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The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) encourages participants to sign up for Spring 2016 ALSC online courses. Registration is open for all courses. Classes begin Monday, April 4, 2016.

Two of the courses being offered this semester are eligible for continuing education units (CEUs). The American Library Association (ALA) has been certified to provide CEUs by the International Association of Continuing Education and Training (IACET). ALSC online courses are designed to fit the needs of working professionals. Courses are taught by experienced librarians and academics. As participants frequently noted in post-course surveys, ALSC stresses quality and caring in its online education options. For more information on ALSC online learning, please visit: www.ala.org/alsced

The Caldecott Medal: Understanding Distinguished Art in Picture Books
6 weeks, April 4 – May 13, 2016
Instructor: KT Horning, Director, Cooperative Children’s Book Center, University of Wisconsin- Madison

It’s Mutual: School and Public Library Collaboration
6 weeks, April 4 – May 13, 2016
Instructor: Rachel Reinwald, School Liaison and Youth Services Librarian, Lake Villa District Library

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Programs Made Easy
4 weeks, April 4 – 29, 2016, CEU Certified Course, 1.2 CEUs
Instructor: Angela Young, Head of Children’s Department, Reed Memorial Library

Storytelling with Puppets
4 weeks, September 14 – October 9, 2015, CEU Certified Course, 2.2 CEUs
Instructor: Steven Engelfried, Youth Services Librarian, Wilsonville Public Library

Detailed descriptions and registration information is available on the ALSC website. Fees are $115 for personal ALSC members; $165 for personal ALA members; and $185 for non-members. Questions? Please contact ALSC Program Officer for Continuing Education, Kristen Figliulo or 1 (800) 545-2433 ext 4026.

Images are courtesy of ALSC. 

The post Register for Spring 2016 ALSC Online Courses appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Use the resources on the Everyday Advocacy site to help make your voice heard! Photo courtesy of ALSC.

Thanks, in no small part, to all of your calls and emails, the House of Representatives passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which will reauthorize the ESEA if approved. As mentioned in his blog post about the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) last month, ALSC President Andrew Medlar gave us the heads-up that this second call to action would be critical to ensure that a reauthorization includes these hard-fought school library provisions.

Now is the time for the final push! The Senate is expected to vote early next week and it is critical that both of your US Senators hear from you. Ask them to, “vote YES on the ESSA Conference Report” and take a moment to let them know how librarians and school libraries positively impact children’s lives and communities.

Visit ALA’s Action Center to locate your Senators and stay up to date on this historic vote. While you’re at it, head over to ALSC’s Everyday Advocacy page to find out more ways to make your voice heard on issues that matter.

Matt McLain is the Co-chair of the ALSC Advocacy and Legislation Committee.

The post Time to Contact Your Senators #ESEA appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Start 2016 fresh with new skills and program ideas!

Registration for Winter 2016 ALSC online courses is now open. Classes begin Monday, January 4, 2016.

One of the courses being offered this semester are eligible for continuing education units (CEUs). The American Library Association (ALA) has been certified to provide CEUs by the International Association of Continuing Education and Training (IACET). ALSC online courses are designed to fit the needs of working professionals. Courses are taught by experienced librarians and academics. As participants frequently noted in post-course surveys, ALSC stresses quality and caring in its online education options.

It’s Mutual: School and Public Library Collaboration
6 weeks, January 4 – February 12, 2016
Instructor: Rachel Reinwald, School Liaison and Youth Services Librarian, Lake Villa District Library

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Programs Made Easy
4 weeks, January 4 – 29, 2016, CEU Certified Course, 1.2 CEUs
Instructor: Angela Young, Head of Children’s Department, Reed Memorial Library

The Sibert Medal: Evaluating Books of Information
6 weeks, January 4 – February 12, 2016
Instructor: Kathleen T. Horning, Director, Cooperative Children’s Book Center, University of Wisconsin- Madison

Detailed descriptions and registration information is available on the ALSC website at www.ala.org/alsced. Fees are $115 for personal ALSC members; $165 for personal ALA members; and $185 for non-members. Questions? Please contact ALSC Program Officer for Continuing Education, Kristen Figliulo, 1 (800) 545-2433 ext 4026.

Image courtesy of ALSC.

The post New Semester of ALSC Online Courses! appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Calling all Everyday Advocates! The fight for school libraries is real, and it needs you to make a difference.

Use the resources on the Everyday Advocacy site to help make your voice heard! Photo courtesy of ALSC.

Congress is poised to act definitively on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) very soon. According ALA’s Washington Office, we could know as early as next week if watershed language for school libraries, included in the Senate’s Every Child Achieves Act (S. 1177), makes it into this federal education bill.

This means there is important work for all of us to do! The last time Congress passed an education bill they left out school libraries and our kids’ futures can’t afford for that to happen again. As soon as the Washington Office learns what is in the new compromise bill language, they will be posting an alert to the Legislative Action Center with instructions for how you can help (including talking points you can use to call, email, and Tweet Congress). That will be our opportunity to make sure that every member of the House of Representatives (and after that, the Senate) hears from library experts before they vote, which could be as early as December 2. ALSC will also provide a heads-up when it’s time.

Here’s how you can make a difference:

• Be prepared to contact your Senators and Representatives and let them know that any agreement to reauthorize ESEA must maintain the school library provisions overwhelmingly adopted by the HELP Committee and the full Senate under S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act.
• Give a heads-up to coworkers, family, and friends to take action as well by contacting Congress sometime between next week and mid-December.
• Gather together stories about the impact of school libraries in your community which you can use when you and your supporters contact Congress.

For support in these vital efforts, check out the tips from ALSC’s Everyday Advocacy initiative at http://www.ala.org/everyday-advocacy/

The more voices that speak up on behalf of school libraries, the better for all kids! Please keep your eyes peeled and your ears open for the upcoming alert.

Thank you!

Andrew Medlar
ALSC President

The post Fight for School Libraries! #ESEA appeared first on ALSC Blog.

A brief look at 'grams of interest to engage teens and librarians navigating this social media platform.

The week of Sunday, October 18 through Saturday, October 24 marked YALSA's 2015 Teen Read Week. With a "Get Away @ your library" theme, libraries were encouraged to showcase resources and activities to the teen community and support reading for fun. This year's theme was selected to "help teens escape from the day to day grind of school, homework, family responsibilities, part time jobs and so on by picking up something to read." Started in 1998, Teen Read Week is held every October to encourage teen reading and library use.

From author visits and in-house or social media contests to book giveaways and food, libraries spotlighted a number of creative ways to bring teens into the library. Maintaining connections with current teen library users and reaching out to new, potential users through both physical and digital library channels is important in light of comparisons provided in The Future of Library Services for and with Teens report. Whereas youth participation in libraries was previously a formal library-driven activity to gain feedback on collections or space, the envisioned future of youth participation is much more flexible and informal, with all teens in both the physical and digital library space receiving an opportunity to develop, implement, and evaluate programs and services. Encouraging teens to engage in the library events such as Teen Read Week may be the perfect way to gain insight from those hard to reach teens!

Did you celebrate Teen Read Week at your library? We want to hear from you! Share with us in the comments section below.

For more information on Teen Read Week, please visit the Teen Read Week website.

More information on the envisioned future of youth participation in libraries, please see The Future of Library Services for and with Teens report.

[View the story "Instagram of the Week - October 26" on Storify]

Want to offer more hands-on learning opportunities for and with the teens in your community?  3D Systems Corp., in partnership with YALSA, is giving away up to 250 3D printers to members of YALSA.  Learn more and apply online by Oct. 30^th.  Are you not a YALSA/ALA member yet?  Membership starts at $60 per year.  Contact Letitia Smith at lsmith at ala dot org, or 312.280.4390, to get the best rate and to learn about paying in installments.  And don't forget to check out all of the great maker and connected learning resources on YALSA's wiki!

A brief look at 'grams of interest to engage teens and librarians navigating this social media platform.

As a school librarian, I cannot resist the opportunity to feature a "snapshot" of school libraries across the country in the midst of the opening weeks of the 2015/16 school year. I remain hopeful that this will be an exciting year for school libraries. This week's storify montage features makerspaces, exciting academic tech, and various types of literacies (research, reading, digital, media, etc.). Exploring what other school librarians are up to can help inform your own 2015/16 school year goals. Do you want to take your makerspace to the next level? Establish more collaborative relationships with teachers? Incorporate yourself into an oft elusive discipline? Up fiction reading? Amp up your book club? Revitalize research literacy instruction? Establish self-checkout? Create a lego wall?

Sometimes it's hard to see the opportunities available in the school library because of budget and staffing issues; however, I challenge all school librarians (including myself) to choose a small innovation that can be achieved regardless of available money, time, or man power. If you need ideas, check out some of these resources to get started: AASL Best Websites for Teaching and Learning and Maker Ed Tools & Materials. Please leave your ideas, goals, and questions in the comments. And of course, good luck this year!

Over the next several weeks, Congress is working on a new federal education bill. Now is the time to activate your library friends and supporters and get them to speak up for school libraries! The last education bill, No Child Left Behind, did not specifically include school libraries, and as a result students suffered because schools closed libraries, cut library budgets, or eliminated staff positions. Right now we have a window of opportunity to right that wrong and help America’s youth. Congress needs to hear from as many people as possible about the importance of school libraries in supporting youth success. Provided below are two ready-to-use messages you can share out with your library supporters. Please do so today!

SAMPLE EMAIL, NEWSLETTER ITEM OR FACEBOOK POST

Studies show that strong school libraries drive student achievement. They help young people succeed in school and prepare for college, careers and life. Congress is currently working on a new education bill that would provide federal funding for the nation’s schools. They need to hear from you that it’s vital to include school libraries in this new bill.  Your calls, emails and Tweets will be the evidence Congress needs to take action for America’s youth and ensure school libraries adequately funded in the ESEA reauthorization.

Here’s how you can ensure that happens:

1. Go here: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home
2. In the blue bar in the upper half of the page, choose how you want to contact your member of Congress: letter, Tweet, or phone call
3. Click on the option(s) you want, provide the required contact info, & submit.  The letter and Tweet are pre-written for you, so it’s super easy! (but you do have the option to customize them if you want)
4. Forward this message to library advocates in your community & encourage them to do take action, too
5. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!

For more information, read this blog post from ALA. Thank you for speaking up for youth and libraries!

SAMPLE TWEET

kids need #SchoolLibraries! ow.ly/Sf4lT -contact Congress 2 ask 4 support 4 school libs via this easy site ow.ly/S0kdw

Thank you,

Beth Yoke

Last week we called on library staff and advocates to contact Congress to support school libraries, and many of you responded (yay!)!  So far, there have been 2,971 emails, 446 Tweets and 39 phone calls.  That’s great, but with over 98,000 school libraries and 17,000 public libraries in the U.S. we can do better!  ALA staff are meeting with key Congressional staff later this week to ask for support for school libraries.  Right now we need one final push from library staff and advocates so that when ALA meets with Congressional staff your grassroots support will be the evidence Congress needs to take action for school libraries and ensure they’re adequately funded in the ESEA reauthorization.

Here’s how you can make sure that happens:

1. Go here: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home
2. In the blue bar in the upper half of the page, choose how you want to contact your members of Congress: letter, Tweet, or phone call
3. Click on the option(s) you want, provide the required contact info, & submit.  The letter and Tweet are pre-written for you, so it’s super easy! (but you do have the option to customize them if you want)
4. Forward this message to library advocates in your community & encourage them to do take action, too
5. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!

For more information, read this blog post from ALA.

Thank you,

Beth Yoke

The Senate is working on a new education bill (aka ESEA reauthorization) right now, and it’s vital that they include school libraries!  You can help ensure that happens:

1. Go to this web page
2. In the blue bar in the upper half of the page, choose how you want to contact your members of Congress: letter, Tweet, or phone call
3. Click on the option(s) you want, provide the required contact info, & submit.  The letter and Tweet are pre-written for you, so it’s super easy! (but you do have the option to customize them if you want)
4. Forward this message to library advocates in your community & encourage them to do take action, too
5. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!

For more information, read this blog post from ALA.  Thank you for supporting libraries!

-Beth Yoke

ALSC encourages participants to sign up for Fall 2015 ALSC online courses. Registration is open for all courses. Classes begin Monday, September 14, 2015.

One of the courses being offered this semester is eligible for continuing education units (CEUs). The American Library Association (ALA) has been certified to provide CEUs by the International Association of Continuing Education and Training (IACET). ALSC online courses are designed to fit the needs of working professionals. Courses are taught by experienced librarians and academics. As participants frequently noted in post-course surveys, ALSC stresses quality and caring in its online education options. For more information on ALSC online learning, please visit: www.ala.org/alsced

It’s Mutual: School and Public Library Collaboration
6 weeks, September 14 –October 23, 2015
Instructor: Rachel Reinwald, School Liaison/Youth Services Librarian, Lake Villa District Library

Storytelling with Puppets
4 weeks, September 14 – October 9, 2015, CEU Certified Course, 2.2 CEUs
Instructor: Steven Engelfried, Youth Services Librarian, Wilsonville Public Library

The Newbery Medal: Past, Present and Future
6 weeks, September 14 – October 23, 2015
Instructor: KT Horning, Director, Cooperative Children’s Book Center, University of Wisconsin- Madison

Detailed descriptions and registration information is available on the ALSC website at www.ala.org/alsced. Fees are $115 for personal ALSC members; $165 for personal ALA members; and $185 for non-members. Questions? Please contact ALSC Program Officer for Continuing Education, Kristen Sutherland at [email protected] or 1 (800) 545-2433 ext 4026.

The post ALSC Online Courses – Fall 2015 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Recently I attended a meet-and-greet at one of our local public libraries. This library is located near one of our elementary schools. Along with my fellow district librarians, I’d been invited to the event as a kickoff to the new school year.

Although it was – and still is – a busy time for school librarians (book displays, helping teachers, moving shelves, getting virtual and physical spaces ready), I thought it was important to attend. Indeed, I was so very glad (and honored) that I did!

Along with the pastries (my favorite was the blueberry coffee cake) and coffee, there were enthusiastic introductions and reconnections. We met staff members, heard about recent summer programming, and upcoming kidlit author visits. (I’ve already put them on my calendar.) I was given an “I Love My Library” button. I think I’ll wear it every day!

(Image courtesy of the author)

A tour of the library’s children’s and teen areas came next.  I was pleased to hear so many great conversations coming from the shelves. There were talks about seasonal displays, Caldecott books, and genres. Also, I heard lots of “oohs” and “aahs” over tech gadgets, media spaces, and reading areas. Eager questions were followed by friendly answers, and ideas began brewing.  Also, there was laughter!

In the middle of the visit, while we were all discussing our love of reading, and books that were important to us as children, I realized some things I’d always known, but just never articulated. (1) When librarians connect, all patrons benefit. I know we walked away with many ideas, and I hope it was reciprocal! (2) We each serve our patrons (students) in many of the same ways, and each way matters.

Heading back to my own library to continue in beginning-of-the-year prep, I know I enjoyed this time very much because it connected me to librarianship again in a very lovely way.

I’m grateful to the Irving Public Library for the hospitality, and I hope we can one day return the favor. I also hope that we can connect more often. Blueberry coffee cake really isn’t required (although it would be nice).

Cynthia Alaniz is a school librarian at Cottonwood Creek Elementary in Coppell, Texas. She is a member of the ALSC Liaison with National Organizations Committee and a 2014 Morris Seminar participant.

The post Back to School Connections appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Every library worker has gotten that request for a strange, old book which is still somehow required at some school somewhere. Betsy Bird did a terrific take-down of those outdated list earlier this summer, and an attempt to "update" the choices for teen appeal backfired in South Carolina and Florida.

Yes, assigned whole-class summer reading can be problematic. The number of titles (and the page lengths) required seems to have dwindled over decades, and other supposed innovations including "read any one book from the New York Times bestseller list" has led to a scramble for the shortest books.

Image Source

Instead we should concentrate on promoting free voluntary reading. NYPL has rejiggered the reading portion of their summer learning program to focus on time spent reading rather than particular titles, and researchers at the University of Rochester have demonstrated that elementary school students who select the books they want to read over the summer have significantly improvements in reading ability.

When I spent a week at a teacher workshop this summer, it struck me that many schools have already given up on assigning summer reading. From Massachusetts to Missouri, teachers weren't even suggesting students should be reading particular texts in preparation for a new school year. Transience and not being able to supply books for students were cited as two barriers, but other teachers just realized the reading wasn't getting done.

"It sets the wrong tone," said Melissa Pouridas, English teacher at Albert Einstein High School in Kensington, Maryland. Students don't even pretend to have done the summer reading and start the term with a bad grade, or else they cram just enough from Sparknotes to get by, which suggests that the class won't require real effort.

Instead, Pouridas suggested that there be "first week of school reading." In the flux of schedule changes, students can take a deep dive, together, into a text and establish a more rigorous reading pace for the school year.

It's got to be better than finding Cliff Notes for Brave New World up on all the library computers, or that junior asking you to tell them the plot of Huckleberry Finn, both of which have been part of my back-to-school realities...

For years and years and years (I've worked in libraries for a long-time) I've talked about and heard about the importance of school and public library collaboration. And, over the years, I've talked about and heard about how hard it is to be successful in this area. It actually seems to me that the challenges and barriers that I've been talking about and hearing about for a couple of decades haven't really changed. And, they certainly haven't gone away.

The fact that conversations remain the same over a long period of time, got me thinking - Maybe we are going about this the wrong way. Maybe, instead of the focus being on what we regularly call school and public library collaboration (the thing we do), what we really need to focus on is what is required in order to have positive lasting outcomes/impacts for students and teachers (what we want to achieve). This was brought home to me this week when I read the post Building Relationships Through the Use of Technology by George Couros. The ideas embedded in the image he included in that post (shown on the left) really resonated with me.

What if as the new school year starts you didn't talk about or focus on the act of collaborating with your school or public library, but instead talked about and worked towards answering the question, What should the outcome of public library school library collaboration be for students, teachers, parents, and school staff? What would be different and would you be more successful by the end of the school year? Taking the Couros post image as a model would you go from "Good Answers" like:

• Making sure that library staff know about assignments
• Being able to teach school staff (teachers and administrators) about library resources
• Making sure to purchase materials that support teacher/student needs
• Being able to add website links that support teacher/student needs
• Having the chance to work on lessons with teachers

To Better Answers like:

• Build relationships for long-lasting success within the public/school library community
• Change cultures
• Learn from each other - students, teachers, parents, administrators and other school and public library staff
• Develop outcomes and stories that can be used in advocacy efforts
• Drive change
• Lead
• Support learning of students no matter what.

Of course, as with many things in life, this is often easier said than done. But, it's doable, I'm certain. For example, this year instead of going into classrooms or talking with your counterpart colleagues about the resources you have for students and teachers, what if you had conversations that focused on what teachers, students, administrators, staff are:

• Working on
• What are they successful in/at
• What they are finding difficult to accomplish
• What would they like to be able to do more easily
• What would they like to change

Would that lead to stronger relationships with everyone and as a result a better chance to bring about positive outcomes? As you think about the outcomes and the conversations you can have with your library counterpart and school personnel and parents and students remember, the outcomes are what the students, teachers, staff, and parents gain. While through these gains library staff might find that their resources and expertise and time are used successfully - the focus of the outcomes you work towards in this area should be about the people you serve, not about you and your library. The outcome is in what changes in the academic and formal and informal learning lives of those you work with.  For more information and resources about outcomes, visit YALSA's wiki.

I don't think the idea of collaboration is a bad thing. But, I do think that we spend a lot of time talking about the thing - collaboration - and not what the impact of the work needs to be for students and teachers and families. Change the conversation, listen to those you want to serve before you tell them what you can do for them, build relationships, focus on the goal for the user, and see what happens.

Which young people in your community could be most positively impacted by services that your institution currently provides or could provide?

Are there foster youth, homeless teens, teen parents, teens from military families, incarcerated youth, disabled teens, LGBTQ teens, immigrant teens, teen English Language Learners, or teens from various cultural, ethnic, racial or socioeconomic backgrounds in your communities who could really use the library’s help to succeed?

What would that assistance or those services look like?

My YALSA presidential initiative, “3-2-1 IMPACT! Inclusive and Impactful Teen Library Services,”
focuses on building the capacity of libraries to plan, deliver and evaluate programs and services for and with underserved teen populations. It is a call to action to all of our members to take a close look at our communities, identify service gaps and address needs by using or contributing to YALSA resources like the Future of Library Services for and with Teens report, Teen Programming Guidelines, our new Teen Programming HQ and more.

Visit YALSA's wiki to find and share information about serving diverse teens and building cultural competence. For a list of selected resources relating to building inclusive services for and with teens, check out this flyer (.pdf).

Other activities that we hope to work on this year include collecting stories from members who are reaching out to underserved teen populations and sharing best practices and/or advocacy messages, creating spaces or pathways for members who are focusing on the same teen population to connect with one another, providing continuing education to help members reach out to specific populations and also gain leadership and cultural competence skills/knowledge, and compile existing and/or create new resources to help members serve various underserved teen populations.

As YALSA President, I’m excited about harnessing the passion, energy and activism among all of our members to help create positive, inclusive, impactful change for and with the teens that we serve in our communities. I’m looking forward to working with all of you and to the amazing work that we are all going to do together this year.

While most comics fans are familiar with Will Eisner and his many contributions to comics, most are not aware that he also created a charitable foundation. The Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation “fosters innovation and creativity in graphic literature, sequential art and comics.” One of their more visible projects is an annual grant given to two libraries: The Will Eisner Graphic Novel Growth Grant for libraries seeking to expand their graphic novel collections and community outreach, and the Will Eisner Graphic Novel Innovation Grant for libraries seeking to add graphic novels to their collections.

Yesterday, the 2015 grant award winners were announced, in anticipation of the annual American Library Association conference taking place this week and next in San Francisco.

The winners, from more than 150 applicants:

The 2015 Will Eisner Graphic Novel Growth Grant is awarded to Yuma High School Library, Yuma, Arizona. Its current graphic novel selection is only 2.69 percent of its collection, and yet accounts for 31.76 percent of its circulation, thus the library’s project –  “Improving Literacy and Enriching Lives”  – will expand its graphic novel collection to better serve the school’s diverse student body, which includes students from low-income households and students who are English language learners.

[Wow. What an awesome school history, and mascot!]

The 2015 Will Eisner Graphic Novel Innovation Grant was presented to Bellmore Memorial Library, Bellmore, New York, for its project “Picture Yourself: Using Graphic Novels to Explore the People and Perceptions of Bellmore.” The project aims to connect the library with a diverse local audience and document life in the town through book clubs, graphic novel workshops and the opportunity for patrons to write and illustrate their own story of their Bellmore.

[Bellmore is noted for a Supreme Court obscenity ruling, allowing that material not classified as “obscene” to adults might be restricted for sales to minors if the material were deemed harmful. Here is the Court’s ruling.]

Each award winner receives a $2,000 voucher to purchase graphic novels from Diamond Book Distributors (the library/book trade cousin of Diamond Comics), $1,000 to host a graphic novel-themed event, and a $1,000 stipend to attend the 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. Additionally the winners will receive the Will Eisner Library (a graphic novel collection of Will Eisner’s work and biographies about acclaimed writer and artist) and copies of the graphic novels nominated for this year’s Will Eisner Awards at San Diego Comic-Con.

The winners will be formally announced on Saturday, June 27th, at 2:00 PM on the Graphic Novel Stage in the exhibits hall.

Title: PhotoMath
Platform: iOS and Android
Cost: Free

From WordLens (now part of Google Translate) to Invisibility 3D, apps which use the camera as an input tool to harness machine intelligence always interest me. When one such app, PhotoMath hit the top of the download charts last year, there was some minor outcry among educators. Would students use the app to cheat? But while the PhotoMath app reads and solves mathematical problems by using the camera of your phone and tablet in real time, it is far from the scourge of math teachers. Like Wolfram Alpha, it is a nice tool to have on hand when you can't remember enough math to help students with their work.

Within the app with an active camera, you can manipulate the size of the datawell to pick up the whole of more complicated questions, and the app solves advanced math problems including quadratic equations and inequalities. The app goes beyond solutions, anticipating the admonition to "show your work." A red button opens the step-by-step process for doing just that.

You can flag incorrect answers, and updates build upon the errata to produce a more robust tool.

The app has its limitations. It can only scan printed text, so it won't work on a teacher's handwritten equations. And, given the push towards more constructivist assignments and the intuitive mathematical understanding embodied by the Common Core, I don't see it as a tool for cheating beyond the solutions which math textbooks have been including for decades. Y

Have a suggestion for a featured App of the Week? Let us know. And don't forget to check out more great apps in our archive.

A short list of tweets from the past week of interest to teens and the library staff that work with them.

Do you have a favorite Tweet from the past week? If so add it in the comments for this post. Or, if you read a Twitter post between May 1 and 7 that you think is a must for the next Tweets of the Week send a direct or @ message to lbraun2000 on Twitter.

A brief look at 'grams of interest to engage teens and librarians navigating this social media platform.

What have you made with your library?

This year's National Library Week campaign focuses on the library as a place of creativity, creation and community engagement. All week, librarians and library users are posting what is #librarymade on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Unsurprisingly, many libraries are using this year's theme as an opportunity to encourage the creation, not just reading, of poetry during National Poetry Month. Teen services are a natural treasure trove of unlimited #librarymade action. Whether you have a 3D printer and circuits projects, book clubs, button-making workshops...anything!, your teen services are absolutely #librarymade.

How have you taken advantage of National Library Week? Are you incorporating the #librarymade theme into your National Poetry Month activities? In what ways could the vision of #librarymade change, improve or revitalize long-running teen services programs? Please share in the comments below!

The Teen Programming Guidelines discuss the physical spaces of hosting teen programs in their eighth guideline.  When YALSA released its Teen Space Guidelines in May 2012, I dove into the wealth of information that the guidelines provided.  My school was in a transition period where we gained an additional media center space that needed to be completely renovated.  Our original media center also needed some updating, so the Teen Space Guidelines was the perfect tool for me to use in approaching our spaces.

The first teen space guideline states, "Solicit teen feedback and input in the design and creation of the teen space." Librarians and media specialists should always take into consideration the community they serve.  I needed feedback on what our students wanted to see in our original space.  A simple Survey Monkey survey was all it took to gain valuable insight into layout, furniture, needs, and wants for our high school students.  With their advice, we were able to rearrange furnishings and incorporate a few new pieces to freshen up our original media center.  Students also suggested that we move our manga section closer to the circulation desk.  Manga books are cataloged in the 740s in the nonfiction collection.  In our media center, this happened to put them in a far corner of our space and hard to see from the circulation desk.  Not only are these super popular books that are checked out frequently, but they became hot commodities that were frequently stolen.  (We do not have a book security system.)  After moving these books closer to the circulation desk, students have easier access to them, and we do not lose near as many to theft.  This also allowed us to promote the books more easily, which is also one of the guidelines in Teen Space Guidelines.  Teen feedback can never be underestimated.

In renovating our newly acquired media space, the main goal was to create a comprehensive digital lab that allowed us to add tools to "link" education with technology in a more efficient manner.  Thus our school's LiNK was created.  "Provide furniture and technology that is practical yet adaptive" is another guideline for teen spaces.  In creating the LiNK, I knew we needed mobile furniture that would allow students and teachers to work as individuals, small groups, and entire classes.  Teen Space Guidelines also states that teen spaces should "be technology rich and include both stationary and portable technology."  We are able to do that by having 21 Windows desktop computers available, as well as 35 Chromebooks, and 30 iPads.  Students have many technology options for researching and creating. Here is what we were able to accomplish as we took into consideration the Teen Space Guidelines:

Panorama of LiNK from entrance - couch pieces are sectional and movable

Panorama of LiNK from back

Desktop computer area; student artwork on walls

Collaborative table near dry erase boards that we made with plexiglass and paint

Teacher using interactive flat panel for demonstration to class

Teacher assisting group in another collaborative area.
Students LOVE the sofas with tablet arms, and they are on wheels to easily move around.

The Teen Space Guidelines are essential to librarians as they consider their library's physical space. Teens need spaces that allow them to grow intellectually and socially, and these guidelines will ensure that our libraries are able to meet their needs.

"Mrs. Thompson, why we only got two Bluford High books?"  "We need more manga."  "I like that Sharon Draper lady.  We got anymore of her books?"  These were just a few of the questions and statements directed at me about our high school media center's collection when I became a media specialist.  Through day-to-day direct observation and through results of a student survey, I quickly realized areas of our collection that were being underserved - manga and urban fiction.  There were groups of students who were all clamoring for the same few titles that we had of a certain genre or series and our "hold lists" were growing longer by the day.

Several reasons may attribute to underserved groups in a library program.  Community dynamics change.  Our small suburban school system has seen tremendous growth in the 18 years that I have been here - 400% growth.  That translates into a graduating class of 78 in 1998 to a graduating class of 478 in 2015.  In the same time period, our minority population grew from 5% to 30%.  Our media center's collection does not reflect this growth.  Another reason for underserved groups is the rapid growth in new styles of writing, like manga.  It can be difficult to know whether new styles of writing are going to be accepted by your patrons, and we hate to waste money on books that are just going to sit on the shelves.  We started out with three different manga series to test the waters.  The popularity of these titles exploded!  They rarely made it back onto the shelves as students would grab them from the "re-shelf" cart as soon as they were checked in.  They also became our most stolen titles!  (We do not currently have a book security system.)  There were titles that our students desperately wanted to read, so why wouldn't I listen to them to continue to foster their love of reading.

As a reader, I cannot stand to read things in a series out of order.  Many of my students are the same way.  Why did we only have some of the Bluford High series?  Why were #1, 4, 6-8 of Full Metal Alchemist missing?  Our database showed that we had owned, at one point, #1-15 of the manga series BlackCat, but several of the titles were now marked "Lost".  I set filling in the gaps of the asked about series as my first goal in strengthening our collection for our underserved patrons.  In the urban fiction section, we went from two Sharon Draper titles to all 10 of her young adult titles.  We were also able to fill in the missing Bluford High titles, which serve our urban fiction fans as well as our Hi/Lo students.  For the manga patrons, we filled in all of the holes in the series we already had and aimed to include four new series a year.

Another strategy for building our collection for these underserved populations was to get input from the students.  In adding more manga, we allowed the students who were most interested in these series to help us with the selection of new titles.  They perused catalogs and looked online for reviews and suitable content (as some manga is aimed at a more adult audience). My African-American girls, who were devouring the urban fiction, asked about adding the Drama High series.  They loved looking for new authors to tell me about as well.  With the addition of the new titles, plus the marketing of the items through displays, our circulation increased 67% in one year!  Allowing students to assist in making our collection stronger for them gave them a sense of ownership and pride in our media program.

YALSA's Teen Programming Guidelines states that librarians should "create programming that reflects the needs and identities of all teens in the community."  Many media centers and libraries run into the problem of having an underserved population, and it is the duty of the librarian to recognize the needs of all patrons and work to strengthen the weak areas.  Investigate your collection for missing titles and allow your teens input.  These practices can go a long way in reflecting the needs of the communities we serve.

April is School Library Month! Here are some easy strategies for public librarians seeking to build productive partnerships with their school colleagues.

Get in touch with your local school librarians! Sometimes, this can be the most difficult aspect of cross-agency collaboration. I’ve noticed that, especially with regard to youth services librarians in larger, more bureaucratic public library systems, outreach specialists may try to follow a chain of command, asking for the building principal or even the superintendent for access to the school librarians. In many cases, those administrators may either not realize that the public library wants to help, rather than place demands, on school staff, and they often have a lot on their plate anyway. Reaching out to school librarians directly can be more effective, or better yet, ask a school librarian you have worked with in the past to connect you.

Give local school librarians and teachers some extra privileges. One easy way to support the educators in your community: create a special patron class in your automation system, with an increased checkout limit. Nashville Public Libraries are on the cutting edge of this, with their Limitless Libraries program. They even have the high school and middle school libraries as routing stops! If your library doesn’t allow holds against on-shelf materials, you might consider a different policy for teachers. No teacher or school librarian wants to swing by the public library at the end of the day to find the audio version of Fahrenheit 451 has been nabbed since they looked it up in the OPAC that morning.

Extend checkouts or waive fines for teachers or librarians who checkout materials for others. It can be difficult for school librarians to get materials they checked out back from others, especially when they are being used instructionally. When I go to the public library to fulfill a teacher or student’s request, and then get tagged with punitive fines, it can be quite discouraging. Once, I paid enough overdue fines (out of my own pocket) on a VHS copy of the Audie Murphy’s World War II biopic To Hell and Back to buy multiples for my own collection.

Create a school librarian and teacher-focused version of your newsletter, paying special attention to highlight the events and additions to your collections with instructional application.

Involve school librarians in your applications for grant projects. This will strengthen your case for funding, and give the school librarians some ownership in what is going on in your building, too.

Acknowledge school librarian realities. Get school librarians in the field to come to your in-services or staff days to share their concerns. It might be supporting common core, it might be teaching social studies and science concepts left out of the standardized-testing intensive curriculum, it might be in-depth reference support and ILL for projects like National History Day or senior capstone projects. Lead times in schools are often more abbreviated than in public library settings, and there can be a domino effect when a teacher springs a last-minute project tying in to holidays or events. When a teacher comes in looking for The Lorax the day before Earth Day, don't laugh -- have some other suggestions, both print and digital, handy.

Wendy Stephens is a member of the AASL/ALSC/YALSA Interdivisional School-Public Library Cooperation Committee.

"Mrs. Thompson, why we only got two Bluford High books?"  "We need more manga."  "I like that Sharon Draper lady.  We got anymore of her books?"  These were just a few of the questions and statements directed at me about our high school media center's collection when I became a media specialist.  Through day-to-day direct observation and through results of a student survey, I quickly realized areas of our collection that were being underserved - manga and urban fiction.  There were groups of students who were all clamoring for the same few titles that we had of a certain genre or series and our "hold lists" were growing longer by the day.

Several reasons may attribute to underserved groups in a library program.  Community dynamics change.  Our small suburban school system has seen tremendous growth in the 18 years that I have been here - 400% growth.  That translates into a graduating class of 78 in 1998 to a graduating class of 478 in 2015.  In the same time period, our minority population grew from 5% to 30%.  Our media center's collection does not reflect this growth.  Another reason for underserved groups is the rapid growth in new styles of writing, like manga.  It can be difficult to know whether new styles of writing are going to be accepted by your patrons, and we hate to waste money on books that are just going to sit on the shelves.  We started out with three different manga series to test the waters.  The popularity of these titles exploded!  They rarely made it back onto the shelves as students would grab them from the "re-shelf" cart as soon as they were checked in.  They also became our most stolen titles!  (We do not currently have a book security system.)  There were titles that our students desperately wanted to read, so why wouldn't I listen to them to continue to foster their love of reading.

As a reader, I cannot stand to read things in a series out of order.  Many of my students are the same way.  Why did we only have some of the Bluford High series?  Why were #1, 4, 6-8 of Full Metal Alchemist missing?  Our database showed that we had owned, at one point, #1-15 of the manga series BlackCat, but several of the titles were now marked "Lost".  I set filling in the gaps of the asked about series as my first goal in strengthening our collection for our underserved patrons.  In the urban fiction section, we went from two Sharon Draper titles to all 10 of her young adult titles.  We were also able to fill in the missing Bluford High titles, which serve our urban fiction fans as well as our Hi/Lo students.  For the manga patrons, we filled in all of the holes in the series we already had and aimed to include four new series a year.

Another strategy for building our collection for these underserved populations was to get input from the students.  In adding more manga, we allowed the students who were most interested in these series to help us with the selection of new titles.  They perused catalogs and looked online for reviews and suitable content (as some manga is aimed at a more adult audience). My African-American girls, who were devouring the urban fiction, asked about adding the Drama High series.  They loved looking for new authors to tell me about as well.  With the addition of the new titles, plus the marketing of the items through displays, our circulation increased 67% in one year!  Allowing students to assist in making our collection stronger for them gave them a sense of ownership and pride in our media program.

YALSA's Teen Programming Guidelines states that librarians should "create programming that reflects the needs and identities of all teens in the community."  Many media centers and libraries run into the problem of having an underserved population, and it is the duty of the librarian to recognize the needs of all patrons and work to strengthen the weak areas.  Investigate your collection for missing titles and allow your teens input.  These practices can go a long way in reflecting the needs of the communities we serve.

A brief look at 'grams of interest to engage teens and librarians navigating this social media platform.

It's that time of year when public, school, and academic libraries start to feel the madness -- the book madness, that is!  To coincide with the March Madness basketball tournament, many libraries are hosting their own tournament with brackets of books. Frequently called Literary March Madness or Book Madness, librarians pit books against one another and ask library users to vote for their favorite titles. The sky is the limit when it comes to organizing brackets as the examples below spotlight different genres or categories (teen books vs. banned books, humor vs. local writers), sports books in general, staff picks, or pit popular characters against each other. When it comes to the voting process, there is also a bit of variation with some libraries opting for traditional handwritten bracket sheets and others heading online via social media, Google forms, or Survey Monkey.

Is you library participating in the big book dance and hosting a literary tournament? We want to hear from you! How do you go about choosing which books to include? Do you set up the pairings yourself or are you a fan of an online bracket generator?  Which method of submitting votes have you found works best for your teens? Do you change your categories from year to year to keep it interesting?

Have you come across a related Instagram post this week, or has your library posted something similar? Have a topic you'd like to see in the next installment of Instagram of the Week? Share it in the comments section of this post.

Please email or phone your members of Congress and ask them to sign the "Dear Appropriator letter supporting library funding via these two programs: LSTA (Library Services Technology Act) and IAL (Innovative Approaches to Literacy)."  Then, ask all other library supporters you know to do the same by no later than March 20^th.  Contact information for Congress members is here: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home (just put in your zip code in the box on the lower right side).

To see whether your Members of Congress signed these letters last year, view the FY 2015 Funding Letter Signees document (pdf). If so, please be sure to thank and remind them of that when you email or call!  More information can be found on ALA's blog, District Dispatch.  For more information about LSTA, check out this document LSTA Background and Ask (pdf).  For more information on IAL, view School Libraries Brief (pdf)

Thank you for taking this step to ensure that our nation's teens continue to have access to library staff and services that will help them succeed in school and prepare for college and careers!

-Beth Yoke