textbooks and set-up the online course on a platform that was like learning a language from another dimension. It was without question the hardest professional challenge I ever experienced.

I was able to do it because I wasn't alone. The support from UW-Madison SLIS staff and many, many colleagues who mentored me, suggested pathways through this new dimension and from the students themselves taught me a ton and shaped me as a teacher.

Because of that experience, I found I love teaching and kept it up (it's gotten easier and far less other-dimensional since that first "polar plunge" semester).

And alot of that love is because of alot of you!

Teaching allows me to share the wisdom and experience of many of you out in the field blazing paths to great services for your communities. I have been able to link my students to many bloggers  and blog posts and the seminal thinking that is going on in the field. I thank you and hope you keep writing and sharing!

And I want to especially thank the kind colleagues who took the time to go the extra mile this semester for my students by creating videos talking about their passions and areas of expertise. Huge hugs go out to Christine Jenkins, Mel Depper, Tessa Michaelson Schmidt, Karen Jensen, Abby Johnson, Terrie Howe, Megan Schliesmann, Shelly Collins-Fuerbringer, Lisa Shaia, Amy Koester, Cen Campbell and Starr LaTronica. I know how busy everyone is and it was a privilege to share your thinking with the class.

While the course evaluations aren't in, I would say that these videos touched the students deeply (if the discussion boards and papers written are any indication) and were eye-opening glimpses into the thinking behind what we do as youth services professionals. Your expertise, so kindly shared, will make the students more mighty.

Thanks for joining me in this teaching adventure. I simply could not do it without you!

Let's Go to School Together Again!

Hey friends out in youth library land....I'm baaaaaack!

We had such a great time in spring exploring together the range of youth programming and smart and savvy ways to make it easier, that I am repeating the course beginning in January.

Join me for  Power Children's Programming - on a Budget, a six week on-line course for the UW Madison SLIS Continuing Education beginning the week of January 26. It is open to anyone, in-state or out-of-state, who is interested in this subject.

This course is perfect for any youth staffer interested in digging more deeply into programming for children, preschool through elementary ages. We'll explore: why we do what we do; how to do it better; negotiating the tricky currents of available staff, time, money and patron reactions.  You'll expand your community of programming peeps through robust dialogue, program shares and down-right feisty argument. 

Since it's an asynchronous course, you can dip into the content anytime each week. Lectures and readings are a mix of written text, webinars, slideshares, video and links to seminal posts about programming from bloggers including  Anne Clark, Amy Comers, Melissa Depper,  Abby Johnson, Amy Koester, Angie Manfredi, Brooke Newberry, Katie Salo, Beth Saxton and our friends at the ALSC, Little eLit and Thrive Thursday blogs.

We'll revive our class programming blog Kids Library Program Mojo that will fill with new content as the ideas and programs start popping up in the course and being shared. Coursework in this pass/fail course takes about 2-3 hours a week and the two brief assignments allow you to hone your thinking on programming (be an advocate!) and create/share a program. What could be more fun?

I hope you consider joining me for this most excellent learning adventure. I plan to learn as much as I teach!

Graphic courtesy of Pixabay

Youth Management School - For Real!

Before I begin, let me just say, any of us who work in youth services, whether official "managers" or line staff, are managing (or perhaps I should say juggling) alot all the time.

We each make decisions on collections, services, partnerships, intra-library collaborations, advocacy decisions, media matters, best use of our time/energy and a whole lot more. Sometimes we stay safely in the lane, following tradition, received wisdom or direction from above. Other times, after going to a workshop, webinar or social media peeps on the computer, we hop out of the lane and zoom to a better place.

So we all manage.

I have blogged about how excited I have been to find so many people sharing program and service ideas over the past few years. I can't say how important these ideas are for my practice and to my community. It led me to develop my first CE course this spring on Programming Mojo.  More recently I've been exploring great youth management ideas from bloggers like Erin , Cheryl and Abby and blogs like Library Lost and Found. It got me thinking more on how we manage our youth work and thinking again about how we all learn to approach our practice. Seems like there's lots to discover and and ideas to chat about.

If you want to join a conversation on youth management this fall, come to school with me!

I will be teaching a four week UW-Madison SLIS online course How Did You Manage THAT?!?! that looks at many of the issues we face each day in the youth services area. We'll learn and share together and have a great textbook to guide us (Managing Children's Services in Libraries by Adele Fasick and Leslie Holt - a book whose many editions throughout my career have served me well as a guide and a goad). Since this is an asynchronous course, you dip in each week at a time convenient for you.

I somehow think a class crowd-sourced blog will be involved again too. Hope you can join me and explore!

It's a Wrap!

It's time for a report-out and a shout-out because we finished the six-week online UW-Madison CE class: Power Children's Programming - on a Budget! Although I organized the information and loaded it up on the platform, I can tell you that each and every student made this a deep, useful (and...krikey I don't have enough praise-worthy adjectives to express the phenom that happened) course.

From the start, the class of 24 librarians from libraries of all sizes in WI and across the country jumped in and shared, cared, supported and explored programming. There were "Aha!" moments, "Oh no!" moments and discoveries about programming made everywhere.

At the beginning of the course, I told the class I didn't have the answers, only the questions everyone should ask themselves when we begin to put our programs together. And I asked everyone, no matter their circumstance or experience, to share generously in the discussion boards their own journeys, program ideas and discoveries. And did they ever. It was nothing to see 200 substantive posts a week, chock full of deep thoughts and great program ideas.

A huge thank you to the library folks in class for making this the experience that helped me learn so much more about programming and your libraries than I ever dreamed I could. I am so wealthy after these six weeks that's it's hard for me not to be all

(Thanks to Sara Bryce, my blog is sporting it's first gif!)

We didn't use a textbook. Rather, the class went through blog posts related to our content written by many of our thoughtful colleagues. So a gigantic high five goes out to you, my blogosphere friends and colleagues. YOU made this course as well:  Abby at Abby the Librarian,  Amy at Catch the Possibilities , Amy at the Show Me Librarian,  Angie at Fat Girl, Reading, Anne at so tomorrow,  Beth at Beth Reads, Brooke at Reading with Red,  Carissa at Librarymakers, Cen at Little eLit, Julie at Hi Miss Julie, Leah at Keeping Up with Kids, Lisa at Thrive After Three, Mel at Mel's Desk, Sara at S. Bryce Kozla, Tessa at Growing Wisconsin Readers and the many contributors to the ALSC blog who shared programs.      

The sharing of ideas sparked by the blog posts and the class made it a totally worthwhile trip. And now that the CE teaching bug has bit, what should I teach next?!?!                

Sharing What We Know

I've been thinking alot about teaching and learning over the past few years. I've been lucky in both this job and my last one to work with former teachers who bring an always more rigorous and interesting perspective to work with kids. And I've been lucky to have supportive management and mentors who have encouraged me to teach and share.

I felt encouraged to blog, to develop and present lots of workshops, presentations and webinars. Recently I took a big step and started teaching as well - first as an adjunct and then as a CE instructor.  I find the teaching I am doing now to be deep and challenging in a whole new way. It makes me question everything I do in every way and hold a lens up to my work as a youth librarian.

But, this teaching isn't unique to me. We are all teachers. I believe this in a deep-bone way.

With the kids and families we work with, we are constantly teaching and sharing - tips on great books, series and characters; literacy tips; ideas on how to find favorite books or discover a different kind of reading.

We do the same with our colleagues we work with every day - whether within our youth area or in our library - teaching a new approach, or a new blog or a thing that helps us work better.

We teach our managers. We teach our board. We teach our funders. We teach our colleagues in other youth-serving organizations.

We teach on Twitter and in blog posts. We teach on listservs (ok, well, some just rant there) and Facebook groups and Google circles. We teach in articles and books we write. We teach through webinars and workshops and at conferences near and far.

I love to see how much youth librarians are generously sharing with each other.  Because as much as we teach, we learn.

We each have a unique approach that we bring to our sharing and teaching.  That is the most fun. I love the learning and the special ways each person approaches their subject. And I get excited when I discover another colleague sharing their knowledge or attitude or perspective. It keeps us wealthy in knowledge and pushes youth librarianship ahead.

So if you are hesitant about starting that blog or speaking up in a Twitter chat or submitting a speaking proposal for a conference/webinar/workshop, let me encourage you. Just do it. We're waiting to hear YOUR voice and learn all you have to share!

Graphic courtesy of Pixabay

Let's Go to School Together!

Hey friends out in youth library land....

Interested in digging more deeply into programming for children, preschool through elementary ages? Want to explore: why we do what we do; how to do it better; negotiating the tricky currents of available staff, time, money and patron reactions? Thinking you've got storytime down pat but want to strengthen your preschool programming in other ways? Need to expand your community of programming peeps through robust dialogue, program shares and down-right feisty argument?

Well, I have an online course for you!  I will be teaching Power Children's Programming - on a Budget, a six week on-line course for the UW Madison SLIS Continuing Education department beginning the week of February 10. It is open to anyone, in-state or out-of-state, who is interested in this subject.

Since it's an asynchronous course, you can dip into the content anytime each week. Lectures and readings are a mix of written text, webinars, slideshares, video and links to seminal posts about programming from bloggers including Bryce, Anne Clark, Amy Comers, Melissa Depper,  Abby Johnson, Amy Koester, Angie Manfredi, Brooke Newberry, Katie Salo, Beth Saxton and our friends at the ALSC, Little eLit and Thrive Thursday blogs.

I've created a brand new blog Kids Library Program Mojo that will start filling with content as the ideas and programs start popping up in the course and being shared. Coursework in this pass/fail course takes about 2-3 hours a week and the two brief assignments allow you to hone your thinking on programming (be an advocate!) and create/share a program. What could be more fun?

I hope you consider joining me for this most excellent learning adventure. I plan to learn as much as I teach!

Graphic courtesy of Pixabay

Where You Been, Loch-Wouters?

Just seconds ago, I hit the "submit" button for grades to go to the registrar. Yep, I've been an instructor this past semester. At the graduate level. For my alma mater UW-Madison SLIS. Teaching Public Library Service for Children and Teens. On my off time. Online.

When the job opening came up in June for a fall online graduate-level 3-credit course instructor in my career field, I was like, "Oh I could do this." I've thought off and on about whether I could teach at some point in my career. It was a long-time (albeit, secret) dream. After all the workshops I've given on youth services I thought SNAP! After looking at a syllabus from the last online instructor (about five pages), I applied with confidence and was hired in early July.

From there, I can only compare the past 5.5 months to a wildly careening run down a steep ski hill by a skier who had never strapped on downhill skis before. Syllabus building; learning the online component; going through piles of books to finalize my textbooks; driving the five-hour round trip weekly to consult with faculty; meeting and talking with generous and supportive teaching colleagues to get up to speed - that's a peek into those first two hectic months. And everything felt completely Alice-in-Wonderland nuts.

There wasn't a minute of that time that I wasn't worried and scared. What HAD I gotten myself into? This was...hard!  And challenging! And intellectually stimulating! And freaking time consuming.  The online component was a little challenging and I sucked alot of the ever-patient Distance TA's time away holding my hand. I was glad I had vacation (sorry, honey, the Utah hiking trip is off). And I got used to getting up at 4am daily to do my course prep and saying goodbye to weekends.

The very worst moment was discovering that each of my online lectures needed to be very short and concise - no more than ten-twelve minutes. Whaaa?!?!?!  For a chatty person like me, that was a hellish nightmare and THE number one most difficult challenge. I think I kept them down to that length once.And to get there usually took 7-8 hours of writing, thinking and composing per lecture.

I woke up thinking about my readings, lectures, class discussions and students and went to bed thinking about them. That concentration really pulled me through. But it didn't leave much time for anything else.

By the beginning of October, after the first assignment was in, with a month of lectures under my belt and the students really bringing it on in the course, I calmed down and began to enjoy the experience. I felt more comfortable with the software. I wanted to stimulate my students to see the big picture of youth librarianship and they really responded. It wasn't a fancy course and if I ever get the chance I will make it a little more interesting ("OMG," I can imagine the students saying, "Not another lecture/discussion AGAIN? Can't she mix it up a little to create a more interesting format?")

I'm a little wistful it's over. I loved watching students learn over the couple of months and share their discoveries. As challenging as it was, it was THAT satisfying. But what will I do with all my free time? Hello, blog. Hello, family. Hello, friends. Hello, reading for pleasure. And that's good too!