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I knew my library was going to be very busy over Spring Break so I wanted to create a passive program to engage our patrons but that wouldn’t require a lot of staff time. We have our early literacy centers, but those are geared more towards toddlers and preschoolers and I knew we’d get a larger amount of school age kids in during break. When I thought about how much the kids love imaginative play in storytime, the idea for Library Town was born.

Credit Sarah Bean Thompson

Spreading out throughout our story hour room, Library Town included a restaurant, grocery store, doctor’s office, train, telephone booth, and of course a library. We also re-used some of our homemade building blocks that we created for the summer reading program to look like buildings for kids to create their own mini town and added our community helper dolls to the mix.

Community helpers standing guard.
Credit Sarah Bean Thompson

The set up was fairly easy. We collected lots of boxes in the months leading up to Library Town. Then to set up the event, we arranged small spaces for each location and add paper, crayons, and other supplies the kids might want to use.  We made menus for the kids to fill out for the restaurant, had paper and stamps for them to make and decorate their own library card and used withdrawn books so they could shelve and check out books, and we had prescription pads printed off so kids could write out a prescription at the doctor’s office and take notes.

At the doctor’s office Credit Sarah Bean Thompson

Checking up on stuffed animal patients. Credit Sarah Bean Thompson

We set up Library Town on a Monday morning after storytime and left it up until Thursday at 5. Throughout the week we had kids going in and out of the room playing and having a blast. We had promoted the program in our program calendar, but we advertised with a big sign in front of the room saying that Library Town was open and we made sure to announce it patrons when we noticed a large crowd and also let families know when we talked to them.

Shopping at the grocery store. Credit Sarah Bean Thompson

We had storytime during the week, but instead of hosting it the story hour room as we usually do, we held it in the middle of the children’s department and read books about around the neighborhood and community helpers and sang The Wheels on the Bus before we let kids into Library Town to play.

The entire program went wonderfully and kids and parents loved it. It was a great passive program and it was a wonderful way to highlight a lot of our community helper books-we were refreshing the book display in the room on a regular basis! I also loved this program because it worked for a wide range of ages and it was perfect for families. I’m eager to open up our Library Town again!

The post Library Town appeared first on ALSC Blog.

photo credit: Elise Katz

I am still reeling from the excitement & energy of the ALA Youth Media Awards this week. As part of this year’s Caldecott Committee, I spent the majority of my Midwinter Conference in book discussions with fourteen other committee members participating in the book discussion of a lifetime. It was an incredible thing and I absolutely adore my fellow committee members-I learned so much from them and I felt we all created an incredible bond that can only happen with such an experience.

As I reflect on my committee experience, I feel as though I am not only a better librarian and feel more equipped to understand the awards process, but I also feel as though I am coming away from this experience as a better librarian.

During our discussions, the power of active listening really demonstrated itself. Listening fully to what others had to say without interrupting or coming to your own conclusions is a powerful and incredible thing. I felt appreciated and respected. It was an incredible experience and made me love the people I was with.

It also made me think how I can practice active listening more as a Youth Services Manager with my staff and my patrons. I want to listen to my staff and hear their concerns and questions as well as their praise. I want to remember to stop, pause, and think about what they have said before I respond. I want to show them respect and really listen to what they have to say. 

I am so thankful for this experience and I am so grateful to the committee for making it so wonderful. Thank you for demonstrating a wonderful tool that I can take back and use as a manager. I know it’s an experience I will never forget.

The post The Power of Active Listening appeared first on ALSC Blog.

My branch manager has challenged us over the next few months to get back to basics. Things like picking up messes, straightening books, push in  chairs, roving the department. So often when we get caught up in programs and other things, we forget these basic tasks.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how this can work in Youth Services as far as programming. I always struggle with providing programming for everyone and having options during the day as well as evening and weekends. Yet no matter what we try, we don’t get an audience for evening and weekend programs unless it’s something really big (Star Wars Reads Day, Meet Pete the Cat). I’ve tried Saturday morning storytimes out in the department for the past year and while it’s nice to offer, the crowds are small and the people that come aren’t at the Library for storytime,  but stop by because they are already here. After brainstorming some ideas with my staff, we’ve come up with a few ways we’re going to get back to basics in  our programming:

• More Impromptu Storytimes-We want to offer storytimes for as many people as we can and we want to reach those patrons who can’t attend our daytime stortyimes. So we’ve decided to host more impromptu storytimes. When the department is busy and we notice lots of families hanging out and we have a quick moment to step away from the desk, we’re going to try impromptu storytimes. These will be in the department, we’ll use our early literacy toys as activities, and whatever passive activity we have out as a craft if possible. We’ve done this a bit in the past and we think it will be a fun way to engage families and let them know about what we offer and tell them about other programs that are happening.
• Surprise Saturdays-This is another old program we’ve decided to bring back. It doesn’t seem to matter what we offer on weekends, we just don’t draw a large crowd. And the people that do come are mostly people who just happen to be in the department and are happy to have something to do. Surprise Saturday is a drop in program where we put out games,  puzzles, crafts, and activities-you never know what it will be! But if you stop by on a Surprise Saturday, you know there will be something happening at the library just for kids.
• More Passive Activities in Department-Our passive activities this year have gone over very well. So we’ve decided to keep these up and do more.  A lot of times we have kids coming in to study and do homework, so they don’t have time to attend a long program, but they have time to stop and take a quick break to make an origami dog, build Lego letters, write a letter for the mailbox, look in the magnifying glass at pictures, or play with Tangrams. We’re already planning on our passive activities for next year and planning things for our younger patrons as well as our tweens to engage them while they’re visiting the library. We’re also planning on hosting programs that are easy to run like Scavenger Hunt Day-we set up scavenger hunts all around the branch for the kids to complete. We’ve also brainstormed having more games out-simple games that we can teach if we need to in five minutes that the kids can then play on their own. Things like Checkers, Connect Four, Uno and Sushi Go are great for this.
• Work on Large Event Programming-Large events and programs are what are bringing our patrons in. They like brands, popular characters, and names. The most success we have with programs is when we tie it with something they recognize and have a large event. We’re hoping to host more costume characters, have giant sized storytimes (read big books, use the projector to show iPad stories on the big screen), “drive in” movies, family dance parties.

I’m hoping that by offering programs that are fun for patrons and easy for staff to implement will help us take a step back and look at what we really want to provide. I also think by spending a lot of our time and effort on large programs once a program period (every three months) we won’t be wearing ourselves thin with programming.

How do you program? Any ideas for getting back to basics?

The post Back to Basics appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Yesterday I hosted a Bibliobop Dance Party at my library. I started Bibliobop (our baby/toddler/preschooler dance party) about four years ago. The program includes lots of music and movement, reading books about dancing and music and lots of fun. We use shaker eggs, instruments, parachutes, and scarves. Biblibop is hosted on Saturday mornings once every few months. This Fall, I also started a program called Preschool Wiggleworms, which is another music and movement program. The weekly programs are a bit more themed (we talk about certain types of dance or themes each week) but the general idea is similar to Biblibop. We dance, move, and have fun.

My mom is a music teacher, so I grew up surrounded by the arts. Singing and dancing were regular parts of my life. But the more I do these creative movement programs, the more I realize this is an aspect of early literacy that we really need to promote.

The more I host these creative movement programs, the more I am surprised by how many people don’t include music and movement in their daily lives. I think because I grew up with it’s second nature to me, but for so many people it’s not. At each of these programs, I have parents tell me “this is so great-we don’t do this at home!” When my son was born and I was singing to him as I changed his diaper, my mother-in-law said “that’s so neat how you sing to him all the time.” It wasn’t something she had thought about doing with a newborn. And I always have parents (and staff) who  say they don’t know how to sing, they aren’t good singers, they can’t dance. But we all know the kids don’t care!

We have so many great resources from books to CDs that can help parents host their own dance parties at home. When I host these programs, I try and focus on the Singing skill of Every Child Ready to Read and letting parents know why singing and dancing is so important. Singing helps us slow down, hear words in a new way, it grows vocabulary. Dancing helps kids move. As I write this, my 1-year-old son is dancing and singing around my living room with his dad to “Tooty-Ta”. His vocabulary has grown from listening to the song and he can recite the order of all the movements.

Even if you think you can’t sing or can’t dance, you can host a creative movement program. It’s lots of fun to put together and the kids and adults have a blast. Here are a few of my favorite songs and activities:

I Can Shake My Shaker Egg by The Learning Groove (shaker eggs)

The Apple Tree by Bari Koral Family Rock Band (scarves)

Happy by Jennifer Gasoi (scarves or parachute)

Country Classics Start and Stop by Hap Palmer (shakers or parachute)

The Freeze by Greg and Steve (it’s a classic must have!)

Bop Til You Drop by Greg and Steve

The Train Beat Song by The Sugar Free Allstars

Airband by The Pop Ups

Do you host creative movement programs at your library? How do you share the importance of singing and dancing with your patrons? Any favorite songs or activities?

The post Dance Parties are Fun-and Important! appeared first on ALSC Blog.

My staff and I love doing programming around geeky fandoms and pop culture. Whatever our kids and teens are talking about, we love to program around it. We have so much fun with our fandom programs and they are always well attended. But it makes me wonder what we can do to make sure all library programs have the same draw.

When we put a character name or popular brand to something, people come. Pete the Cat costume character event? 600 people. Star Wars Reads Day? 200 people. Harry Potter Trivia Event? 75 people. Doc McStuffins Stuffie Clinic? 120 people. Halloween Storytime and Trick-or-Treat Parade in the Library-366 people. My average program attendance this summer? 31.

Yes, 31 is still a great number and attendance. Yes these big name programs are fun and bring people into the library. But looking at what we plan for these programs compared to what we plan for programs that aren’t based on a specific character or brand, (art programs, science programs, dance parties, building programs) our set up, program plan and implementation is very similar. The only thing that’s really different is that the activities and crafts have a specific character instead of something general. Just having a superhero program isn’t enough, yet an Big Hero 6 program was huge. Storytime is well attended, but make it about Pete the Cat or Elephant and Piggie and I have huge crowds.

I know that these programs are all very creative and fun. And my regular library patrons always say how much they love library programs and how creative our staff is-no matter the theme. But how do we market library programs in general to the public without having to attach a popular character, theme or brand on top of it? How can we get people excitied about library programs without needing to attach a name to it? How can we get people to come to a Community Helpers program instead of a Paw Patrol program? Or a space program instead of a Star Wars Day? Why isn’t the library name enough?

I believe there is absolutely a place in the library for fandoms and pop culture and I love programming for it. But I would love to figure out how to advertise the all library programs to everyone in our community. I want to let people know that we have these fun pop culture based programs for the entire family. And while they are at the library, I want to promote all the other amazing resources the library has to offer. I want them to think about library programs and think they are all awesome and fun, not just the ones that are about a character or theme they know.

I don’t have all the answers and I’m still trying to figure out how best to program for our patrons. I’ve found a few things I’ve that help though:

-Don’t just have the program isolated to one room. Scavenger hunts are our best friend! They are easy to put together, kids love them, and they sneakily teach people about the library. Hide scavenger hunt items in all departments of the library and get people to explore all that you have to offer.

-Announce events at other programs. Advertise to everyone and spread the word. Having a storytime? Promote an upcoming program. I’ve found the best attendance I get at a Saturday program is when I announce in every storytime the week leading up to it. Also word of mouth is the best marketing tool you will ever have.

-Promote all the library offers. We noticed that at our annual Halloween Storytime and Trick-Or-Treat Parade we had lots of families attending that we didn’t see regularly attending storytimes. So we take advantage of this an along with stickers, candy, and finger puppets, kids also get our Storytime Brochure with all of our storytimes listed and fliers advertising upcoming library programs in their goodie bags.

I’d love to know other ideas on how to get people excited about all library programs.  How do we get people talking about all library programs and not just ones based on a brand or name? How do we make the library an exciting brand all of it’s own?

The post Branding the Library appeared first on ALSC Blog.

This Fall, my staff and I got very excited about offering something new in addition to our regular weekly storytimes. We wanted to shake things up a bit in our schedule. Luckily I have staff members who are especially excited and inspired by change and trying new things. I wanted to offer a regular music and movement program ( more than my once a quarter dance party) and I had a staff member who wants to do an art program. So after brainstorming and scheduling we created Toddler Art (ages 18 months-36 months) and Preschool Wiggleworms (ages 3-6) to host on Friday mornings.

I was a bit worried about how changing our schedule and taking out Friday storytimes for something else would effect the rest of our programs. Would our other storytimes have a huge jump in attendance? Would we just end up with repeats from earlier in the week? So far, our storytime numbers haven’t had much change and while we do see some families come back for our Friday sessions, we’ve notice a whole new crowd coming into the library. Families are coming to the art program and exploring art activities with a space to get messy. Our preschoolers are loving the chance to do more creative movement, parachute play, instruments and rhythm sticks. We’re bringing kids and families in who haven’t attended a storytime and are discovering all the awesome things we do at the library. Plus, we’re offering this sessions for free where other similar music and art sessions have a fee.

We’ve been running the programs foe a month and have heard numerous comments from patrons thanking us for the programs, providing an opportunity to introduce the arts to kids, and for having a fun, creative family experience. I’m looking into our Spring and Summer schedule and thinking so it how to offer these programs in the evenings or weekends to accommodate working families. I love being able to offer a place for kids to explore art and music and adding these new programs has been a great scheduling change!

The post Messy Art and Creative Movement appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Last year I needed a last minute program to fill in our last week of Summer Reading. We have weekly performers at my branch every Thursday afternoon and we didn’t get one for the final week of July. So my staff and I threw together a Frozen-Sing-Along and had over 150 kids show up!

This program was so easy to put together and had such a huge draw that I wanted to repeat our success again this year. We cut back on the number of performers, so I had three open Thursday afternoons to fill with staff led programming. So our Fantastic Family Film Festival was born.

Our first one happened yesterday afternoon with a Big Hero 6 Robot Build-Along.

Movies tend to be hit or miss at our branch and we have more success with recent popular films with kids and families. The hero theme of Big Hero 6 went perfectly with the Summer Reading theme of Superheroes and the kids are still talking about the movie, so I knew it would draw a crowd. But I didn’t want to just have the kids sit and watch a movie-I wanted something else to happen to make it worth the trip. So we made robots!

I received a huge donation of shoe boxes from a local community theater who had used them in a recent performance. This was a fantastic gift because all of the shoe boxes were wrapped in nice white paper-a perfect surface for creating a robot. I set the room up with several tables and chairs for a work surface but left the front open for floor seating. I put out the boxes on one table and various art supplies on another (crayons, scissors, ribbons, glue, stickers) and told the kids they could gather supplies anytime throughout the movie. In order to help cut down on the mess I kept googly eyes, feathers, and pom-poms back at the table staffed by librarians and the kids had to come and get these from the librarians so we could ration these out and have a more controlled mess. This ended up working out great and we had very little clean up!

The kids loved making a robot while watching the movie and we had multiple parents comment on how they thought it was a wonderful idea. We even had an adult wander by the room and poke her head to tell us we needed to do programs like this for adults!

We ended up with just over 50 kids building robots on a rainy afternoon and the robots turned out great. Of course now I’m kicking myself for not taking photos of all their wonderful creations! My staff and I loved seeing the kids creativity shine through their projects and they had a blast creating while watching a movie.

Next week we’re repeating our Frozen Sing-A-Long and the week after that we’re hosting an Incredibles costume contest and mask making. This programming has been a big draw for families and is a nice break from very staff intensive programming as we finish up our Summer Reading Program.

The post Fantastic Family Film Festival appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Back in April, I wrote about how we are shaking up our Summer Storytime schedule and adding in a new program called Fandom Jr. The idea is to offer a drop in program on Friday mornings based on popular preschool topics and themes. I promised an update!

I hosted my first Fandom Jr. last week and it was a huge success! For our first program, I wanted to focus on community heroes, so we chose the popular Nick Jr. show, Paw Patrol. The program combined a little bit of a playtime, a little bit of a storytime, and lots of fun.

I had lots of various activities and stations set up around the room including:

• Pin the badge on the pup (made by one of my amazing staff using materials from the Nick Jr website)
• Community Helper dolls (from our circulating toy collection-we have three sets of  community helper action figures and this was a good way to highlight this collection as well)
• Reading station filled with books about community helpers
• Match the worker to their tools game-I had pictures of four workers-dentist, farmer, mail carrier, and fire fighter-as well as the tools they use.
• Paw Patrol Coloring Sheets-(from the Nick Jr. website)
• Paw Patrol Character Matching Game (again using resources from Nick Jr)
• Write a letter to a community helper. I made a simple letter template and put out crayons and pencils for the kids to write.

I also set up a display of books and DVDs about community helpers. I started the program with a reading of Officer Buckle and Gloria and read I’m Brave about halfway through the accomodate the new crowd that had come in later in the morning. Over the course of our 2-hour drop in program, we had around 70 kids show up and play.

Even though it was a drop in program, most of the crowd showed up at 11:00, when we started, so it will be interesting to see how this week’s program works and if the crowd is more split up throughout the morning. The kids and parents both had a great time and it was fun to see them engaging in our Library resources and connecting a popular show with another topic. Most of the book display checked out which I thought was great! I’m eager to see how the rest of the series goes throughout the Summer!

The post Fandom Jr. Update appeared first on ALSC Blog.

My library is storytime central. We’re the largest branch in our system and we’re the headquarters branch, which means lots of traffic. We also end up being “the toddler branch” which means huge numbers for storytime. My staff always joke we could do storytime every hour of every day and have a huge crowd at each session. We even hosted a day one summer where we ended up with storytime at 10, 11, 1 and 4 by accident of overlapping programming days and they were all full!

This summer I’ve decided to shake up our storytimes just a bit. I’m trying something new and we’ll see how it goes. We discovered last year that the best use of our storytime and staff resources would be to repeat toddler storytimes on our busiest days. Our numbers for storytime climb even higher in the summer, we have an influx of people on vacation, teachers, and families who only can come to storytime in the summer. In order to accommodate everyone without having to require registration, we opted to add additional toddler storytimes and it worked out great.

Our preschool storytimes, while well attended, just don’t seem to have as much of an increase. We have a lot of preschoolers, but they also get busy with lessons, classes, and more. I thought about what our preschool families want in addition to storytime-more programming for the preschool crowd-and added that into the mix.

Our summer schedule will be:

Monday-Baby Storytime for infant-18 months

Tuesday & Wednesday-2 back to back storytimes 0-36 months, 1 storytime for 3-6

Every Other Saturday-all ages storytime

Friday-Introducing……

Fandom Jr! Fandom Jr. came out of a brainstorm with a staff member who wanted to do a Doc McStuffins program. We do a Fandoms program for the teens and we often to programs for the tweens based on Fandoms, so why not create a weekly drop in program with some storytime elements and make that another preschool option for summer? The idea will be to bring kids in with the subject (pirates & princesses, Elephant and Piggie, Paw Patrol) and then use that as a starting point to show them what the library has to offer. We chose our themes with the idea of creating a broader program in mind and we’re hoping we can get the kids and parents to not just walk away with some character themed books and activities, but with some connections too.

We’ll see how it goes. I think it will be lots of fun and it’s something new to add to our programming. And with it lasting two hours and being a drop in program, we can accommodate large attendance and have more in depth activities that we aren’t always able to do in the shorter time frame of storytime.

Fingers crossed our idea works and we have a blast this summer with our Fandoms Jr!

The post Shaking Up Summer Storytimes appeared first on ALSC Blog.

This past week was our local schools Spring Break. We always see a spike in attendance and interest in programs during school breaks, so this year we decided to have something happening every day of the week. I focused on having things that were a balance of passive and come and go programs, regularly scheduled things as well as a couple that were more staff intensive. Our week looked like this:

Monday: Lego Movie Build-a-long (we watched The Lego Movie and built with Legos)

Tuesday-Storytimes (regularly scheduled programs), Super Smash Brothers Tournament for teens

Wednesday-Storytimes (regularly scheduled programs), Scavenger Hunt Afternoon (a come and go event that featured various scavenger hunts throughout the library)

Thursday-Crafternoon-(one for kids, one for teens, both come and go events where we put out various craft supplies and let the kids make whatever they want)

Friday-Fairy Tale Bash (a more staff intensive program with lots of stories and activities)

Saturday-Storytime (regularly scheduled program), Pi Day Party (another drop in event but it was a bit more staff intensive with prep and planning)

Throughout the week we had a steady attendance and the library itself was busy. But as the the week went out, the attendance for the programs also waned. It was a mix of people being busy, programs not happening at a time that worked for people, and competing against the first wave of warm and sunny weather.

While I think it’s important to provide programs for our patrons, I also spent the week wondering if we were doing too much. Throughout the week we received call after call about what we had going on, so I know the interest was there. But I also struggle with how much to offer. How much staff time do I spend to make sure patrons have something to do over a school break? And does it really matter?

I’ve been struggling recently with how much do we really need to provide as far as programming. We’ve started doing more passive activities in the department, we have a play and learn center in the department for the younger set, and  we’re putting out STEM related activities for the school age crowd. We have books, games, computers, magazines, and toys, yet I always seem to hear those patrons asking “but what else do you have?” How much do we really need to have? Do we need to program something every day during a school break? Do our summers need to be filled with programs happening all the time? Or can we step back, take a break, and say we have the library when they ask “but what else?”

I’d love to know-how much do you program around school breaks?

The post Programming Over Breaks appeared first on ALSC Blog.

My one-year-old son’s latest favorite read is Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann. I came home from ALA Midwinter to a sick baby and a husband who had already read Good Night, Gorilla “hundreds of times.” As I stayed home and spent the past week with my son and read (and re-read) Good Night, Gorilla, I thought about the initial meeting I had with the 2016 Caldecott Committee, our comments about the committee manual and preparing for a year of reading (and re-reading) picture books.

Slow Down-The more I read the same book over and over again, the more I slowed down and really took in the story. I knew the text so I could look at the pictures and see how the two really combined.

Pay Attention to Detail-After reading Good Night, Gorilla many, many times, I started to notice details I hadn’t seen before. I looked at the pictures on the wall of the Zookeeper’s house that showed Mrs. Zookeeper holding a baby gorilla. I noticed how each animal had toys in their cage and that elephant had a nod to Babar. I followed the mouse’s story just as much as I followed gorilla’s. I saw the expressions in the animals faces.

Appreciate the Story & Art Working Together-Along with the various details, I really looked at how the story and the art work together. I saw the number of neighbors that appear in the window increase from one to three, adding a layer of humor to the story that maybe the animals following the Zookeeper home each night was a regular ritual that the whole neighborhood thought was pretty funny. My son finds the two page spread of black with just Mrs. Zookeeper’s eyes wide open (which I read with a corresponding “too many good nights!”) absolutely hilarious and made me think about how the art and text compliment each other.

The Caldecott Manual comes with a page of suggested reading and our committee has suggested other articles and books we felt would be good to look at to help prepare for our upcoming year. But I also found this past week that reading Good Night, Gorilla over and over again with my son has also made me stop and think about my upcoming committee year and in some ways, helped me prepare for my year of evaluating illustrations and picture books.

Take some time and re-read some picture books and see if you learn to slow down, pay attention to detail, and appreciate the story and art working together.

The post How Good Night, Gorilla is preparing me for a Year of Committee Work appeared first on ALSC Blog.

In December, my library was very fortunate to be selected as one of the stops on Jan Brett’s tour for her latest release The Animals’ Santa. We’ve hosted author’s before at the library, but never anything this large. We had around 800 people show up for the event and people drove from Kansas City, Arkansas and across Missouri to here Ms. Brett speak and get books signed. We had a lot of fun and the event was fantastic and we couldn’t have been happier with the way everything turned out. But I learned a few things along the way on how to ensure a successful author visit.

Photo Credit: Springfield-Greene County Library

• Create a schedule of events for staff as well as listed job duties and descriptions of what is expected. This was incredibly helpful since we had numerous staff involved in the event from various branches and departments.
• Use a ticketing system for the signing line. We used tickets created by our Community Relations department that also doubled as bookmarks. These were passed out as families came into the library the day of the event. During the signing, we called groups of 25 into the auditorium and had the crowd organized so the signing line went smoothly-and there were no mad dashes to get in line.
• Have activities while people are waiting. Expect a long line and a lot of waiting. We turned our story hour room into an activity room with crafts, trivia, and games based on Jan Brett’s books to entertain children why they waited.
• Limit the number of items to be signed. Ms. Brett was very gracious and signed numerous items for our patrons, but the line was just too long for her to continue the amount that she started with. We had to cut down the number of items signed by the end to keep things moving along. Next time I would have a set number to start with and advertise that so everyone knows what to expect.
• If possible, check in with previous tour stops for tips and advice. We were able to talk to the previous tour stop about how many people they had, how they handled the lines, and any other tips. This helped us prepare and give us an idea of what to expect.
• Think about parking! We thought we had everything planned-until we talked to the previous tour stop and realized the day of the event we didn’t know what we were going to with parking! Next time I think signage for parking and even someone directing traffic would be very helpful.
• Make sure you have food and water for your visiting author-and your staff. We had a break room with snacks and water for staff and made sure we had a stash of water bottles for Ms. Brett as well. We tried to give staff managing the lines short breaks to get something to eat or drink as needed. I would make sure you have someone on your schedule that can give breaks to staff along the way!
• People don’t understand what “personalization” means. We offered two books to be personalized and had post it notes for the names to be written on for Ms. Brett to see. What I realized in line is that people didn’t understand the difference between just getting a book signed and getting it signed with a name to someone specific. They also didn’t understand that they couldn’t write out a long inscription such as “To Mrs. Nelson’s class-you’re a great group of readers”. I think more explanation on what it means to get a book personalized from the line managers and book seller table would be helpful.
• Expect a few grumps and complaints. Not everyone will be satisfied with everything-and that’s OK-you can’t please everyone no matter how hard you try. I would say 95% of the feedback we received about the event was how smoothly everything ran, how friendly the staff was, and how happy they were the library was offering this event. There were a few minor complaints along the way-the lines were long, they couldn’t get a large stack of books signed, but these were largely out of our control. Once we explained that we had a large crowd and we needed to move everyone through the line, people were understanding. And the positive comments outweighed the negatives and we focused on that!
• Celebrate a job well done. Make sure you thank the author, any tour assistants they may have, the publisher, and your staff on a job well done. Send the publisher feedback on your event and pictures if you have them-they love to know how events turned out!

Have you hosted an author event at your library? Any tips you have for making it successful?

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My library has seven storytimes a week and we typically see around 30 kids at each storytime. We’re also the headquarters branch with the most traffic and additional programs, so I think it’s vital for my staff to take breaks during the year to regroup and refresh and plan for our next round of storytimes. We take off the months of May (to help us promote, prepare for, and kick off the Summer Reading Program) and the month of December (typically we have lower traffic in the branch and we noticed that between iffy weather and so much being packed into patron’s schedules, our attendance is much lower).

I’ve learned to present these storytime breaks to our storytime families by telling them that we are taking a break  to get ready for our next round of storytimes and we want to plan and prepare the best programs for them. I also let them know that while we won’t be hosting weekly activities, we still will have things happening in the library and that they are always welcome to visit the library! I found that in presenting it this way is a great approach and our patrons feel like we care about them and want to provide the best we can. I even have several patrons comment on how we work so hard that we deserve a break, which is nice!

We want to make sure we do still have various activities going on, so we use the months we’re off from storytime to focus on a lot of passive programming as well as a few special programs throughout the month. Here’s what we have going on during our storytime break this month:

-Cookie Club-We kick off our Cookie Club Winter Reader’s Club in December. I got this idea from Marge Louch-Waters from Tiny Tips for Library Fun and adapted it for my library. In our club, the kids get a card to get stamped each time they visit the library. They are also invited to decorate a cookie (a brown circle) and place it in our workroom window. If the kids get six stamps by the end of February, they get a special invite to our invite only Cookie Club party in March. At the party we read books about cookies, play cookie games, make cookie crafts and of course eat cookies! The parents and the kids get excited about this. This is our third year doing the Cookie Club and I had a family say “Oh yes! The Cookie Club is back!”

-Missouri Building Block Picture Book Award Voting-The Missouri Library Association sponsors The Missouri Building Block Picture Book Award that is voted on the kids of Missouri birth-Kindergarten. I spend all of my Fall storytimes reading the nominees and the kids can vote during the month of December. We have a voting box and a poster of all the nominees as well as ballots out on display. When the kids vote for their favorite, they get an “I voted” sticker to celebrate. Each week during December we’ve been rotating passive activities based on the nominees from mustache making for Mustache Baby to an elephant finger puppet for Little Nelly’s Big Book. The kids have loved it!

-Special Movie Marathon Days-Once the kids are out of school, our phones start ringing non-stop with the question “what does the library have going on today?” To help offer something for families that doesn’t take up a lot of staff time and planning, we host several movie marathons in our auditorium. We show double features of popular movies like Cars and Cars 2 or a princess theme with Tangled and Sofia the First. We also will occasionally set up simple crafts or trivia to go along with the movies. Our patrons love the chance to take a break and watch a favorite movie on a large screen.

-Crafterspace & Builderspace-This year we’re hosting an afternoon of crafting and an afternoon of building. These programs were also designed to be lighter in planning and staff time and are very easy to set up. For the craft afternoon, we clean out of craft supply closet and let the kids create whatever they can come up with. For the building program, we put out Legos, giant foam blocks, wooden blocks-any block we can find and let the kids build. These are programs that are easy to gather supplies for, easy to set up, and great for families to spend an afternoon together.

We found that providing a lot of passive family activities during our storytime breaks offered the perfect balance between still offering programs and giving staff a break.

Do you take storytime breaks? And if so, any tips for providing activities for your patrons while on break?

Dinosaurs have invaded my library. We’ve turned this November into Dinovember. Dinovember is the month when the dinosaurs come out to play. It was started by two parents who decided to have some fun with their children’s dinosaur toys and a month of dinosaur antics was born. You can follow the dino adventures on the Dinovember Tumblr. The creators also recently released a book, What The Dinosaurs Did Last Night.

Inspired by these silly dinosaurs, my staff and I decided to have some fun. We transformed one of our giant workroom windows in a calendar. Each day we post a new picture of what the dinosaurs have been up to at the library. The kids (and the parents) are having lots of fun checking out the photos and have even been looking around the department to see if they can catch the dinosaurs in action. All the staff have pulled together to make Dinovember happen with taking pictures, sharing dinosaur toys, helping us come up with ideas, and letting us invade their departments with dinosaurs. It’s a very simple thing to put together and the response has been great. I love inspiring imagination in the kids and they are getting a kick out of all the silly things the dinosaurs come up with to do each day.

Here’s a peek of what our dinosaurs have been up to:

Photo Credit: Valerie Bogert

Photo Credit: Valerie Bogert

Photo Credit: Valerie Bogert

Photo Credit: Valerie Bogert

We’ve been having so much fun, I think we should make Dinovember a yearly treat. And I hope other libraries join us in the fun!

I first learned about Block Parties at ALA Annual 2013. The idea was to have kids come the library for a block building party. I knew I had to try this at my library, so I started our Block Parties during this year’s Summer Reading Program. They have become a huge hit and I am continuing the program after we had such a great success.

The Block Parties are easy to set up and run. The library has a large set of Legos already, but to add to the block collection, we purchased a set of wooden blocks and several sets of Duplos. I also have a large collection of styrofoam packing blocks from our computer packing (make friends with your IT staff!) that I use for block building. I also included other wooden blocks we had in our storyhour collection, shape sorters, foam blocks and any other block toys I had in our toy collection.

I put out all the blocks around the room and opened the doors for the kids to come build. Before we started, I read a book about building and talked about the types of things the kids could make with blocks. And then they were set free to build and use their imaginations to create whatever their hearts desired. I also put out a display of books on building and construction to give them ideas and hopefully keep the conversation about building and creating continuing at home.

The block parties run for an hour, but the kids would stay and build all afternoon if I let them! I’ve had success hosting them on Saturday mornings at 11am as well as Friday afternoons at 2pm. I roam the room talking to the kids about what they are creating and they are excited to show off their creations.

Our block parties are a fun, simple program that encourages creativity, imagination, and are a great way to get started in STEM programming. And with the partnership with LEGO DUPLO and ALSC with Read! Play! Build! this is the perfect time to start a block party of your own!

I love my Bibliobop Library Dance Party program. It might just be my most favorite program that I do. What could be better than dancing around with kids?

I started hosting our Biblibop program two years ago and the popularity has continued to build. During the summer, I host a dance party every month, but during the rest of the year, I host one every programming period (every three months). I decided on this format because I didn’t want to wear out our patrons, but I think I could host it every month and still get an audience.

The format is simple. I open up with a book about dancing or singing, tell the kids the rules (watch out for other dancers, big people dance too, and have fun!) and then we dance! I make a playlist of songs and we dance the morning away. Some songs have more instructions to them, like Greg and Steve’s The Freeze or Can You Leap Like a Frog? Others are free dance songs like Justin Roberts Great Big Sun or Ralph’s World Liesel Echo. I also have songs for scarves, instruments, and the parachute. I take a reading break about halfway through the program and then we continue to dance. The entire program lasts anywhere from 45 min-1 hour depending on the group.

I was using a CD player and CDs from our collection until our department got an iPad and portable speaker. Now I add the music to iTunes, make my playlists on the iPad and I’m good to go.

So why host a library dance party? Well, first of all, it’s fun! It’s a great chance to have adults interact and play with their kids. It’s a great way to get the kids moving and exercising. And it’s a fabulous way to highlight your music collection. It’s also a wonderful chance to expose children to creative movement and music.

So put on your dancing shoes and give a library dance party a try!

Tweens are always a hard audience to reach at my library. They are so busy and the library often ends up being a quick stop for our tweens. We wanted to make sure we offered programs for our school age patrons and we thought the best way to reach them would be to offer programming at multiple times to try and accommodate their busy schedules.

After brainstorming with my staff, we decided we had two audiences we wanted to reach-school age patrons and our ever growing home school population. So we came up with the idea to offer two programs that would repeat each month. We offer one program on a Saturday morning and another on the fourth Friday afternoon of the month. So far we’ve done a Crafternoon, old fashioned game day, and a sewing program based around the book Extra Yarn). This gives patrons two opportunities to attend our programs and we’re reaching a different audience need with each program while targeting the tween school age population that we want to bring into the library.

We don’t advertise the weekday afternoon program for just home schoolers, but we know that’s a big part of our audience for those programs. And the public schools will often have an early dismissal on the afternoons of our programs, so we’re able to reach a wider audience.

So far it’s been a popular idea. Our patrons have appreciated having more options of times to attend a program and our home school patron base is excited that we are offering a program that they can attend with the whole family. We’re eager to keep this plan going in the Fall and continue to bring programming that offers something for our tweens.

Does your library offer a creative time slot to reach tweens or multiple programming opportunities to reach tweens? I’d love to know how other libraries are running programs for school age patrons!

Are you interested in reading more tween-related posts?  The YALSA Blog and the ALSC Blog both offer information of interest to librarians who work with tweens. 

I love reading about librarians in books. Sometimes they are annoyingly stereotypical-the bun-wearning shushing types. But other times they are more true to the librarians I know-creative, energetic, and maybe with some secret powers!

I got excited when I saw an upcoming release, The Ninja Librarians by Jennifer Swan Downey. (Sourcebooks, April 2014) The book is  ”Just a little story about your average sword-swinging, karate-chopping, crime-fighting ninja librarians.” (from Goodreads) It got me thinking about a few of my other favorite librarians in literature.

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson

-Alcatraz must save the world from the most evil villain there is-librarians! They’re plotting to take over the world and Alcatraz must stop them.

Miss Brooks Loves Books! (And I Don’t) by Barbara Bottner, illusrated by Michael Emberly

-Miss Brooks is a great librarian who won’t give up on reader’s advisory-even when she’s faced with the toughest critic.

Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein

-Mr. Lemoncello isn’t a librarian, but he builds an amazing library and employs some great librarians-who happen to be inspired by real life librarians.

Who are your favorite fictional librarians?

Are you interested in reading more tween-related posts?  The YALSA Blog and the ALSC Blog both offer information of interest to librarians who work with tweens. 

Working with tweens can be fun and also frustrating. My branch will have a large after school crowd of tweens but they’re not at the library to attend a program or hang out. Instead they are at the library to meet with a tutor, work on homework, or grab a book quickly before they rush off to their extracurricular activities. No matter how much we advertise programs to this age group, our attendance can sometimes be low. Or at least it feels low when we’ve put a lot of effort into planning a program that we hope will be a big success.

It’s hard to get caught up in numbers and statistics when it comes to programming. It’s also hard not to compare programs with each other. Sometimes I think about how we can get a group of 30 or more toddlers for storytime but I’m lucky if I can get a few tweens for a program.

But I can’t get caught up in measuring program success by numbers. Instead I focus on the stories. Like the middle schooler who came to every single Hunger Games program we provided last year, won the movie tickets in the giveaway, and came to the library this year and said “thank you so much for having those programs about The Hunger Games! They were my favorite and I met my best friend-and we’re still friends today and we met at the library.”

Or the tween who attended a recent program and was excited to win a set of books she hadn’t read yet.

Or the tween who gets excited to meet someone else who shares their interests when they thought they were the only one who liked Doctor Who, or Origami Yoda, or Cupcake Club.

When I feel down about tween programs and wonder what we could do better to reach this age group, I remind myself of all that we have provided for tweens and that we are successful. We are providing a place for tweens to come, meet other tweens, and participate in a program just for them-and that’s a success.

The tweens at my library love the Origami Yoda series by Tom Angleberger. With so many fans, I knew this series would be great for a program. For my program inspiration, I used several of the activities in Art2-D2′s Guide to Folding and Doodling. I was nervous about putting on an origami program, because I am not very skilled at origami myself.

I set up the room with origami paper and additional supplies we would need for drawing our own comics as well as print outs of how to do some of the more difficult origami folds. Nine tweens gathered on a Sunday afternoon at my library to learn how to do origami and talk about the series.

We started the program out by talking about the book series and why they liked it (it’s funny and they liked the drawings throughout). About half of the group had read the books, the other half were attending the program either for the Star Wars or origami aspect. I started the group out with the simple five fold Origami Yoda that the author has posted to his website. This also gave me a good way to gauge how well the group could handle origami. Most of them had some trouble getting started but quickly figured it out. Once we made our Origami Yoda’s, we talked about the books some more and talked about favorite characters (Origami Yoda was the ultimate favorite character). While some of the origami was a bit complicated, the group stuck with it and they tried their hardest to complete Darth Paper and Origami R2-D2. In addition to origami, we made eraser Wookie’s and learned how to draw a simple Darth Vader helmet, both from the Art2-D2 book.

This was a fairly simple program with little supply cost, preparation and set up and it was a huge hit. I had to learn a bit of origami beforehand, and being crafty is not my strong suit. But the tweens didn’t care that I was learning along with them and we helped each other out in making various origami characters. The tweens loved gathering around a table, talking about a book series they enjoyed and learning to make origami. The most exciting part of the event was that it was very boy friendly and attended by an overwhelming majority of boys. Only one of my attendees was female and she attended because she was the younger sister of two of the attendees. It was a great way to bring boys into the library and show them all the library has to offer-and that we can have fun programs too.

At the end of the origami making, I was able to give away a copy of Art2-D2 as well as a signed copy of Origami Yoda I had picked up at a previous ALA conference. The group was very excited about the chance to win prizes and had a blast learning some new origami skills. It was a fun way to bring in tweens to the library and tie a book and craft program together. I learned not to be shy about my own lack of origami skills and to have fun with it. I can’t wait to have another origami event with the tweens.

Are you interested in reading more tween-related posts?  The YALSA Blog and the ALSC Blog both offer information of interest to librarians who work with tweens.

The library I work in is on a very busy side of town. Our tweens tend to become very involved in after school activities and homework during the school year. While they still use the library, they tend to be here for tutoring, homework help, or just running in quickly to grab a book. Sometimes our programming for tweens can be hit or miss. But one thing that has become a popular hit with our school age group are passive programs. We put out passive programs several times a year and these are great for tweens on the go who only have a few minutes to spend with a program. A few of our recent ideas:

I SPY HOUSE

This has become a holiday tradition for both Halloween and Christmas. Many years ago the library received a Madeline dollhouse that my staff transform into a large I Spy House. The interior changes every year with new items to find. Sometimes it’s a list of items, sometimes it’s a puzzle with rhyming text, but no matter what the tweens love searching for all the times and seeing how fast they can find everything. Here’s a peek at what our Halloween house looks like this year:

 SCAVENGER HUNTS

Our tweens love scavenger hunts. They would do them all day if we had enough! We tie scavenger hunts into a lot of our programs because of their popularity. I’ve used them for our Hobbit Birthday celebration (find the hidden Hobbits around the library) or to kick off summer reading program (find the pyramids using various clues).

What I love about scavenger hunts is that it’s a tricky way to teach the tweens about the library. We recently made a scavenger hunt modeled after Upstart’s Duck Duck Dewey Game. We took pictures of each of the subject themed ducks and hide them on the shelf in each of the dewey locations. We then created a sheet that showed a variety of book covers they might find in each subject and the picture of the duck that matched with a short description about what that duck liked to read about. Tweens had to then write down what Dewey number they found the books. So many of our patrons commented that they loved this scavenger hunt because it helped them learn where to find books.

Passive programs work well for our tween audience and the tweens get really excited about discovering what’s new at the library. What are some of your favorite passive programs for tweens?

Are you interested in reading more tween-related posts?  The YALSA Blog and the ALSC Blog both offer information of interest to librarians who work with tweens. 

My library is full of Star Wars fans and we can’t keep anything to do with Star Wars on the shelf. The enduring popularity of the franchise, plus all the toy, movie, and book tie-ins, make it perfect for tween readers. The second annual Star Wars Reads is happening this year on October 5. Star Wars Reads is an initiative to bring together bookstores, libraries, publishers and readers to celebrate a love of reading through Star Wars. It’s the perfect time to reach out to those Star Wars fans at the library. Try giving your Star Wars fans some of these titles:

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger (and sequels)-Dwight is the strange kid in school and no one is sure what to think of the Origami Yoda he brings to school. This series now has four titles included and there’s even an origami companion, Art2-D2′s Guide to Folding and Doodling, if your fans want to give some Star Wars origami a try.

Star Wars: Jedi Academy by Jeffrey Brown-If you have comic book fans and readers who enjoy humor, this title is perfect. Imagine all the angst and confusion of middle school only set inside of a Jedi Academy where learning to use lightsabers and the Force are key classes.

LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles by Daniel Lipkowitz-LEGOs, Star Wars, and Yoda-what more could a tween ask for? The book includes photographs of LEGO Star Wars figures telling some of Yoda’s amazing adventures.

In case your Star Wars fans have already read everything Star Wars the library has, science fiction can be a great genre bridge to finding new books.

Starbounders by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson-A group of kids end up having to put their new training to work when their  space mission goes wrong and they are left in charge. Lots of action and adventure perfect for Star Wars fans.

The Planet Thieves by Dan Krokos-A group of cadets are stranded alone after an alien race attack and must defend their ship and learn how to survive. Maybe a bit more Star Trek than Star Wars, a good science fiction choice for middle grade readers.

Any other favorite Star Wars reads or science fiction for tween readers?

Are you interested in reading more tween-related posts?  The YALSA Blog and the ALSC Blog both offer information of interest to librarians who work with tweens.