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Are digital technologies the best thing ever or the root of all evil?

Correct answer: neither.

I recently attended a day long seminar where David & Erin Walsh argued that digital technologies are not inherently good or bad, they are powerful.

As youth workers we need to learn how to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm of these powerful tools. So let’s take a few minutes to review the rewards & the risks.

Digital technologies can provide these rewards:

• Extending real world relationships
• Providing the tools to delve deep into interest areas
• Providing opportunities to become politically involved
• Building connections
• Sharing information with the world

Digital technologies can present these risks:

• Bullying (the kind that doesn’t stop when a kid leaves school for the day)
• Losing privacy
• Developing attention issues (The Reactive Attention System is a survival instinct – we are programmed to focus on things that move and things that are emotionally stimulating. Focused Attention, the kind that you need to read, must be developed through practice.)
• Being chronically distracted (FYI – multi-tasking is not possible, our brains are not built to do more than one thing. We can hold 7 chunks of information in our working memory for 10 seconds. If we try to do too many things at once we are taking up all of those 7 slots and only paying partial attention to each thing. To think deeply we have to use those 7 slots in working memory to combine information from the environment with information from long term memory.)
• Becoming addicted (think lab rats)
• The double digital divide (There is the regular digital divide where some kids don’t have as much access as others and now there is the new digital divide. Some kids just use digital technologies to hang out and pal around and other kids use these media to aid their success. Librarians take note: adults are the #1 influence to move kids from hanging out to learning and growing.)

As we guide kids towards responsible digital citizenship we need to encourage them to:

• Protect privacy (everyone’s)
• Think before they post (here is a nice commercial on the topic)
• Share their creativity
• Be good to others
• Create a positive community online
• Be a role model
• Speak up and protect others

You can find digital citizenship curriculum materials at Common Sense Media and you can find tips, tools and conversation starters at DrDaveWalsh.

If you have an opportunity to hear David & Erin Walsh speak, please take it. They are dynamic and fascinating presenters.

Banned Books Week (September 26 to October 1) is coming up! This is the perfect time to remind your community of your role as an Intellectual Freedom Fighter. To help you get ready there is a bunch of information on the Banned Books Week Website including instructions for participating in the  Virtual Read-Out.

I love reading the reasons the classics were banned and I use the yearly challenged book round up as a reading list. Looks like I have a lot of great books to catch up on.

Speaking of fantastic banned/challenged books,  my current favorite is Maurice Sendak’s In The Night Kitchen. I love to read this aloud to my 2-year-old who thinks that Mickey is the funniest kid in the world. Just think, without librarians like you protecting his right to read, he wouldn’t even know who Mickey is. What is YOUR favorite banned/challenged book?

Every Child Ready to Read second edition shipped last week and here it is, on my messy desk! I haven’t read it cover to cover yet (I had to share with my staff right away), but I did read enough to fall in love.

Now the six skills are great and they transformed the way I spoke to parents and the way I presented storytimes, but when pressed I could only ever come up with five skills…thankfully there was always a poster or a handout nearby that I could refer to when I got stuck. And the six skills haven’t gone anywhere, they are just backstage.

What I love about ECRRII:

• The simplified language – and only five practices to remember – five is my limit
• Constrained and unconstrained skills – I am still learning new vocabulary!
• The Learning Spaces presentation – what a wonderful way to convince funders that these spaces are important.
• Focus on community partnerships – libraries can’t do it alone, but we need to be viewed as key players in early literacy education!

Two short sentences stood out for me more than anything else: “Consistently communicate messages about the importance of developing early literacy skills in children from birth to age five. Repeat messages at regular intervals for the greatest impact.” (p.11)

Librarians need to live and breathe early literacy. We need to tell every parent (at the reference desk, in storytime, out in the community and in workshops): play, sing, read, write & talk with your child! It is a recipe for success!

I picked up an ARC at ALA and I read it as fast as I could. Yes, it was that good and the plane trip home was easy because of it. You should read it. It is called The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler and it will be out in November 2011. The basics: It is 1996 (think: before the internets were available everywhere) and Emma and Josh through a time travel computer glitch gain access to the Facebook accounts of their future selves. The teens both purposefully and accidentally alter their futures, learn a lot about who they are and what they want and they find a little romance. It is a good solid book for the twelve and up crowd.

But.

You had to know the “but” was coming.

But.

Chapter 24 set off my Intellectual Freedom Alarm. And it was loud.

In Chapter 24 Josh arrives at the public library too late to catch Emma, but he does catch the librarian who helped her. This kind gentleman behind the reference desk is only too happy to tell Josh all about what Emma was looking for – including handing him the book that Emma used. It gets better – the librarian leads Josh to the copy machine Emma used, where Josh finds a bad copy of the exact page she was after.

So what is the big deal? What got me so excited? No one in the book thought this was wrong.

This is a big blow to YOUR image.  Well, mine too! People don’t know all that we do to protect their privacy and this only makes it look like we’ll tell the world what they read. This says to kids: Don’t pick up THAT book or the librarian will be on the phone to your parents telling them all about what you are reading. Egads, it gives me shivers.

What can librarians do? Fight back. Be the Intellectual Freedom Fighter that you are and do everything you can to combat negative images of librarians. Keep fresh batteries in your Intellectual Freedom Alarm. Address intellectual freedom with the kids and teens that you serve. Let them know that you will protect their privacy and their right to read whatever they want. Fight the good fight.

Saturday night was a busy night at #ala11. At the third event I attended I met Tomie DePaola, Sarah Dessen, Ingrid Law, Paul Volponi, Brenna Yovanoff, Franny Billingsley and Richard Peck. And I picked up some new books that you might want to know about:

• The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler (November 2011) This is the one I am reading first. It is about a couple of teens in 1996 who find themselves on Facebook 15 years in the future – interesting, huh?
• Secrets of the Sea by Richard Peck (October 2011) Includes: action, adventure and stow-away mice. All of the good stuff.
• The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson (October 2011) Historical fiction set in London of 1888 – the time of Jack the Ripper – it is giving me chills already.
• The Space Between by Brenna Yovanoff (November 2011) Set in a city in Hell – talk about fascinating.
• Crossing Lines by Paul Volponi (available now) Alan (the new kid in school who wears lipstick and would like to be called Alana)  vs. the football team – I just read the first page and I can’t wait to get to the rest of it.
• What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen (available now) A teenage girl on a quest to find herself after surviving family troubles and several moves. This one will  be hard to put down.
• Chime by Franny Billingsley (available now) SIX stars!! What can I say? I think we all need to read it. Now.
• Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise by Tomie DePaola (available now) Check out the website for a taste of the beauty.

I wish that I had time to read all of these books right now and review them for you, but honestly it seems like they are all going to be wonderful. I am kind of excited about my flight tomorrow – lots of time to read.

I took too many photos to share here, but I have to show you Richard Peck’s shoes. Not only is he an outstanding author and charming person, but he also has an impeccable sense of style:

ALA has a new promotion that you need to know about: Connect With Your Kids @ your library. I spoke with Megan Humphrey, Manager of Campaign for America’s Libraries about it this afternoon. She provided me with gorgeous bookmarks and pamphlets to hand out to parents in my community. All of the information that you need to promote this campaign is downloadable from the website. The idea behind the promotion: let parents know that the library is the perfect place to bring their kids. How awesome is that? Check out the website and provide a link to it from your library’s page. The content is going to continue to grow, so check back often.

The poopiest place to be at #ALA11 tonight was the Super Diaper Baby 2 party. Here are some highlights:Tinkle tinis and hot dogs were served. Yes, tinkle tinis – get it?The super awesome and talented Dav Pilkey signed copies of Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers and let us take them home with us even though the book hasn’t been released yet! He also showed us a moving video about his inspiration for the book – it will be available on his website in a week or so, take a few minutes to watch it, it will squeeze a few tears out of you.There were plenty of red cape wearing librarians in attendance.And we all got to be the star on a book cover. Thanks Dav Pilkey for the pottyful new book and thanks Scholastic for the red cape event of the season!

What do chocolate, a naughty red cat, radishes, amazing librarians and flotsam & jetsam have in common? They were each well represented at the dessert party thrown by MacMillan Children’s Publishing Group last night.

I spoke with the adorable Jack Gantos about his new book Dead End in Norvelt. It sounds brilliant and it probably is, considering the author. I don’t want to go off on a tangent here, but isn’t Hole In My Life one of the best books you’ve read ever? Seriously, like EVER?? (I also heard last night that Jack does a fantastic reading of his new book on audio – check it out!)

I chatted with the gifted naturalist April Pulley Sayre about birds and other things we both adore. April has some wonderful new books out this year: If You’re Hoppy (which is getting all kinds of well-deserved attention) and Rah, Rah, Radishes! A Vegetable Chant. Radishes! is a lovely book, illustrated with photos taken by April at her local farmer’s market: support your local farmers, eat lots of veggies and read this freshly grown book!

I also had the chance to meet Loree Griffin Burns, the talent behind the award winning Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam and the Science of Ocean Motion (which is now in it’s fifth printing) and last year’s fabulous The Hive Detectives:Chronicle of a Honeybee Catastrophe. Loree is delightful! She talked a little about the work she does at school visits; contact her if you are looking for a dynamic author to invite to your community.

I also met some amazing librarians. Librarians who are out there working every day to connect these authors and their books with the kids who need to read them. The kids who may not be able to identify asparagus, who may not understand why honeybees are so important, or who may need to read about a kid who kinda sounds a little familiar. Thanks authors, editors, publishers and librarians for all of the wonderful things you do! (Shout out to the awesome Karen MacPherson woot-woot!)

Oh, I forgot to mention the chocolate – it was delish.

You might feel like you have plenty to do already and the idea of adding one more thing to your list is ridiculous, but bear with me for a minute here. This simple task could save you hours and hours and hours of time. Seriously.

A work journal is basically a “to-do” list with all the items crossed off (you know how awesome – and rare – that is). It is an account of your accomplishments, successes, failures, projects, programs, committee work, training sessions and anything else that you can think of. This valuable document will help you when it is time for your annual performance review, when you need to write a bio (and can’t think of one interesting thing you’ve done, much less two) or when you apply for a new job.

I am sure that you already have an updated copy of your resume handy (good for you!), a work journal is not meant to replace that document. Your resume is a brief glimpse of your talents, skills and abilities; a work journal is a broader representation of your professional life, you have more room so you can talk about ALL of the wonderful stuff that you do. Hopefully your career in librarianship will be a long one, and over that great span of time, you will forget things. A lot of things. And those things might not seem important now, but eventually someone will ask and you will wonder what exactly was the opening day budget that you spent for that new library or exactly how many pages did you supervise back in 2003.

You can keep your entries brief – if you are sure that you will understand them years from now. Six years ago, while at my previous job, I wrote “Port Hueneme A to Z” and I thought I would remember what that was. I don’t. I had to ask a former co-worker to get more information about what turns out to be an awesome intergenerational grant program that I worked on just before I left the library. That grant program isn’t on my resume and if I hadn’t seen that brief reminder in my work journal it would be completely forgotten. Why do I need to remember it? I can use that experience to create new programs at my current library – that program was fun and successful. I can also mention it on my resume if the job I am applying for values intergenerational work or grant programs.

I would recommend setting aside time at the end of each week to jot down a few things in your journal. Even if they don’t seem big or important, they are accomplishments, they are things that you have done and they are valuable. Over time, they will add up to something substantial. You can hand write your entries or type them up, whichever is more comfortable for you – and whichever you are more likely to do. Keep it informal, you are the only one that is going to read it. The most important thing: do it.

Here is my work journal from last month:

April 2011:

• Submitted “Books for Babies” grant to Target
• Attended Windows 7 training
• Launched “Get Moving” & “Couch to 5K” programs for the Wellness Committee
• Organized summer staff training for 2011
• Organized shelf reading project for summer 2011
• Started as an ALSC blogger
• Appointed to the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee
• Created “In My Garden” shared storytime box
• Spring Break Smorgasbord programs – Art Room Extended & Letterboxing

I didn’t follow my own advice here and I should really expand on a few of these because in six years I won’t remember what the “Get Moving” program was or what exactly that

Building collaborations within the community is beneficial to your library and to your customers. But what is the best way to build these relationships? Should we all just run out and partner with every organization we can find? Well, no, of course not.

Consider whether the relationship will further your library’s mission and meet your library’s core values. Yes to both of those? Great! Is the collaboration mutually beneficial? Yes? Move forward! Now, think about how much it will cost you in time, energy and money. This sounds doable too? Then go for it, collaborate! But don’t be afraid to re-evaluate all of these points and break off the relationship if it doesn’t work out for either organization. Be flexible, be courageous and be thoughtful and you will have a successful collaboration.

There are many great resources that will take you through the collaboration building process step by step, here are a few:

• Collaboration: What Makes It Work by Paul W. Mattessich, Marta Murray-Close and Barbara R. Monsey (Amherst H. Wilder Foundation)
• Collaboration Handbook: Creating, Sustaining and Enjoying the Journey by Michael Winer and Karen Ray (Amherst H. Wilder Foundation)
• The Nimble Collaboration: Fine-tuning Your Collaboration for Lasting Success by Karen Ray (Amherst H. Wilder Foundation)

To read about real library collaborations check out Librarians as Community Partners: An Outreach Handbook edited by Carol Smallwood ( ALA Editions).

This information was taken from a presentation made by Lettie Haver of the Paul Clarke NonProfit Resource Center at the ILF District 3 conference.