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

This week we're looking at ways to reach teens by venturing out into the community. Teens are a diverse population and their interests and circumstances may not always bring them into our library buildings. What can we do to reach out and meet them where they are around town? Which outreach programs should we offer? How can we establish ourselves as a partner in the community, bringing the materials and services to those that need it? Below are some examples of libraries that have partnered with local organizations and sports teams and, through book mobiles or book bikes, have brought library services out into the community.

Does your library have a book mobile or book bike? Have you partnered with local schools, organizations or sports teams? Set up a booth at a community market or sporting event? We want to hear from you! Share your outreach services with us in the comments section below.
For more information about serving diverse teens, please visit the Serving Diverse Teens @ Your Library wiki page.

At many public library locations, the after school rush means an influx of teens that happens with clockwork precision and presents unique opportunities as well as challenges.

Teen services staff may smile when 45 teens (who have been cooped up for eight hours in school listening to adults talk at them….) burst into the library. But, if librarians and library workers start acting like security guards and security guards start acting like bouncers… bad things can happen. The after school atmosphere can become rule-driven and the focus may shift to customer control instead of customer service. And while certainly there are situations that warrant “control” and “rules” – staff should primarily be concerned with making the after school library experience of teens a positive one.  Anyone needing help with managing teen behavior can check out multiple resources from YALSA found on the wiki.

The after school rush is not a surprise. Ideally, there are positive patterns and routines established with library staff: these positive routines mean that during the after school rush staff does not disappear for off-desk time, break or dinner and teen activities take place. Staff is welcoming and not sending the vibe that they are bracing for an onslaught.

Learn the rush.
A library, like a retail location, experiences discernible traffic patterns of customer visits. Teen services staff should be observant and become aware of the teen traffic patterns after school at the library. First, is there an after school rush? Are there days of the week when teen traffic is heaviest? If there is an after school rush, when does it begin and when does it die down? Do teens tend to get picked-up when parents get out of work? Or leave to get home for dinner? Or linger until the library closes?

Scheduling programming/activities during the after school rush can seem daunting. Be vigilant about the excuse: “(I/we/you) can’t do a teen activity after school because there are too many teens in the library.” The after school rush may be the best time to begin offering activities—because teens are already there.  Talk to them to find out why they're there and what activities may interest them or support their needs.

Know what time school dismissal occurs and talk to your manager about how this is not the time to schedule off desk time and dinner breaks. Staffing and after school activities for teens should be scheduled to meet the needs of customers (teens) not the convenience of the staff. Think of it in retail terms: shops schedule more staff during peak shopping hours to provide adequate customer service – (and because they want to make sales) - libraries can’t afford to be any different.

Use the rush.
If you are a teen services librarian or library worker at a public library, chances are at one time or another you’ve envied high school librarians their “captive audience” of teen students. Real or imagined, library staff working with teens at public libraries may perceive that high school librarians have easier access to teens interested in participating in library programming and activities.

The phenomenon of the after school rush may be the closest public library staff  get to the fabled “captive audience” of teens. Bearing in mind that teens that visit the public library are not mandated to engage in any activity they do not want to engage in…. but, by the sheer number of teens visiting the library during the after school rush, chances improve for teens to participate in (and even organize and implement) teen activities in the library. The after school rush presents unique opportunities for teens to take ownership of space and activities intended for themselves and their peers.

Exploit this influx of teens to help you build not only good teen program attendance numbers for your monthly statistical report – but to build teen leaders in your library. This is prime time to make connections with teens.  Here are some examples that shouldn't be too daunting for beginners:

• Getting teens busy planning and helping with activities, right there on the spot (even if the activities are not on the calendar).

• Suggesting ways for teens to take ownership of their library space and foster teen participation (e.g. decorating the teens' space – even if it only consists of book shelves).

• Asking teens to choose which activity should take place tomorrow and to return and help with it.

Don’t compete, compliment.

In addition to knowing dismissal time, teen services librarians and staff need to know the extracurricular / sports schedule. If Wednesday nights mean football… don’t schedule a program at the library.

And speaking of sports, if your library has a budget for publicity, why not consider purchasing an advertisement in the local high school’s printed Football Program? Even if teens don’t read it, parents (stuck) on the bleachers will, and an advertisement about how the library offers teens volunteer service hours – or free homework help will not go unnoticed by parents.

Seek to make the library available as a venue for school sanctioned extracurricular activities. If the high school debate team or model U.N. needs a place to meet, be quick to offer the library as a community venue for this type of activity. This is a great way to meet teens that may not otherwise be library users and may be interested in volunteering/leading.

What if the library is a ghost town after school?
If there isn’t an after school rush, that does not mean the library is off the hook when it comes to serving teens – it means two possibilities are true: teens need to be invited to the library and/or the library needs to take the library to teens. Sometimes the mountain has to be moved. Don't know where the teens are?  They could be engaged with other youth serving organizations in the community, and you can easily find those via this Map My Community tool. The solution may be finding a venue in the community to provide not simply information “outreach” about library locations and services – but the direct delivery of library service to teens in an off-site location.

Explore the idea of a pop-up library – not just in the traditional access-to-books sense but teen library programming/activities that happen in local teen-centric retail outlets or in parking lots of football games or high school cafeterias. Connections between teens and the library can be fostered in novel and unexpected locations.

The library must play an important role in the after school life of teens in the service community.  A recent survey shows that the majority of teens are leaving high school feeling unprepared for college and careers.  This is a great opportunity for libraries to increase their impact and address a critical need of teens.  After school is about: meeting the needs of teens – not the needs of the library location; opportunities to schedule activities for teens at times that are convenient for them – not for the library; ensuring that the library is a place in the community that helps support out-of-school learning, participation and leadership opportunities for teens.

The after school rush is coming – it’s not a surprise. Learn it. Use it. Best of luck.

P.S. Check out YALSA's after school resources on the wiki for help and inspiration!

Libraries and schools across the country collaborate to promote library card sign-ups at the beginning of each school year. Annual efforts include blog posts, official proclamations, and lists of schools supplies sent out to parents. Last year, Philadelpha City Schools and Free Library merged databases to give nearly 100,000 students library cards. In April of this year, President Obama announced the ConnectED Library Challenge with the lofty goal of putting a public library card into the hand of every school student. As of August 5, nearly 50 communities had adopted the initiative.

Accomplishing this will be no easy task. When you live in an area (as I do) where one school district serves multiple library districts and vice versa, knowing where to go to get a public library card can be confusing. Unincorporated areas, which often aren't served by any public library, compound this. At least one nearby library has mitigated that issue by signing contracts with local schools that allow students who live in the unincorporated areas to receive a card for use during the school year.

One neighboring community, Skokie, has adopted the ConnectED Library Challenge. The Village of Skokie is a northwest suburb of Chicago, and is home to a little over 64,000 people. The village straddles two different townships, and so public high school students attend one of two different districts. One township, Niles, is also home to a portion of the Village of Niles, which makes up a significant portion of the Niles Public Library District. Confused yet? Students from four different library districts all attend Niles Township High School District 219.

In an effort to sign students up for public library cards with as little confusion as possible, District 219 created a simple form on their student/parent portal. This summer parents could sign their students up for library cards at the same time that they registered for school. They just needed to click a box to agree to release their residency information. From there, the students' information would be forwarded to the library district where they live, and a card would be generated. Cards would be delivered to students during the first days of school, which happen this week.

To promote the portal, letters were sent out to parents over the summer. Staff from all four participating libraries also took turns operating a help desk during the high schools' in-person registration days; both to promote card sign up and assist parents with the log in process. I haven't seen statistics of card sign-ups generated from this promotion, but (anecdotally) many of the students and parents who stopped at the library table while I was staffing already had library cards, had general questions, or needed to retrieve passwords from home before they would be able to sign in to the portal. I did help several families through the sign up process.

I also don't know whether the option to sign up for a library card will remain a part of the portal throughout the school year. This would be helpful, as students move into the district throughout the year. Others may not have been prepared to sign-up over the summer, and will be in the fall. And perhaps others who simply weren't interested will later change their minds.

For links to resources about community partnerships see the communication, marketing & outreach tools on the YALSA website.

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.

You work hard all summer to provide teens with a variety of activities to help them learn and grow.  But chances are, your elected officials do not know about the great work you do and what it means to teens and to the community.  So, it's up to you to show them!  Elected officials need to know about the vital role libraries play in helping teens succeed in school and prepare for college, careers and life.  Without this knowledge, they will not be able to make informed decisions regarding key pieces of legislation, such as the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA) or the Library Services & Technology Act (LSTA).  District Days--the time when members of Congress are back in their home states--are the perfect chance for you to show off all the great things you do for and with teens through your library, by inviting your Congressperson to come and visit any time between Aug. 1 and Sept. 6, 2015.  You could also bring your teen patrons to them at their local office.  YALSA's wiki page has everything you need to extend your invitation, plan for a visit, and be a great host!  Your teens are relying on you to speak up for them, so be sure to seize this opportunity.  Then, tell us how it goes by sending photos and information using the #act4teens hashtag.

Since May, I’ve been part of a planning team designing a week-long summer camp (July 20-24, 2015) for 8-12 year olds and for teens in the Peoria Heights (IL) area. This team is a smaller aspect of a much larger project, the Digital Innovation Leadership Program (DILP). This project is funded through the University of Illinois Extension and works with 4H offices across Illinois to plan and lead programs. Our goal is to focus on three learning areas: digital manufacturing, digital media production, and data analytics.

For me, it’s an exciting grant because it really builds off what I’ve done this past year. I get the opportunity to think more about digital literacy and how what I learned can be applied in other situations, always bending the curriculum/workshop to fit the context of the group. Additionally, I played a major role in the creation of the 8-12 year old camp and played a support role in developing the curriculum for the teens. The teens are building off the work of Ann Bishop and her team have been doing in Seattle: InfoMe, which I wrote about in my December 2014 post. Here are five things I learned (or got confirmed) about planning along the way.

1. Plan A is rarely your best plan.
   • I think our morning camp is in version 3.5. We would have an idea, run with it for a bit, think of something better, tweak it, and run with it again. A few times, we threw out the whole idea and came up with something better. Just like writing a paper for my English classes in undergrad, my best work comes after a few revisions, a few freakouts, and some good conversations with mentors & peers.
2. Nail down objectives early so that when new ideas come up they can quickly be  assessed if they fit the objectives. If yes, then accept the idea and if not, the idea is vetoed.
   • This was incredibly helpful as we kept coming up with different plans. Our team had met with some community leaders in Peoria Heights at the beginning of May to get an idea of what they wanted from this camp. The main objective that came through was strengthening community pride. When we came back to Urbana-Champaign to play, we had that strong objective in mind. Our camp was framed around that idea and it helped keep us focused and remember what was important.
3. Give yourself enough time, especially if you’ve working with community partners.
   • Everyone is busy. It seems like such a simple fact, but often forgotten. While a community partner you meet with several months before the program seems very excited about collaboration, as the program actually approaches and the summer is flying by, they might be harder to get in touch with. However, if you contact them early enough, get the date on their calendar sooner rather than later, and provide solid information on expectations and program objectives, then you can feel confident going into the program. Also, I don’t know about you, but I never can estimate how long something will actually take me.
4. Clear communication is crucial. 
   • Use clear and direct email subject lines, direct emails with questions or bullet points of information, call the person/people on the phone when needed, and also don’t forget about the value of visiting the place the program will take place (if it’s off site or for us, in a completely new city). We took another trip to Peoria Heights in June with a draft of our camp and some questions. It was so nice to sit across from the stakeholders and on-site organizers to make sure we were on the same page.
5. Anticipate all you want, but sometimes you just have to relax and rely on your ability to change on the fly.
   • With the camp a week away, we suddenly started coming up with all these ideas. Well, if project A doesn’t work, we could do this alternative project A, or alternative project B. Oh…wait, here’s another idea. When you start to go into that spiral, things become overwhelming. I think it’s good to have a backup plan, but somethings you just can’t anticipate. I found myself needing to feel confident about what we had planned and trust myself to think on my feet if during the week, something changes.

Since the camp is right around the corner, I’ll be blogging reflections after the morning camp on my personal website and then will be posting short reflections on the teen camp here on the YALSA blog. Looking forward to sharing this camp with you!

Who Are We?

We are ALSC’s Library Service to Special Population Children and Their Caregivers (LSSPCC) Committee.  We are accessibility and inclusion advocates who care deeply about the needs of our entire library community, especially special population children and their caregivers.

What Do We Do?

We discover and disseminate information about what libraries have to offer these special populations.  We develop and maintain guidelines for selection of useful and relevant materials.  We also help prepare the next generation of librarians and library workers by creating and providing resources to serve their communities more inclusively.

What Is The LSSPCC Toolkit?

The LSSPCC Committee has worked hard to develop a brand new resource for librarians and library works to develop or enhance your knowledge about serving special populations.  Launched earlier this year, this easy-to-use Toolkit for Librarians and Library Workers is available FREE online and can be downloaded or saved as a PDF file.  Whether you are just getting started learning about serving special populations of children and their families or want to brush up on the latest resources, this toolkit is for you!

What Special Populations Does the Toolkit Cover?

This toolkit offers a wide variety of information about serving many different types of groups in your library community, including homeschoolers, spanish-speaking families, LGBTQ families, children with autism, children with incarcerated parents, children with print disabilities, and more.  While this is by no means an exhaustive list of special populations that are served in all of our library communities, it’s a great place to start.

Why Is This Toolkit Useful?

In this toolkit, you will find a brief introduction in each section, which will provide librarians and library workers with context and background information needed before beginning to serve these groups in your community.  In addition, each section has a list of subject headings and keywords that will help make catalog and online searching on this topic a lot easier.  We have included short lists of subject area experts, if you are interested in connecting with people in our field and finding out more about that particular area of outreach.  We have even included information about existing partnerships, which are examples of the successes some libraries have found connecting with local organizations to serve these special populations. There are numerous lists of additional print and digital resources for further learning beyond the toolkit itself.

We hope you will share this resource with your library staff.  Through advocacy and awareness of various special populations, we can work together to help all children and all families feel welcome at our libraries!

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This post was written by Renee Grassi. Renee is the Youth Department Director at the Glen Ellyn Public Library in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.  She is also a member of ALSC’s LSSPCC Committee.  In 2012, she was recognized by Library Journal as a Mover & Shaker for her work serving children with autism and other special needs.  She is also one of the co-founding members of SNAILS, a state-wide networking group in Illinois for librarians and library staff who discuss and learn about expanding library services to those with special needs.  As a proud ALSC member and a former ALSC Blogger, she has written on the blog about a variety of topics related to inclusive library services. 

The post The LSSPCC Toolkit: Making All Families Feel Welcome at the Library appeared first on ALSC Blog.

To end out our week of making I've asked my colleague Michelle Angell to share her experiences with Maker culture. She started out with programs and wanted to create makerspaces, but found that a Maker Fair was an even better way to celebrate and embrace the Maker community. The following is Michelle's response.

Libraries have a long tradition of providing making resources to the public. We offer information on gardening, landscaping, furniture and toy making, home and car repair, sewing, knitting, drawing, painting, computer programming, electronics, robotics and countless other DIY topics. As the role of libraries in the community continues to evolve, we have an opportunity to provide maker services that go beyond the customary print medium. Many libraries across the nation are developing their own makerspaces. The creation of a successful makerspace is not something that can happen overnight, however. Makerspaces require planning, adequate physical space, substantial staff time and somewhat prohibitive set-up costs.

Maker Faires are alternative opportunities for libraries to participate in the maker movement. Maker Media, publisher of Make Magazine, hosts two annual, large scale Faires -in the Bay Area and New York. Hundreds of licensed Mini Maker Faires are also held around the world each year. In the spring of 2013, the Lakewood Branch Library became aware of an interest in the community to host a Maker Faire type event. This was spurred by Kurt Sample, coordinator of the Lakewood Computer Clubhouse. The Computer Clubhouse is a free outreach program for youth, sponsored by Intel. Adding our local Pierce Community College as an additional partner, also secured a free venue for the event on their beautiful campus.

Lakewood MakerFest initiated the Mini Maker Faire license application process, but due to time constraints and some concerns with fulfilling contract costs and requirements, we went with an independently produced event. Our event is ultimately inspired by Maker Media’s Maker Faires, but not affiliated with or endorsed by the MAKE brand or company. The first Lakewood MakerFest held in 2013 at the Pierce College Fort Steilacoom campus, in Lakewood, WA. A total of 144 people attended the 2013 inaugural event. MakerFest was absolutely free to attend and there was no cost for exhibitors to participate. The 2014 MakerFest saw it attendance increase to 287 people, and at the May 2015 event that number rose to 425! Features of the Fest included; displays, demonstrations, workshops, and hands-on activities. Many of the attendees were families with school age children. One of our ongoing goals each year is to provide more opportunities for a more ethnically and economically diverse population to participate in maker culture.

The MakerFest Manifesto:

• MakerFest is a festival-style celebration of makers. A Maker is a person that engages in the process of making or producing something. Makers run the gamut from woodworkers, tinkerers, coders, crafters, to robot builders. The Maker movement includes amateurs, enthusiasts, hobbyists, innovators, and entrepreneurs.
•  MakerFest is a free, non-commercial, non-competitive, community-building event. It provides an opportunity for people to gather, connect, and explore the processes, products, and joys of making. The goal of MakerFest is to engage and excite youth, families, and adults to explore Maker/DIY (Do-It-Yourself) culture and become Makers themselves.
• MakerFest is an inclusive event; gathering folks of all ages, ethnicities, cultures, genders, and sexual orientations.

MakerFest is a true collaboration of community partners. Our event sponsors are The Pierce County Library System, Pierce College, The Pierce College Science Dome, the Lakewood Computer Clubhouse, and Brown Paper Tickets.The Fort Steilacoom campus of Pierce College hosts MakerFest in their large science building for no cost. The Pierce College Science Dome, a 58 seat digital planetarium, is located in the same building and is a highlight of the MakerFest experience. Throughout the afternoon the Science Dome provided free shows and demonstrations. Brown Paper Tickets was a new and invaluable partner for us this year. Brown Paper Tickets is an organization that provides free ticket sales and event listing online. They also employ “Doers”, described as, “…They aren't sales people but professionals, with a lifetime of experience in their chosen fields. Brown Paper Tickets simply puts them on the payroll and encourages them to fix, improve and revolutionize. If you ever needed someone without a corporate agenda in your industry, you found them.” Our Doer & Maker Advocate, Tamara Clammer, is based in Seattle and provided us with much needed expertise and contacts in the maker movement.

MakerFest has proved to be a successful introduction for the library to the maker movement. Rather than creating a makerspace from scratch, and due to our collaboration with community partners, MakerFest was a lower cost alternative for the library to participate and support maker culture. The most valuable benefit, perhaps, has been the strong relationships our library has built with other local organizations. These partnerships are expanding our outreach and community involvement opportunities. You may already have makerspaces, Maker Faire type of events, or youth maker programs in your service areas. If your library is interested in diving into the wonderful world of the maker movement, I suggest reaching out and discovering the existing makers in your own neighborhoods.

Visit our website, lakewoodmakerfest.org and facebook page!

Michelle Angell
Youth Services Librarian
Lakewood Branch
Pierce County Library System, WA
[email protected]

An Unusual School Visit

We’re accustomed to classroom visits … there’s Read Across America Day, Library Card Sign-up Month, Summer Reading Club outreach, and any other number of reasons why public librarians visit classrooms.  Last month, a colleague and I enoyed another type of classroom visit.  We were virtual guest lecturers for a university class in Children’s Literature.  The class was not for librarians, but rather, for aspiring teachers.  We spent two weeks with the students during their planned chapters on censorship and graphic texts.  We introduced discussion articles and scenarios, and participated in the discussion boards by posting topics and responding to students’ questions.

I firmly believe that librarians and teachers should be close partners in serving their constituent children.  I am fortunate that my library is located in a school district that is wonderfully cooperative, and where I have met and worked with many caring teachers.  Still, I have often ranted about things that annoy me  – particularly minimum page requirements and a frequent admonishment that picture books (and by extension, graphic novels) are “not allowed.”

This partnership with our local university, gave me the opportunity to speak directly with the future generation of school teachers.  We spoke of the importance of knowing one’s collection and being prepared to defend it; the value and appeal of graphic texts; the collection development resources available from ALSC, ALA, and other organizations in making collection development decisions; and a myriad of other topics related to censorship and graphic texts.  It was refreshing to hear what is on the minds of future teachers and to offer to them a librarian’s perspective on the same.

Kudos to Constance Chismar, Ed.D. of the Georgian Court University English Department for asking us to participate and to Ocean County Library for allowing us to attend.  If you have a local university or college that offers undergrad degrees in education,  inquire if you might participate in something similar.  It was a valuable experience for me and my colleague, the university students, and the children who will someday benefit from the partnership!

Images from openclipart.org

The post An Unusual School Visit appeared first on ALSC Blog.

In April Rochester Public Library (MN) launched the BookBike outreach program. RPL’s BookBike, a little library on wheels, will visit locations within a one-mile radius of the downtown library this spring, summer and fall. Pulled by library staff on bicycles, RPL’s BookBike offers library books, library cards, program information, assistance with digital materials, bike trail maps and fun incentives for kids.

The BookBike is in its infant stages, but we are already making a difference in our community. We are connecting with residents who would not have thought to enter the library doors, promoting biking as a transportation option, and creating positive relationships with kids and their grown ups. We are looking forward to a summer full of fun, biking and pedaling good books. (Get it?)

In order to staff the BookBike we have made some hard choices about in-house programming, ultimately deciding to put the bulk of our summer efforts into outreach. We have a full schedule for May and June, with the rest of the summer expected to fill up soon. We don’t operate on a regular schedule, but work around special events and activities and fill in other days with visits to local grocery stores, parks and other locations.

The BookBike project was funded in part with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, through a Community Collaboration grant from Southeast Libraries Cooperating (SELCO).

The post RPL BookBike: Shifting Gears, It’s How We Roll appeared first on ALSC Blog.

One of my favorite sections of the Teen Programming Guidelines (is it nerdy to have favorite sections?) is "Align programs with community and library priorities." But you have to be deeply involved with community agencies and activities in order to be ready to act on the community's priorities as they arise. This sounds obvious (and it is!), but it's taken me a few years to figure it out.

Several years back my coworker and I began working with the Seattle Youth Employment Program (SYEP). SYEP is a city agency that places youth with barriers in paid internships in a variety of environments in city government and the private sector. It also provides them with job training and academic support. We worked with SYEP staff to design a curriculum that would build the interns' digital and information literacy skills. We were sometimes surprised by the needs identified by SYEP staff and the interns' employers: touch typing, for example, and basic MS Word. We learned a lot about putting our own assumptions aside.

Over the years, we continually evaluated and adjusted the program. We dropped some pieces and added others to make it as relevant as possible to the youth's needs and the needs of their employers. 

This year, Seattle's mayor put forth a huge Youth Employment Initiative in which he asked SYEP to more than double the number of youth placed in jobs over the summer. Suddenly, the community had spoken: youth employment was a major need. Because we already had an ongoing relationship with SYEP, the library was poised to expand the partnership to serve more youth with our trainings. We also helped in other ways, like providing meeting rooms for SYEP staff trainings. Next summer, the mayor intends to make the program five times larger than it is this year (eep!), which will present a huge opportunity for library involvement.

Of course, being in the right place at the time is always partly a matter of luck. But you can't be lucky if you're not out there.

Last spring, a couple of coworkers and I did some outreach at an event called Girlvolution. It was a completely youth-led conference, with sessions on social justice issues ranging from foster care reform to sexual identity. The teens leading each session mixed statistical and factual information with their own perspectives and experiences.

It was the best conference I had ever been to. I was blown away by how poised, informed, and prepared the youth were. But I wondered: how did they do their research? Had they been visiting our libraries every year without us even knowing it?

Our Youth and Family Learning Manager looked into it and found out that this was exactly the case. Although Powerful Voices (the organization that hosts Girlvolution)  had a "Library Day" as part of their program each year, the library had not been providing direct support.

What an awesome organization.

So this year, we collaborated. My coworkers and I met with their staff to hear more about their organization's mission and goals, and to learn how we could help. We arranged for me to visit Powerful Voices on a Thursday afternoon a couple of weeks ago to talk to the youth and their adult allies (mentors) about research. It was a great conversation about everything from whether all the world's information is available on Google (heck no) to evaluating resources.

Results of a survey asking participants to rate the effectiveness of Library Research Day.

That Saturday, the girls and their allies all came to the library. We settled down in the computer lab and got SERIOUS about research. I showed them how to find books in our catalog, and how to decode Dewey. We dug into databases to find the most up-to-date information and the best statistics. We ended the day with pizza, which is never a bad idea.

Powerful Voices ends their sessions with a gratitude circle. That Saturday, many youth and adults mentioned finding out about all the great resources the library has to offer, and how helpful librarians can be. I was grateful for all I learned from them, and to be part of the support network for such talented and engaged young women.

Have fun this month by reading poems aloud, over and over!  Let’s yell out some words together to get ready for poetry month.  I’ll say the words first and then you repeat after me, ready? Me: POETRY! You: POETRY!  Me: 811! You: 811!

Let’s go up, up, up with “Oak Tree” by Georgia Heard from Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems Edited by Georgia Heard. Ready? Me: One!….

April is National Poetry Month! Whether you’re offering a poetry program at your library, visiting schools with interactive poems or creating a poetry display, April is the perfect month to share poems, read a poem at story time and introduce children’s poets including children’s poet laureate, Kenn Nesbitt to children of all ages.

This year, my interactive poetry school visits are focused on writing art inspired poems with 5^th and 6^th graders and writing a couplet, circle, animal and BIG poems with K-4^th.   At the end of the month, the library will host a Poetry Fest at our local bookstore where students have an opportunity to share their art inspired poems.  I’m also looking forward to our Animal Poetry Party for families.  Puppets, poems and play!

Here are a few amazing poetry blogs (from three amazing children’s authors) with perfect “Poem-A-Day” projects that you can do in your library, classroom or share with children, parents, teachers and more!

photo by Laura Purdie Salas

Laura Purdie Salas: National Poetry Month and Poetry Tips for Teachers
A poem and new poetry tip each day!
Click on the “Educator’s” link for more great ideas. I love Laura’s “Things to Do if You Are a Bumblebee…” poem written with students on a school visit.  Write your own “Things to Do if…” poem.  Read, listen, write and connect with the poem!  (Read one of her new poems “Spaghetti”)

Irene Latham: Live Your Poem…ARTSPEAK

photo by Irene Latham

A Poem-A-Day Project for National Poetry Month 2015 writing from images found in the online collections of the National Gallery of Art and focusing on dialogue, conversations, what does the piece say.
My favorite art poem so far is from day #9.  Irene gave me permission to share her “Boat in Pond” poem.  Follow her blog, listen to her poems and write your own art inspired poem!

Amy Ludwig Vanderwater: The Poem Farm and National Poetry Month 2015-Sing That Poem!
Explore a game called “Sing That Poem” A new poem each day matched to a song. Guess which song and sing along!  Tuesday’s poem will be titled “Librarian’s Song.”
Also, from 2012, Dictionary Hike (I love this!)

Photo by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater

Amy wrote a poem from each letter of the alphabet!

A few more favorite poetry blogs/websites:

• A Year of Reading: PO-EMtions 30 Days 30 Poems —Anger to Zest by Mary Lee Hahn
• Joan Bransfield Graham: Poetry Links, resources and more from Children’s Authors Network
• Miss Rumphius Effect by Tricia Stohr-Hunt: National Poetry Month 2015–Jumping into Form.
• Janet Wong-Poetry Suitcase
• Poetry Plus! The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations Edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong
• Patrick Lewis (New poetry book, Bigfoot is Missing!)

Check out a few new children’s poetry books: 
Bigfoot is Missing! by J. Patrick Lewis and Kenn Nesbitt, Lullaby and Kisses Sweet: Poems to Love with Your Baby Edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins, Hypnotize a Tiger:  by Calef Brown, How to Draw a Dragon by Douglas Florian by Paul B. Janeczko and Jumping Off Library Shelves Edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins (September 8, 2015)

Children’s Poetry Book Lists:

• Children’s Poet Laureate Books: 2006 – present
• Art and Poetry
• Animal Poetry Party

Past ALSC Poetry Blog posts

Enjoy Amy Ludwig Vanderwater’s poem “Library Book.” 

I love hearing about poetry projects from other librarians.   Please share in the comments below.  Happy National Poetry Month!

Paige Bentley-Flannery is a Community Librarian at Deschutes Public Library. For over fifteen years–from Seattle Art Museum to the New York Public Library to the Deschutes Public Library-Paige’s passion and creative style for art, poetry and literature have been combined with instructing, planning, and providing information. Paige is currently serving on the ALSC Notable Children’s Book Committee, 2015 – 2017. She is a former Chair of the ALSC Digital Content Task Force and member of the ALSC Great Websites Committee.  

The post Poetry Paige appeared first on ALSC Blog.

They were pretty excited about the new library.

For the past six months or so, my fellow teen services librarian and I have been building a partnership with a local drop-in center for homeless youth. We began by meeting with staff several times and taking a tour of their facility to get a better sense of what they do, and how we could help. Then we moved into outreach efforts, like tabling at an on-site job fair. We even revamped their on-site library. 

By this time we’d really gotten to know the staff, and we’d also spent a good bit of time at the shelter talking with the youth. They mentioned weekly gaps in drop-in services, as well as a desire for help with job and education goals. Our partners suggested that we all collaborate to co-host a weekly drop-in at the library on Thursday afternoons, when both downtown youth shelters are closed.

We've been holding drop-ins for a little over two months now.  When my schedule allows, I visit the shelter on Thursday mornings to personally invite youth to the program. Several staff from the partner org co-host with us each week: the outreach coordinator, an adult intern, and a peer intern. They are all very talented at working with youth, and full of great ideas. It's absolutely a co-production from both partners. Drop-in wouldn't work if the library tried to host it on our own.

The very first drop-in.

The library provides snacks, and we do different activities each week—gaming, crafts, etc.—all while talking to the youth about where they are in their lives, and what they need. While many of the participants are unstably housed, others attend private school. Drop-in attendance is diverse in just about every possible way: financially, ethnically, culturally, racially. For many of them, it's a unique opportunity to hang out in a friendly, safe environment with teens whose circumstances are very different from their own.

This game of Egyptian Ratscrew got intense.

Sometimes participants want to work on resumes or interview skills, so my coworker and I help with that. Sometimes they need our partners' help connecting to shelter or other resources. Sometimes they just want to hang out and eat popcorn.

During the first couple of months of drop-ins, we collected information from participants about what they want and need from the program. Now we’re using that information to design evaluations that will measure the impacts we all want to see. It’s a slow process, but I’m confident that the outcomes from this program are going to be profound.

We take our fun seriously.

Already, we’re seeing big mental shifts among participants. Youth who feared they wouldn’t be welcome in the library, or who had previously visited but had never spoken to staff, are now regularly accessing library resources. Our partners have seen more youth accessing their resources, too, and we’ve connected at least one participant with a job. I can’t wait to see where this partnership will go.

Mini-library in Rochester, MN.

In 2013, Rochester Public Library, MN launched the Neighbors Read program in the Slatterly Park neighborhood with support from the United Way of Olmsted County. Through the Neighbors Read program the library connects with families of preschool children, bringing them to the library for early literacy activities and then planting a mini-library in their yards. With continued support from the United Way of Olmsted County, Neighbors Read is now in its third year and will continue into 2016. Each year, we make adjustments and improvements to the Neighbors Read program to better meet our goals and connect with the community.

The goals of Neighbors Read are to increase school readiness through early literacy information and programming and to increase access to books in economically diverse neighborhoods. Results have shown that preschoolers in the program have increased early literacy skills and families have increased engagement with the library. Families also reported an increased connection with their neighbors.

Rochesterites using the mini-libraries also have many positive things to say:

“We’re very glad to have a few of these mini-libraries in our neighborhood!”

“Whenever we visit our friends, my kids drop off and pick up a book. This is great!”

“This is awesome. I love having access to more books and it’s often such a brilliant variety. Thank you!”

In addition:

• 76% of repeat mini-library users who responded to the postcard survey indicated that they read more in the previous month due to access to a mini-library.
• 75% of mini-library users visit a mini-library once a week or more often.

Many other Rochester community members have purchased or built and installed their own mini-libraries. Through the generosity of the Friends of Rochester Public Library, RPL is able to provide a stock of free books to fill the boxes. Forty-two mini-library users are currently registered with the library and we have distributed over 6,600 books through their libraries. Registrants were surveyed in 2014 and the responses provide more evidence that the libraries not only provide books to community members, but build stronger neighborhoods.

“I’ve found many people love stopping to talk about the books when they see us outside. I’ve been told families will use visiting 3 to 5 libraries as a goal for their evening walks, thus encouraging them to get more exercise with the kids.”

“This is a conversation piece that helps us get to know the neighbors better.”

“Our neighborhood is economically diverse and the library provides books for kids who do not have books in their homes.”

Mini-library in Slatterly Park,   Rochester, MN.

100% of the mini-library hosts who responded to the survey would choose to do it again based on their experience.

Neighbors Read is a powerful and time consuming program; some of the best programs can take the most work!  Every minute is worth it for the positive changes that it is bringing to our community.

Because of the success of Neighbors Read, a local leadership group has focused their efforts on a project to bring 40 more mini-libraries to Rochester. We are pleased to partner with them on this wonderful program. It is going to be a busy year once the ground thaws!

The post Neighbors Read appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Back in October 2014, I wrote about a report entitled: “America After 3 PM.” The Afterschool Alliance was writing about how students spend their time after school. In it, I raised the point of libraries as hubs for after-school activities, a free spot for teens to come if they don’t have the resources or access to other after-school programs. At the end of January, Alia Wong from Atlantic wrote an article called “The Activity Gap,” which discusses the access issues students from various socio-economic classes face with participating in after-school and extracurricular programs.

Wong begins the article by comparing two different students, Ethan and Nicole, whose family backgrounds contribute to two different lifestyles and life paths. While their names have been changed, these two students do exist and were case studies in a study published in Voices of Urban Education. This national study was conducted by Brown University’s Annenberg Institute of School Reform.

Their results are nothing we didn’t already know. The article states the researchers were “alarmed” at the results, but we’ve been seeing and hearing about this growing income achievement gap for a while. I come back to the same question I raised in my October 2014 blog post: how can libraries help?

I can offer an example of a space happening in my community at the Urbana Free Library. Our library is able to offer a Teen Open Lab a couple days a week. The auditorium in the library is opened up and staff and teens set up essentially a mini-Fab Lab/makerspace/hangout area. It’s a spot where teens can come after school, hang out, or create anything from stickers on a Silhouette cutting machine, to using a 3D printer, video and audio production, or simply playing Minecraft or video games. The library has been able to provide another space for teens to go who might not have other after-school options.

Is this a great space? I think so. I visited there a few weeks back (my assistantship has a graduate student helping out at the Teen Open Lab so I went for a visit). The atmosphere was exciting. The teens seemed to be happy. They’ve reached a point in the Teen Open Lab where things are going well and they can keep thinking about where does this space go next. But, we can’t forget the process and time it took to get from point A (the teens had little space) to the idea of the lab, to the creation (and funding), and now the maintaining and sustaining. Perhaps what the Urbana Library Teen Open Lab teaches us is that we need to start having those conversations. If we look out at our community and see that our teens need a free space, we can start having those conversations about what a space for them might look like. I think it’s fine to say, “Look we have this income achievement gap and need to do something about it” but we need to do more than just say it. And maybe libraries aren’t the spot, maybe this conversation is meant for a broader audience, pulling in our education system and college admission process (which places value in extra-curricular activities and involvement outside of the classroom). What I’ve been thinking about in my community engagement class this semester is that libraries are the hub to have those frank conversations. We can open up a space to bring a community together to talk. We’ve been doing it since we first began as public institutions.

The Atlantic article does not offer many solutions and I am not sure I have many to offer either. I still think this is an important conversation to have, but we need to continue to think about the broader context and how we can help or at least provide resources to help. For additional resources on this topic, make sure to check out YALSA’s Professional Tool page on their website. Additionally, you can look at, Cool Teen Programs for Under $100, resources on YALSA’s Wiki page about Maker and DIY Programs, Making in the Library Toolkit, or A Librarian’s Guide to Makerspaces.

Do you have any ideas about how we can bridge this activity gap? I would love to hear your thoughts (or great articles to read and resources to use) in the comments below!

Those Wonder Twins were onto something.

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned the importance of equality. But what does equality really mean in the context of a community partnership?

Mostly, it means power sharing. Because when we library folk enter into a partnership, particularly a micropartnership with a small, grassroots organization, there will almost always be an imbalance of power that favors the library.

I know it doesn't always feel like it, but generally, public libraries are respected organizations. They are highly visible to funders and politicians. Everyone knows (or thinks they know) more or less who we are and what we do. Grassroots orgs, on the other hand, may have less name recognition in the community at large.

Also, libraries have mad bank--relatively speaking. As thinly stretched as we often feel (and are), libraries usually have at least some small degree of budget stability. We have assets like buildings, which tend to come equipped with computers, meeting rooms, and at least a couple of people to staff them. Our partners, on the other hand, may be working with shoestring budgets, few (if any) full-time paid staff, and a whole host of other constraints on their time and resources that are not necessarily visible to us.

And more often than not, the staff who are leading the partnerships on the library’s side are often white, middle class folk (like me)—in other words, part of the dominant culture.

In order to make our partnerships truly equal, we have to make it easy for grassroots organizations to work alongside us. That means conscious power-sharing on our part. It’s up to us to create the time and space for partners to tell us what their organization and their clients need out of the partnership to make it worthwhile for them. And then of course, it's up to us to deliver what they've asked for--or to be up front about why we can't.

We also have to be serious about sharing our concrete resources: budgets, staff time, building space, marketing channels, and more. It’s not enough to show up to a grassroots organization and offer a few resources that are easy for us to deliver, or to occasionally reach out to community groups to ask for feedback on an existing plan. Partners should be working with us to create the plan.*

After all, these orgs are helping us do something that would be incredibly difficult or even impossible without them: provide quality library services to the communities they work with. Community-based orgs are well-known and well-trusted in those communities in a way the library often isn’t, and may never be.

For example, think about how difficult and expensive it would likely be to use a traditional marketing campaign to reach a population of underserved immigrants in your town. Or to convince low income teens to come to a drop-in digital literacy workshop.** By working with community partners, you can reach those audiences at their point of need. Working together, you can create services that are tailored to their specific interests and goals.

When you look at that way, an investment in micropartnerships starts to look like a screaming bargain.

* A non-profit leader in my city has a great and also very funny blog post addressing this issue from the community-based org’s point of view. I highly recommend taking a look.

**If teens in your area would show up for a digital literacy workshop on their own time and without incentive, please know that they are magical and should be treasured.

Volunteers from a partner organization help students with college applications.

Last week we talked about finding your perfect community partner, the one who can make all your dreams come true. Once you’ve met a few potential partners and really gotten to know them, you may be ready to choose one and move forward on a shared program or project.

As you’re working with the partner to formulate the project, here are some questions to consider.

1. Do the partners play equally important roles?

This could shake out lots of different ways. Maybe you provide the space, the pizza, and the marketing, and the partner provides the expertise. Maybe you’re creating all of the program content, and the partner is bringing the audience. (Although ideally, you’d probably want to check in with the partner to make sure your content is relevant. If you can create the content collaboratively, even better.)

What matters most is that roles are clearly defined and both sides are making significant, meaningful contributions. If that isn’t happening, you may be doing something cool, but it’s not a partnership.

2. Does the project deliver something important to both partners?

Just as both partners have to put something in, both have to get something out. Outcomes should be clearly stated and deliver something that each side needs to further its mission. For the library, outcomes will often be concerned with promoting equity.

3. Does the project have an end point?

It took me a while to realize how important this is. Even if a project is relatively small and low-impact, set a firm date to pause and examine how things are going. If things are going really well, pat each other on the back and agree about how awesome you are. Make minor adjustments if necessary, then dive right back into it.

If things are not going so well, or if circumstances have changed for one of the partners, you’ll be glad to have a built-in opportunity to make big changes, start all over, or quietly pull the plug. Even in this worst case scenario, you'll have learned something valuable that you can bring to your next partnership.

4. Do the partners agree about how the project will be evaluated?

What are the top priorities? What kind of evaluation tool will you use: pre- and post-tests? Surveys? Interpretive dance?*

Who will design the tool? If you can, work with the partner to create evaluation tools collaboratively or, even better, empower the youth themselves to design the tools and evaluate the program.

And one last tip: Write it all down! We use a Memorandum of Agreement form to make sure that everyone knows what’s up with a new project. Better to tackle misunderstandings before you begin than in the middle, when it’s hard to adjust expectations, or at the end, when disappointment or resentment may have set in. Communication is key throughout the process, but good communication late in the game can’t make up for a lack of it up front.

*Note: Don’t use interpretive dance.

The advocacy button, available from the Everyday Advocacy site (image courtesy of ALSC)

The buttons, emblazoned with the slogan “Creating a Better Future for Children through Libraries,” will be available at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco and various state/local conferences.

Attached to each button is a tip sheet, created by the ALSC Advocacy and Legislation Committee, that includes talking points to help articulate the value of youth library service. A virtual button will be available soon.

ALSC is also inviting prospective advocates to claim their own button. By submitting a question, an elevator speech, or a news item for the Everyday Advocacy Matters e-newsletter, participants can get a button mailed to them. This is only available for individual buttons. ALSC does not currently have the capacity to mail bulk orders of buttons and tip sheets.

The post How to Claim Your Advocacy Button appeared first on ALSC Blog.

A partner brings some skeptical-looking teens to the library for a research workshop. (I'm pretty sure we won them over in the end.)

In my last post, I talked about the importance of relationship-building in outreach and community partnerships. It's not always easy to create the time and space necessary to figure out what a partner organization really needs from the library, but for a strong community partnership, it's well worth the investment.

But "community partnership" is a pretty vague term. I should probably clarify what I'm talking about.

For me, library partnerships fit into one of two main categories. The first is partnerships with other major organizations, like the symphony, the zoo, or the local school system at the superintendent/library director level. For the sake of this blog post, let’s call them macro partnerships.

Macro partnerships tend to be large in scale (duh), and are often designed to give current library patrons access to cultural or other enrichment that they might not otherwise experience. For example, a library system might partner with an art museum to provide occasional free museum admission for library card holders. This kind of partnership is incredibly important and worthwhile, but in general, it’s not what I’m talking about here.

The second category of community partnerships is the one that I engage in most often: working with nonprofits or government agencies that serve high needs, marginalized, or underrepresented groups. I would also include in this category those crucial partnerships between individual librarians and school teachers.

For fun, let’s call these micro partnerships—not because the organizations involved are necessarily small (though they often are), but because the partnerships tend to be built on relationships between just a few people, perhaps one or two library staff and one or two staff from the community-based org. The library’s goal in creating micro partnerships is usually to serve patron groups that it otherwise struggles to reach; in other words, to promote equity. Micro partnerships are the kind I’ll mainly be addressing in this blog series.

Of course, as I've said, building relationships with partners takes time and effort. It’s much easier to create our own programs and services, in our own buildings. So why not leave it at that? Our doors are open to everyone—isn’t that enough?

Well, not really. Because as we all know, it’s harder for some people to get to our doors. Some groups of potential patrons face barriers of income, language, transportation, and a whole host of other factors. So we have to do a little more to reach them.

For example, a library might open its meeting room to host a college application workshop that’s open to everyone. That’s equality, and it’s not a bad thing.

But it's often the case that the students who are most in need of programs like this one aren’t the ones who attend. We might end up mainly serving students who already have a lot of support in their college application process. Maybe those students were told about the event by their English-speaking parents, or their guidance counselor, or even their hired college admission coach. They may have their own transportation, and fewer after school and weekend responsibilities.

By also hosting the same program at an ethnic community center or in partnership with an organization that serves the rural poor, the library eliminates some of the barriers for underserved students. We commit resources in an attempt to “level the playing field" and promote equity.

Tell me how this looks at your library. What kinds of micro partnerships are you involved in? How are your partnerships helping you reach target audiences? I want to hear all your success stories!

Lately, I’ve been investigating and thinking about ways we serve young people with special needs, and how it ties in with the heightened focus on diversity.

At yesterday’s “Diversity Matters: Stepping It Up With Action!,” publishers and librarians engaged in a fascinating dialogue about practical ways we can include all voices. We should: hire more diverse staff; reach out to authors from underrepresented backgrounds; do targeted outreach; and develop partnerships with community organizations. But, as many audience members pointed out, our efforts should not only address race, culture, and sexual orientation, but should also include people with special needs.

Here are a few highlights of special needs resources found/represented at #alamw15:

*Remarkable Books about Young People with Special Needs: Stories to Foster Understanding by Alison M. G. Follos (Huron Street Press, 2013)

*Children with Disabilities in the Library – an ALSC online professional development course.

*Schneider Family Book Award, which “honor an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.”

• 2014 YA Winner: Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion)
• 2014 Middle School Winner: Handbook for Dragon Slayers by Merrie Haskell (Harper Collins)
• 2014 Children’s Book Winner: A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant; Illustrated by Melissa Sweet (Alfred A. Knopf)

*The Association for Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies (ASCLA), a division of ALA which provides support and services for libraries and librarians serving special needs communities.

*AccessAbility Academy training module (ASCLA): “Positive Interactions: Making the Library a Welcoming and Empowering Place for People with Disabilities”

* @DisabilityInLit (Twitter feed) – Disability in KidLit, which focuses on the portrayal of disabled characters in MG/YA novels.

*Brooklyn Public Library offers the Child’s Room for Children (and Teens) with Special Needs, which features a universal design space and inclusive programming: a universal Makerspace, gaming, garden club, Legos, and story hours.

*Weplay – #alamw15 was the first time this vendor came to an ALA conference. Their focus is “physical movement and cognitive development equipment.” They offer a free 94-page Sensory Storytime handbook, developed especially for libraries.

Do you have more resources to share? Please post in the comments field.

The post Diversity: Special Needs at #alamw15 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

About four years ago, my little department (just one other Teen Services Librarian and me) decided to make a big change. We wanted to make outreach and community partnerships the central focus of our work. We weren't sure exactly what that would entail, or how we should go about it. All we knew was that the Teen Center in our library wasn’t exactly packing in the teens.

A relatively empty Teen Center, from the days before we began our focus on outreach.

Our neighborhood in downtown Seattle has great access to public transit, but not a lot of families living nearby. Teens cruised through to use the computers or browse the manga. They were often reluctant to engage with us, no matter how approachable and friendly we tried to be.

We felt sure we could do better. So we started by asking a lot of questions, brainstorming with our manager. And the first question was: Who wasn’t coming to the library?

To find an answer, we did a community analysis--although to be honest, we didn’t call it that at the time. We just thought of it as taking a look around. We looked at census and demographic data, as well as information from the public schools and Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods. We were interested in the whole city, but focused on our neighborhood in particular. What were the major trends? Who were we not seeing in the library—or at least, not seeing enough of relative to the overall population? For us, the answers included immigrant and refugee communities (especially East African), youth experiencing homelessness, and youth living in poverty.

This led us to the really big question: If those teens weren’t in the library, where were they?

To find out, we did something really scientific: we sorta asked around. We sent out some email, made a few phone calls, and just showed up in places where we suspected those teens might be accessing services: youth shelters, internship programs, schools and student support organizations, and youth arts nonprofits. We introduced ourselves to the staff there. We made follow up appointments. Staff were always happy to talk to us about their work, and we did our best to listen.

But at first, listening was the hard part. We were so bursting with information about all the great stuff the library had to offer that sometimes we barely let the community leaders get a word in edgewise. Did they know about our homework help program? The free standardized tests available via our website? What about our job resources?

At those early meetings, we jumped in with ideas for potential collaborations without fully understanding the needs of the organizations we were talking to. We were excited, and we were proud of what we had to offer. We were also in a hurry to produce results to prove to ourselves that this whole zany outreach plan was going to work.

Those initial meetings did produce some good outcomes, but not the best outcomes. We would partner with an organization on a reasonably successful program, only to realize that they had more pressing needs that we could have addressed. Or we’d discover that the folks we’d been meeting with at the organization weren’t the ones who could make a final decision about working with the library. Or we’d realize that the way we had structured the partnership wasn’t really equal.

So we slowed down and started doing a lot more listening. We made a rule for ourselves that initial meetings with new organizations should be informational only—we would use them to learn as much as we possibly could. We asked question after question. What was their organization all about? Who did they serve? What were their mission and goals? What was working well for them? What were their difficulties?

Only after we really understood the answers to all of those questions did we ask the big one: How can we help?

I’m still learning, and I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts here in an ongoing series about outreach and community partnerships. I’d love to hear your ideas. When reaching out to a potential new community partner, what works for you? What doesn’t?

Thousands of unaccompanied refugee children fleeing violence in their home countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have crossed the United States border and turned themselves in where they are being held in detention centers and placed in removal proceedings. In June 2014, at the ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas, REFORMA (National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos & the Spanish Speaking) decided to form the Children in Crisis Task Force to get books into the hands of these children while their future is determined. The Children in Crisis Task Force Co-Chairs are looking for ways  to partner with immigrant youth centers. Co-Chair Patrick Sullivan states, “Vendors are waiting in the wings ready to donate books.” Through monetary donations REFORMA is ready to purchase books, backpacks and school supplies.

In September 2014, National REFORMA President Silvia Cisneros personally delivered the first shipment of donated books to McAllen, Texas. In October 2014, Theresa Garza Ybarra, President of REFORMA’s Estrella de Tejas Chapter coordinated a second shipment of donated books to Karnes City, Texas. REFORMA is currently working on a third shipment to Artesia, New Mexico with REFORMA de Nuevo Mexico Chapter President Flo Trujillo. Task Force Co-Chair Oralia Garza de Cortes says it is a slow challenging process that is important. She states, “(REFORMA) is the first group to put books into the detention facilities. No one has done that before.”

Sullivan says that the next phase of this project is to determine what REFORMA can do to help local chapters help newly arrived children in their region who have been re-united with their families but are still under order of removal. Some REFORMA chapters are already doing this such as Los Angeles and San Diego Libros. For example, Ady Huertas, Teen Center Manager for San Diego Public Library’s Central Library, is working closely with local community organization Southwest Key. They have a couple of centers that provide temporary housing and education for youth in transition. They arranged one class visit consisting of 2 centers and 3 classes with 20 youth aged 8-17 years old. Huertas gave them a tour, library cards, and introduced them to library resources. She also gave the youth free Spanish books and some incentives. She is now coordinating a second visit and hopes to schedule regular monthly visits. To her surprise, Huertas even received thank you notes in English! Huertas explains that libraries have a role in servicing this segment of the community. Huertas states, “We’re trying to introduce the library as a safe place and in cities anywhere where they end up, they should look for the local library and get resources and technology for free.”

Photo by Ady Huertas

Libraries have traditionally reached out to immigrant populations to help them navigate their way in a new country. Garza de Cortes notes that this population is different in that they have refugee protected status. When asked about the next steps, Garza de Cortes responded, “(We need to) create more awareness of our role and responsibility as librarians to provide accurate information for the families and work with agencies to be able to help them better understand the power of libraries and power of books to help children change their lives.”

To find out more information about this project or make a book or monetary donation, please visit the Children in Crisis site here.

Additional Resources:
* Tan, Shaun. The Arrival. A.A. Levine, 2006.
Tan, Shaun. Emigrantes. Barbara Fiore, 2007.
Graphic novel of the immigrant experience. Available in English and Spanish but completely wordless.

Art from “The Arrival”. Image from Shauntan.net

* Department of State. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. Office of Admissions Refugee Processing Center Affiliate Directory : From Boise, Idaho to Wheaton, Illinois, this official directory lists the many service agencies working directly with refugee children.

* Southwest Key Programs: Immigrant Youth Shelters : Information and map locator for shelters run by Southwest Key that temporarily house unaccompanied minors.

_______________________________________________________________________

Ana-Elba Pavon is the Branch Manager of Oakland Public Library’s Elmhurst Branch in Oakland, CA and is writing this post for the Public Awareness Committee. You can reach her at [email protected]

From Open Clip Art

The Afterschool Alliance just published a study regarding after school programs in the United States. This is the third study of its kind, following in the results from the 2004 and 2009 studies. The group wants to document where and how children spend their time between 3 and 6 PM. The previous studies, along with this one, show that there is a demand for after school programs.  However, more programming is needed to help reach the approximately 11.3 million children who are unsupervised after school.

The study is full of facts and figures. Such as: 18 percent (10.2 million) children participate in some after school program. This is an increase by nearly 2 million children when the study was conducted five years ago. We can only hope that number will continue to rise. Parents enroll their students in after school programs because it allows them to feel that their children are safe and also in an nurturing and creative environment. Parents that were polled were satisfied with their after school programs when the organization provided a snack, opportunity for physical activity, an environment to complete homework, and also a space for enrichment activities, such as STEM programs.

Income and ethnicity also played a role in the study; students from low-income families make up 45 percent of the students enrolled in after school programs and the most demand for after school programs is highest among African American families. This study confirmed that yes, we as a country are beginning to provide the after school programs our communities need, but a gap still exists.

So what does this mean for libraries and us as librarians? This is an opportunity to us to help out our community and potentially reach the population of people who feel underserved by after school programs. Of those 11.3 million children who are unsupervised, the majority are teens in middle and high school. For libraries, it can mean two things. The first is that we can either create some sort of informal (or formal) after school program or space for our teens to come to. If we foster an environment of learning and fun, we can help create a space the teens will flock to (at least, that’s what we hope). Our other option is reach out to after school programs in the area. We should ask ourselves, Where could the library fit in to their programming? Perhaps we could visit the program, or even just give them information about the library and events you offer. Regardless, establish some connection that says, “Hey, we’re the library and we are here for you.” If we can make our presence known, through establishing a place in our library or through outreach, we have the potential to make connections, ones that will last a long time. The study cited that students were more likely to continue the program into the summer. Hey, we do summer programming and wouldn’t it be great to get more kids involved? After school programs are our “in.” And in the process, we have the potential to do a lot of good.

So let’s get the conversation going. Are your libraries an after-school spot? What has worked for you? What has not? Since the study does not explicitly cite libraries as a spot for after-school program or programming, I’m curious to know what our librarians are already doing from that 3-6 PM time zone.

You know you’re an old  experienced children’s librarian when …

… you make public school outreach visits and you can recognize some of the kids from baby story time!

I spotted one child I remember from when I visited with his preschool class years ago. He was always the one with yogurt and Cheerios ® smashed on his head!

Photo: By Loadmaster (David R. Tribble) This image was made by Loadmaster (David R. Tribble) Email the author: David R. Tribble Also see my personal gallery at Google Picasa (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Have a great weekend, all, and remember – today’s babies are tomorrow’s library patrons.