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One of the greatest challenges faced by schools and universities today is preparing students for an unknown future. Our graduates will likely have multiple careers, work in new and emerging industries, grapple with technologies we can’t even imagine yet. And so we’re asking our staff to equip students with the skills they need to thrive in a potentially very different world to the one we live in now.

The post Into the unknown: professional development for future educators appeared first on OUPblog.

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What teacher of writers superpower would you like to develop this year?

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“Mrs. Sokolowski, I’m done!” It’s a refrain I’ve heard often from students, who tell me they are completely finished with a piece of writing. More times than not, as I read the student’s… Continue reading →

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When was the first time you felt like a writer? My earliest memory of being a writer was creating stories that my Grandma used to tell. She invented characters: “Good Gertie,” “Bad Betsy,” and… Continue reading →

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The sands of time are quickly running out for putting in program proposals for the exciting national conference on youth leadership and management coming in spring 2017. This is a perfect opportunity to pitch your thoughts and ideas relating to that topic.

The audience will be be both staff and managers, leaders and those who want to become more effective leaders. It promises to be a thought-provoking two days that hone in on the power that youth librarians hold!

Here are the details. But don't wait. The deadline is Sunday July 31.

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Sarah Houghton, she of the Librarian in Black blog, wrote a powerful post on lessons learned at ALA 2016.

She wrote: "I’ve had a hard few years professionally. I was looking for this conference to make me believe again–in what I do every day and in what I’ve dedicated my life to. Spoiler alert: It worked.  So…what did I learn?" Find out here.

You, like me, may find yourself nodding your head. 

Every day is a great day to be a librarian!

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Every year, more than $100,000 is given away through ALSC’s professional awards, grants, and scholarships.

Deserving libraries and members across the country receive support to attend conferences, host programs, and get recognized for their achievements.

ALSC announces that two professional award applications have already opened. More information on these awards can be found below:

Louise Seaman Bechtel Fellowship

This fellowship provides a $4,000 stipend to allow a qualified children’s librarian to spend a month or more reading at the University of Florida’s Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature, which contains a special collection of 85,000 volumes of children’s literature published mostly before 1950.

Applications due November 1, 2016.

Apply now!

ALSC Distinguished Service Award

This award honors an individual member who has made significant contributions to and an impact on, library services to children and ALSC. The recipient receives $2,000 and an engraved pin at the ALSC Membership Meeting during the ALA Annual Conference.

Applications due December 1, 2016.

The post Two ALSC Professional Award Applications Now Open appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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This spring I had the opportunity to attend the Bologna Children’s Book Fair along with 12 graduate students and their instructor, ALSC Past President and former Butler Children’s Literature Center Curator Thom Barthelmess. As the current Curator, I was eager to not only travel with such fun, smart, and like-minded colleagues, but to learn what children’s literature looks like around the world, and how the world sees us these days. The upshot? They like our books. Our politics, not so much.

While I was traveling on Dominican’s dime with support from the Butler Family Foundation, this trip also posed an opportunity for me, as ALSC Fiscal Officer, to learn firsthand about the impact, if any, of ALSC’s book and media awards internationally.

The first thing I learned should have been obvious: In addition to the vast market at Bologna for buying and selling rights to translate books to and from various languages and to publish them in other countries, there is a vibrant market and interest in original illustration. I saw three exhibits: the annual juried Bologna Illustrators Exhibition (featuring only one American illustrator this time, YooHee Joon); “Artists and Masterpieces of Illustration: 50 Illustrators Exhibit 1967-2016,” a special exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the annual one; and one featuring art from wordless picture books (the accepted term overseas is “silent books”). Beyond these exhibits, illustrators also promote their work directly to publishers here: the market for text is a translation one, so it’s not a place for authors to pitch manuscripts, it’s a more open opportunity for art.

A fascinating debate broke out on a panel discussion about the 50th anniversary exhibit. Panelist Leonard Marcus noted the positive development of an “international visual vocabulary” that has made it increasingly difficult to pigeonhole a book’s country of origin; Etienne Delessert countered that it’s still quite easy to identify an American picture book, at least (not necessarily a compliment). This reminded me of the ALSC Board’s decision a few years ago to maintain ALSC award eligibility for books originally published in the United States and by a U.S. citizen or resident, that “reaffirmed the importance of identifying and rewarding authentic and unique American children’s literature, in keeping with award founder Frederic Melcher’s original intent for these awards.” (Foote, The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books, 2010 edition).

These storied ALSC awards that have been around for decades are sacred in our association and well-known in the United States, but what do people overseas know, or think, about them?

While our awards don’t have nearly the impact on the business of publishing outside the United States as they do stateside, high international interest in illustration seems paralleled by interest in the Caldecott Medal, if not the others. This observation is supported by the ALSC office, which reports infrequent queries about seal use from international publishers, almost all about the Caldecott. U.S. publishers with whom I spoke indicated they’re never asked about awards or seals. However, I noticed many books that were published in other countries and languages were in fact ALSC award winners, even though they did not bear the award seal. This could mean overseas publishers recognize our awards as arbiters of quality and are therefore more likely to buy books that win, seal or no seal; or that they might want seals for book promotion purposes but don’t know how to procure them.

Click to view slideshow.

There is certainly an upside to promoting seal use internationally to raise the international profile of ALA, ALSC, and our media awards. Challenges include the need for publishers in other countries to respect U.S. trademark law (our seal images are ALA’s intellectual property); the need for an acknowledgement printed on the book that the non-U.S. edition is not the exact one evaluated by the committee; and the desire of some overseas publishers to work wording in their own language into the seal image itself. ALSC works hard to protect the integrity and reputation of these awards that have stood us in such good stead over the past 80 or so years, so we’ll continue to carefully shepherd appropriate seal use while encouraging its worldwide adoption to the extent we can.

(All pictures courtesy of Guest Blogger)

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Our guest blogger is Diane Foote. Diane is assistant dean and curator of the Butler Children’s Literature Center at Dominican University GSLIS in River Forest, Illinois, and the ALSC Fiscal Officer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].

The post ALSC Awards Overseas: A View from the Bologna Children’s Book Fair appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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ALSC is now accepting proposals for innovative programs for the 2017 ALA Annual Conference. Be part of this exciting professional development opportunity by submitting your program today!

To submit a program proposal for the 2017 Annual Conference, please visit the ALSC website. for the submission form and instructions. The 2017 ALA Annual Conference is scheduled for June 22-27, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. All proposals must be submitted by Thursday, June 2, 2016.

Submit a proposal

Need help getting started? In January, the Program Coordinating Committee put out a call for ideas and asked for your feedback. We offered thirteen topic areas and asked members to rank their favorites. Here are all thirteen topic areas we suggested ranked in order of ALSC members’ choices:

1. Diversity in children’s lit
2. Partnerships and outreach
3. Age specific programming
4. STEM/STEAM
5. Summer learning
6. Difficult conversations
7. Media mentorship
8. Recent immigrant communities
9. Collection development
10. Diversity in the profession
11. Advocacy
12. Gender diversity
13. Networking

Need more inspiration? Below you’ll find additional ideas suggested by ALSC members in response to the survey. These are not ranked and appear in the order in which they were received. Additional Program Ideas:

• Continuing Education after the MLIS
• Working with difficult coworkers/directors/city agencies– best practices, stress relief, etc.
• Programming for Children with Special Needs
• Localized networking- how to bring back info from ALA, etc, and share with people who can’t afford time/money for conference
• Poetry, poetry programs, apps, National Poetry Month
• Social services: ie. Food programs at the library to serve hungry families, homelessness, libraries as a safe environment etc
• Child development and how it relates to library services, the mechanics of reading ( to help with readers advisory for emerging readers)
• The impact on tech on families
• Recent youth space upgrades/renovations. Slide shows etc
• Early Literacy/Babies Need Words
• Preschool Programming outside of storytime
• Becoming a youth services manager
• Statistics, budgeting
• I would love to see a diversity track that covers diversity in the profession, networking with others that are from a more diverse culture, diversity in children’s lit, gender diversity, also how to encourage diversity in publishing and other areas related to libraries.
• Creating a culture of reading in our community
• Time/workload management; librarian lifehacks
• Leadership and management chops
• Homeschooling
• Serving low-income kids and families
• Parent involvement
• Advancing early literacy best practices based on research- screens and reality

Please note that participants attending ALSC programs are seeking valuable educational experiences; the Program Coordinating Committee will not select a program session that suggests commercial sales or self-promotion. Presentations should provide a valuable learning experience and avoid being too limited in scope.

Please contact the chair of the ALSC Program Coordinating Committee, Amy Martin with questions.

Submit a proposal

Image courtesy of ALSC.

The post Submit a #alaac17 Program Proposal appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) encourages participants to sign up for Summer 2016 ALSC online courses. Registration is open for all courses. Classes begin Monday, July 11, 2016.

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

NEW! Engaging Readers and Writers with Interactive Fiction
4 weeks, July 11 – August 5, 2016
Instructor: Christian Sheehy, Digital Initiatives Librarian, Xavier University

The Newbery Medal: Past, Present and Future
6 weeks, July 11 – August 13, 2016
Instructor: KT Horning, Director, Cooperative Children’s Book Center, University of Wisconsin- Madison

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Programs Made Easy
4 weeks, July 11 – August 5, 2016
CEU Certified Course, 1.2 CEUs
Instructor: Angela Young, Head of Children’s Department, Reed Memorial Library

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

Images are courtesy of ALSC.

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

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This past November, I saw a post on our
North Carolina State Library blog about the new Competencies for Librarians Serving Children in Public Libraries.  After reading, I was curious to see how they compared to our North Carolina School Library Media Coordinator Standards.  Similar to other states, our NC SLMC standards are based on guidelines from AASL, ISTE, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, ALA/AASL Standards for Initial Preparation of School Librarians and other state standards.  After reading this document and noticing that it is geared towards those serving ages birth to 14, I decided to also check out YALSA’s Competencies for Librarians Serving Youth* since I am in a high school setting.

I wanted to see if there were areas where we overlapped that might be used to promote more collaboration between school and public librarians.  I noticed that we had similar standards although some of our elements may come under different standard headings.  Some key places for collaboration are education, resources and digital access, professional development and advocacy.  Below, I have listed standards from ALSC and YALSA that I felt correlated with our NC school librarian standards.   You can match up your own state’s school librarian standards where mine are listed.

Educational Practices
ALSC Standard I.5. Understands current educational practices, especially those related to literacy and inquiry.

ALSC Standard II.2. Instructs and supports children in the physical and digital use of library tools and resources, information gathering and research skills, and empowers children to choose materials and services on their own.

YALSA Standard II.1. Become familiar with the developmental needs of young adults in order to provide the most appropriate resources and services.

YALSA Standard VII.5. Instruct young adults in basic information gathering, research skills and information literacy skills – including those necessary to evaluate and use electronic information sources – to develop life-long learning habits.

NC SLMC Standard 1.a. School library media coordinators lead in the school library media center and media program to support student success.

NC SLMC Standard 4.a. School library media coordinators use effective pedagogy to infuse content-area curricula with 21^st Century skills.

In order to facilitate your local public librarians’ ability to keep up with educational practices, make a point of sharing any new state educational guidelines that are issued and also any school improvement initiatives that your particular school is implementing.  They may be able to facilitate your school meeting some of your initiatives.  Each semester I have the public librarians and the college librarians come in to do a session with our seniors before they start their Graduation Projects.  We instruct them on accessing the resources at the school library and also at the public and college libraries and review proper citation guidelines for using resources.  We are discussing also having them come in next year to do sessions with our juniors.

Resources and Digital Access
ALSC Standard II. 1. Creates and maintains a physical and digital library environment that provides the best possible access to materials and resources for children of all cultures and abilities and their caregivers.

YALSA Standard VI. 5. Be an active partner in the development and implementation of technology and electronic resources to ensure young adults’ access to knowledge and information.

NC SLMC Standard 3.a. School library media coordinators develop a library collection that supports 21^st Century teaching and learning.

There are a number of public librarians from different states that are creating student access policies with school librarians so students can have easier access to digital and print resources.  Charlotte-Mecklenburg in NC has successfully been running their One Access collaboration format for a year now.  Our county is looking into developing a similar program.  Currently our high school librarians have worked with the public library to provide digital access for our students.  If there is a resource that you think would benefit your students and it is something that your library cannot afford, see if it is available at the public library and if there is a way that your students may be able to access it.

Programming
ALSC Standard III.7. Delivers programs outside or inside the library to meet users where they are, addressing community and educational needs, including those of unserved and underserved populations.

YALSA Standard VII.3. Provide a variety of informational and recreational services to meet the diverse needs and interests of young adults and to direct their own personal growth and development.

NC SLMC Standard 4.c. School library media coordinators promote reading as a foundational skill for learning.

Who doesn’t want help with running a special program or author visit to your school.  Public librarians are also good sources for book talks, helping with Battle of the Books events or collaborating on a makerspace activity, especially if you haven’t created one of your own yet. If your public library is located where your students live, see if you can help with afterschool programs or a weekend program, that way your students can see you in a variety of libraries and become aware that both librarians are there to support them.

Professional Development
ALSC Standard VII.9. Participates in local, state, and national professional organizations to strengthen skills, interact with fellow professionals, promote professional association scholarships and contribute to the library profession.

YALSA Standard III2. Develop relationships and partnerships with young adults, administrators and other youth-serving professionals in the community be establishing regular communication and by taking advantage of opportunities to meet in person.

NC SLMC Standard 5.b. School library media coordinators link professional growth to their professional goals.

We all enjoy going to conferences, in part to exchange ideas with fellow librarians. But there is often the issue of lack of time and funds.  Why not set up a local one-day conference and invite local school, public and academic librarians?  I am a member of the Azalea Coast Library Association which covers several area counties; we are about to have our first one-day conference with participants from all types of libraries including librarians from our local hospital.  No one has very far to travel and the very low registration fee includes lunch.  Another idea is to set up an after-school or workday coffee break with your public librarians to share information about what is taking place in your libraries.

Advocacy
ALSC Standard V.6. Communicates and collaborates in partnership with other agencies, institutions and organizations serving children in the community, to achieve common goals and overcome barriers created by socioeconomic circumstances, culture, privilege, language, gender, ability, and other diversities.

YALSA Standard III.3. Be an advocate for young adults and effectively promote the role of the library in serving young adults, demonstrating that the provision of services to this group can help young adults build assets, achieve success, and in turn, create a stronger community.

NC SLMC Standard 1.c. School library media coordinators advocate for effective media programs.

Working by yourself to advocate for a strong library program may be difficult at times but working with all local librarians together could provide opportunities to showcase the benefits to the community of not only the school library program but also the public library program.  By collaborating on joint ventures, you will be better able to make the community aware of how library use from toddlers through young adulthood creates life-long learners, which benefits the community as a whole.

If you are the only librarian in your school you may sometimes feel (with budget and time constraints) that you have a difficult time meeting your own standards for evaluation.  Remember that there are also public librarians you can collaborate with to make it easier for both of you to meet your own individual goals.  Look through ALSC’s and YALSA’s competencies to find areas that you both share and that would benefit your program.  There are many more standards that overlap with our own school librarian standards. Comment with any ideas that you have for connecting one of your school librarian standards with ALSC’s and YALSA’s standards. Or, if you are a public librarian point out a standard that you feel you would be able to collaborate on with a school librarian easily.

*YALSA’s revised standards are due to be published in the summer of 2016. Visit this link to see a draft of the updated competencies.

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Joann Absi is the media coordinator at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is a member of of the AASL/ALSC/YALSA Interdivisional Committee on School-Public Library Cooperation and currently blogs for Knowledge Quest. 

The post Gimme a C (for Collaboration!): How Our Standards Relate and Interconnect appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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Four of us will present at The Educator Collaborative Spring Gathering tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.

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A children’s librarian’s basket of professional responsibilities often overflows with programming demands and story time schedules. Initially, it may appear impossible to carve out time for training amidst preparing for the next presentation or serving the latest day care, but it’s valuable that we recognize how critical regular training is to our effectiveness in reaching our communities. What training do you hope to add to your basket of professional development? Summer reading workshops, departmental classes, and powerful partnerships will aid us in meeting staff needs.

Sweet Summer Reading

Fairly soon, a youth services librarian’s busiest time of year will be upon us: the season of summer reading. To encourage and equip staff to meet these demands, the State Library of North Carolina offers summer reading workshops. These one day events provide a variety of sessions for staff serving tots through teens. Some course offerings focus on program logistics, such as how to develop a baby summer reading program, and other sessions highlight a specific type of programming related to the summer reading theme. A popular workshop component includes the summer reading showcase and features professional performers who share their shows with librarians interested in booking these performances for their libraries. These summer reading workshops serve as a valuable training staple for youth services staff within all sizes of public libraries across our state.

Internal Offerings

Internal training is another valuable resource to place in our professional basket. Whether training is seamlessly introduced through one-on-one instruction or small classes, system-driven training remains critical when determining the effectiveness of staff’s interaction with the public. In addition to two mornings of professional development and classes offered throughout the year, our library gears biannual training specifically toward the needs of youth services staff. Staff suggestions during our Youth Services Advisory Council meetings give youth services managers the forum to provide recommendations of future training topics to strengthen their skill sets. Our spring youth services training will focus on coding programs to enhance staff comfort so we may increase these program offerings for children and teens at our various library branches.

Powerful Partnerships

Youth services partnerships, whether they are with local agencies or other library departments, frequently identity training needs. Conversations with other professionals serving children and teens offer chances to brainstorm, collaborate and to recognize areas of concern within our communities. One example of this partnership is the library’s involvement with the Child Advocacy Center. The Child Advocacy Center provides Darkness to Light training for library staffers who provide youth reference services to assist our employees in recognizing the signs of childhood sexual abuse and to minimize the opportunities for trauma.

Training experiences, found through summer reading workshops, departmental classes, and valuable community partnerships, provide a plethora of rich resources to aid in staff development. How does training strengthen the skills of staff in your communities?  What type of training do you want to place in your professional development basket? Please share in the comments below!

The post A Tisket, a Tasket, Put Training in Your Basket appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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One of my favorite kinds of professional development is having an opportunity to visit other teachers’ classrooms (aka: lab sites). It helps to see how other teachers carry out instruction with their students.… Continue reading →

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This month, interspersed with the Slice of Life Story Challenge, my colleagues and I are writing about professional development possibilities. Many of our readers are literacy coaches, team leaders, administrators, professors, and classroom teachers… Continue reading →

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Over the past few months, I’ve been part of a Professional Development day for teachers throughout our local school board. They spend the day working on using picture books for reading and writing lessons, and then I come in for an hour and show them how to look at picture books as art objects. My experience on the Caldecott committee really comes in useful here– I have been sharing the books from our 2015 list, because I know those so well. I’ve been able to find something new in the books, to find a different way of looking at the books.

That’s what surprises me most– to find a new way to look at picture books. I have spent so many years as a librarian looking at the art and storytime potential. Now I also look at the teaching potential.  For instance: I just learned about “thought tracking”. Basically, it is taking one character and teasing out that character’s thoughts. It is a way to get kids to think about the author’s intent, a way to get them to think about their own writing. In this case, we discover that the dog in Sam & Dave Dig a Hole is a perfect candidate — the dog is never mentioned, nor does it have any dialogue, and yet is is a major character. When I looked at the art, I realized this immediately. But I did not think of it as a writing exercise. So the teachers are teaching me while I am teaching them.

Sharing picture books with teachers has been, then, a learning experience for me. It is a win-win, because not only do I get to share new picture books and how to look closely at them, I get to share library resources. I have started to include a “for teachers” segment in my blog posts. My handouts incorporate all our library social media & website address. I give them library card applications. I remind them that the library is there for them with thousands of classroom materials. This has been the start of a great partnership, one that we both get something from. How do you share books with your local teachers?

The post Taking picture books to teachers appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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Greetings! As part of this year’s Emerging Leaders cohort, we are a group of public and school librarians from different libraries around the country (Arkansas, California, Missouri, Ohio, and Washington) working with the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, to conduct an environmental scan of current trends in children’s library services.

We hope that you can take approximately two to four minutes to answer this quick survey. Our goal is for this survey to give us a more detailed sense of what trends are the most relevant and important to librarians serving children and youth and how ALSC can best support librarians’ professional development needs. If you have any questions or would like to talk more about the survey and/or the project, please email us at: [email protected]

Take the 2016 ALSC Environmental Scan Survey2016 ALSC Environmental Scan Survey

The post Take the 2016 ALSC Environmental Scan Survey appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Images are courtesy of ALSC. 

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

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January was National Mentoring Month, but there’s still time to make a difference. The ALSC Mentoring Program is in it’s third year of existence and it’s worth re-visiting what the program is all about.

In 2012, the ALSC Emerging Leaders team put together recommendations for a new mentoring program. The original intention was to pair early career professionals with experienced ALSC members. Since Fall 2013, ALSC has been matching mentors and mentees in an effort to make new connections in the profession and increase awareness of interest and familiarity with ALSC committee service and participation.

Mentors and mentees set their own goals and meet on their own time. Matches do a lot of different activities, including mock interviews, writing blog posts, and performing research.

What Does It Take To Be a Mentor?

One difficulty for the program has been in attracting as many mentors as mentees.  The misconception is that it is easy to be a mentee, but hard to be a mentor. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

To combat this, the ALSC Membership Committee and Managing Children’s Services Committees have come up with three suggestions for why you should be a mentor:

1. Being a mentor is giving back to the profession
2. Mentoring requires only a few hours of time per month
3. It can be as easy as having a 30-min conversation every two weeks

ALSC has also sought to increase communication about what happens in the program. Every year, ALSC hosts two mentoring forums – one in the fall, one in the spring – to bring matches together to talk about goals and obstacles. If you’re curious check out the recorded webcasts of these events to learn more.

Thank You Mentors and Mentees!

Another one of the new practices of the program is to recognize mentors and mentees for their participation. The following mentors and mentees were matched in Spring 2015. We thank them and wish them well in their future endeavors:

Spring 2015 Mentors

• Jordan Boaz
• Anne Clark
• Mary Cook
• Cheri Crow
• Carol Edwards
• Lucia Gonzalez
• Christie Hamm
• Carol Hopkins
• Abby Johnson
• Kendra Jones
• Julie Jurgens
• Rachel Keeler
• Laura Keonig
• Marybeth Kozikowski
• Mollie Lancaster
• Meghan Malone
• Angie Manfredi
• Allison Murphy
• Brooke Newberry
• Carol Phillips
• Marian Rafl
• Julie Ranelli
• Angela Reynolds
• Kristina Reynolds
• Katie Salo
• Brooke Sheets
• Robin Sofge
• Kelly Von Zee
• Marc Waldron

Spring 2015 Mentees

• Emily Aaronson
• Megan Ashley
• Carly Bastiansen
• Emily Bayci
• Jeannine Birkenfeld
• Amy Cantley
• Katie Carter
• Kathleen Dean
• Jessica Espejel
• Joie Formando
• Haley Frailey
• Rebecca Greer
• Pamela Groseclose
• Emily Heath
• Ajarie Holman
• Kimberly Iacucci
• Amanda Jachec
• Taylor Johnson
• Kristen Jones
• Naara Kean
• Kari Kunst
• Samantha Magee
• Kate Mahoney
• Kyra Nay
• Alison O’Brien
• Renee Perron
• Jessica Ralli
• Amy Steinbauer
• Mary Watring

How You Can Participate

Want to be a mentor or mentee? ALSC is now accepting applications for the Spring 2016 cohort. The deadline to apply is Friday, February 26, 2016.

The post Mentoring: How You Can Give Back to the Profession appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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Pixabay image

I've been trying over the past couple of months to finish writing on two projects.*

For the first time in a really long time, I found it a real challenge to get down to business and put fingers to keyboard to do the actual composition of what amounts to five presentations all due within a few days of each other. I procrastinated over this in November and December. EVERYTHING seemed to take precedence over writing - from the ridiculous to the mundane. You know, that stuff.

While immersed in this procrastination period, I worried whether I was having some kind of performance anxiety. Why couldn't I get down to business? Was I struggling because I had bitten the forbidden fruit of retirement relaxation and lost some of my drive and discipline? Was I feeling like I had less to say on these subjects because I was less active in the day to day of librarianship? Or had I simply lost the confidence to express myself?

January finally kick-started me (as looming deadlines will) and I got 'er done (hurray)!

Then the tinkering started.  I dipped in and out of what I wrote constantly (thank you computers for letting me make constant revisions so easily). No sooner would I say, "I'm done" then a new piece of research would be published, a new blog post from a peer, a new article in the professional journals, a new Twitter thread, a new conversation with colleagues would get me right back to revising and refining my thinking.

If that all wasn't enough, over the past few days, during the amazing Wild WI Winter web conference developed by the equally amazing Jamie Matczak from the Nicolet Federated Library System, I plunged into webinar after webinar (and so can you - all the webinars are archived in the site).

You guys, I learned so much!! And that lightening bolt thought stitched together the last few month's writing delays into a realization.

It wasn't performance anxiety that held me back. It was more that I was learning so continuously that committing to something as a finished product seemed almost sacrilegious. Each revelation adds to my thinking and enlarges my view of librarianship. How can something one writes or thinks or believes ever be truly "finished"?

I don't think I'm alone here. In fact you may be going "She is one dense person. Isn't this obvious?" But that's learning for you.

Our lives are constantly about learning and revising and growing. This best part of our librarianship involves that ability to absorb, debate, revise, change, evolve and build on what we know given all the things we encounter in all the places. I am so appreciative of all the sharing everyone does that helps me keep learning and growing.

And I swear, I'll stop and call the class finished now (oh, look a link....).

*One was a webinar on my 10 biggest management mistakes for the Wild WI Winter Web conference (above). The other is an upcoming four week class on youth management problem solving for UW-Madison SLIS CE

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This girl’s force is about to go to sleep but I thought I’d give you all an impression from the first day before I turn out the lights and pull open the hotel curtains so I can see that fabulous skyline of Boston that stretches across the full length of my window.

Here we are in the land of Harvard, MIT, the Charles River, Fenway, Top of the Hub and the Boston Tea Party.    You feel the whispers of the past as you walk and drive this city.   History lives in the mortar around here.

This whirlwind day has offered hints of our roots and handed me an opportunity to ascend a very steep learning curve in the land of Uber.  I needed Uber to get around today and Uber and I were just getting to know each other.

To get Uber moving for me required the help and savvy of two lovely employees at the registration desk at the Westin Boston Waterfront.  They didn’t blink an eye.  They just took my smartphone and went to work and conjured up Daniel in a Toyota Camry.

(Oh, and the awesome guy at the ALA registration who told me how to get my free ride by putting in the promo code Feeling22…. Worked like a charm.)

So Daniel and I zipped across town to Cambridge so I could meet with Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid. We got a cup of tea together and talked about our shared passion for giving children the best chance at life we can imagine by opening them up to books.

She is one of the brightest lights I’ve run into in my life and it was an honor and a privilege to spend time with her.

We talked about the challenge we all face in managing screen time and young children. Even this neuroscientist says the research we have to guide us is piecemeal. We have no longitudinal studies at this point.

Next a lovely employee at Sofra Cafe and Bakery helped me figure out how to get past the block on my phone’s screen…turns out you have to rate the driver of the previous Uber ride and then you can get conjure up the next one.   I stood inside the Cafe watching out the window for Paul in a Honda Fit.

Paul and I zipped back across town and I listened to Paul describe his career “Portfolio.”  Seems that now instead of working one job…you work a portfolio of jobs.   Paul teaches ESL to au pairs and scientists and is also working on the Emergency Services plan and policies for Washington, D.C.  His GPS delivered me to the loading dock of the Westin but I assured him I could get back to my hotel via the Convention Center. You gotta laugh…this technology has almost, almost I say… got it right.

Back at the hotel I changed into something slightly sparkly and graduated to being able to call my own Uber…yayyyy….and Mark came to the rescue in an Infinity and careened across the city to the Candlewick Publishing event at a suite at Fenway Park. Talk about history and whispers.  Talk about authors…Matt Tavares, M.T. Anderson, Timothy Basil Ering, David Elliott to name a few…and looking at the Golden Glove Awards won by various Red Sox greats. There was the big green monster and there was Peter H. Reynolds.  Hallowed halls indeed.

By now I can get an Uber ride with one hand tied behind my back. Totally starting to get into this thing.  Hey, no money changes hands, right?  You just click on the little Uber icon and tell ’em where you want to go and they send someone in 4 minutes and off you go.

My fellow adventurer, a wonderful Texas librarian named Cynthia Alvarez, and I headed off into the night with Nasr in a Honda Civic.  Nasr I am sorry to tell you seemed to circle the block a time or two.  Let’s just say we kept passing the famous Citgo sign and I think maybe we should only have had that little treat one time.

Cynthia and I peered out the window as we got deep into downtown because Nasr’s GPS was getting a bit fitful. Finally we convinced him that we could see the Prudential Building so we got him to stop the car and let us out.  Then Cynthia and I had to figure out how to get up to the Top of the Hub. Then we had to show our ID to get up to the Top of the Hub.

The elevator ride to the Top of the Hub delivered us to the Simon and Schuster Dessert event where we found old friends and were treated to Cassandra Clare surrounded by a group of students who could not believe their good luck. There was cotton candy, fruit…(no one was eating the fruit)..some kind of blue martini looking beverage in fabulous long-stemmed glasses… fancy pastries and then….. at the far end of the room was the lovely lady making crepes.  I kid you not.  She cooked up the crepe and you added your raspberries, blueberries, vanilla sauce, raspberry sauce, chocolate sauce, whipped cream…yep ….it was the most fabulous way to end the evening.

There we were looking out over the city of Boston with all of its twinkling lights and its Revolutionary ghosts and an army of Uber drivers.

Cynthia and I headed back to the hotel via Uber and Miguel and his small car to be named later.   Miguel had been in the IT business and had lost his job.  His dream now is to move to Florida and invest in a business with his wife.  He has two small children…one is 2 1/2 and one is 4 months. He also has a daughter who is 22. We asked him if his daughter is in college and he said she tried it but after one semester she didn’t know what she wanted to do so she left.

Yep, typical day in the life of a librarian.  I think we pretty much have the same job as these Uber guys.  We meet all kinds of people and we help them get where they want to go.  It’s that part about the credit card that we need to iron out.  Can you imagine if every time we walked a library customer through their “trip” our phone was ringing up their credit card? I don’t know…this is starting to sound pretty good to me… I wonder what the Sons of Liberty would say?

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Now that you’ve seen the new ALSC Competencies, do you need a refresh?

1. Commitment to Client Group. Because everyone deserves excellent library services.

2. Reference and User Services. Considering context and format of delivery, along with the information itself.

3. Programming Skills. Sometimes you need backup to keep it fresh.

4. Knowledge, Curation, and Management of Materials. When’s the last time you really looked at your collection?

5. Outreach and Advocacy. Saying it in a way they will hear it.

6. Administrative and Management Skills. (It can take a while to refine the art.)

7. Professionalism and Professional Development. This is just the beginning. Even when it seems like the middle.

Just remember, let the Competencies guide you. Because the library:

This post comes from the ALSC Education Committee. Images are not the property of ALSC; shared as commentary under fair use guidelines.

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So much learning happens through play. Play can help children practice language, motor skills, problem-solving skills and social skills. Many of our libraries may already include free play as part of our storytime programs for young children to support this growth. We may not realize it, though, but there are many barriers to play that exist for children with special needs.  Some of the kids in our communities may not be equipped with the skills to play without accommodations or support. So it’s important that we develop strategies to be inclusive and enable access to play for all.

Coming up with accessible and inclusive play-based activities and games for storytime programs can be a challenge if you do not have a background in occupational therapy or special education. Thankfully, there are a variety of up to date and valuable resources at our disposal to help us learn about inclusive play-based programs.  Check out this professional literature–or interlibrary loan it from your nearest library–to learn more!

Early Intervention Games: Fun, Joyful Ways to Develop Social and Motor Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum or Sensory Processing Disorders by Barbara Sher

 

 

Including Families of Children with Special Needs by Carrie Banks

 

 

 

Social Skills Activities for Special Children by Darlene Mannix

 

 

 

The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun, Revised Edition: Activities for Kids with Sensory Processing Disorder by Carol Kranowitz

 

 

 

Playing, Laughing, and Learning with Children on the Autism Spectrum: A Practical Resource of Play Ideas for Parents and Carers by Julia Moor

 

 

 

Inclusive Play: Practical Strategies for Children from Birth to Eight by Theresa Casey

 

 

101 Games and Activities for Children with Autism, Asperger’s and Sensory Processing Disorders by Tara Delaney

 

 

 

Renee Grassi, LSSPCC Committee Member

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We’re heading into the final days of 2015 and it’s also the the final days before the next semester of ALSC online courses!

With topics like school/library collaboration, STEM programming, and the Sibert Medal, you can bring new ideas into your library! Classes begin Monday, January 4, 2016.

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

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

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

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

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

Image courtesy of ALSC.

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