Hello everyone!
So, it’s been a while since I’ve posted a weekly update. My Facebook page has been busy with links to blog posts and articles, but I haven’t actually written down what I’ve been doing because it’s been so busy. So, here we go.
The last two weeks began with a meeting with the Secondary School Librarians. It’s always great to find out what they are doing, and to inform them about our upcoming programs. School librarians are awesome!
In addition to meeting with the School Librarians, I also went into the schools to finish up the Atlas After School Academy. After creating slideshows on their partners, I had the guys split into two groups and create commercials. One group decided to do it on Beyblades (dueling tops basically) and the other group decided to do a comical commercial on Toxic Water and Toxic Band-Aids. I had a great time with the guys, and they seemed to have a great time as well. Getting the chance to be creative is always fun!
The end of that week caught me flying to Boise for the culmination of Teens and Technology 2011. It was my first time in an airplane, and it was my first time traveling for business. I thought that flying to Boise was a great way to break myself into traveling because it’s a short and easy flight. I find that I really enjoy flying (feels like a roller coaster), and the hotel was plenty nice.
The Idaho Commission for Libraries held regional workshops in February, and after we submitted our booktrailers and held our Teen Tech Week programs, we wanted to get together and discuss what worked and what didn’t work. In addition to brainstorming and discussing, there were also presentations from librarians. I presented on our Teen Film Festival and how we promoted it, another librarian spoke on adding videos to a card catalog, and another spoke on using a digital photo frame for promotion. The workshop was a lot of fun, and I find that I like business trips!
One of the reasons I didn’t put up a weekly update last week was because I had written a blog post for the Special Project Library Action Team. You can access it here. This was exciting because anyone can start their own blog, but it’s pretty cool to write for a collaboration blog read by people across the state.
After all my work with the ICfL, they wanted to feature me in their Youth Services newsletter, “The Scoop.” They had me fill out a profile and send in some pictures, and they wrote a cool article about me. You can read it here.
Sorry this is a little long, but it takes a while to write about two weeks. Hehe
Have a great week!
Showing posts with label Teen Tech Week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teen Tech Week. Show all posts
Friday, April 1, 2011
Friday, December 10, 2010
Creating Successful Teen Programming...
Is it possible to create successful teen programming starting from the ground up? I think so.
Now, I won’t say that I have successful teen programming at this point. But I will say that I hope to create a successful teen program in the next few years. What do I base this confidence on? Well the first thing is that other libraries have done it. Other libraries, of equal size to our library and district, have created and maintained a successful teen program. I hope I can learn from their experiences and successes to help our success.
Another confidence booster is the budding success of Airband Awesomeness. I’ve contacted one of the families that came to the event, and they are excited that we are doing something similar with Jingle Bell Rock. They said they would be spreading the word about the event. I think this will be the biggest step toward a successful teen program; teens and families wanting to get involved with it. I can try to create great programs, post things on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, but if young adults aren’t being served and enriched, it is all for naught. I hope I can remain even more fully focused on serving our young adult patrons with everything I do.
Finally, I am starting to see interested educators come along side our efforts to start teen programming. As soon as I’ve mentioned teen programming to parents, educators, and librarians, they immediately get excited about it. There hasn’t been a lot done for teens in the library, so I think having somebody on that encourages people. Obviously, I can’t create a successful program on my own, and I thank everyone who has helped me to this point, and everyone who will help me in the future.
So, what is your Community Library Network at Hayden doing in the next few months? We will be launching a Library Next-Gen website. We will be involved in Teen Tech Week and our annual Three Minute Teen Film Festival. We will be continuing to get you new books, and keep our collection up to date. We will start posting book lists that hopefully you will enjoy. We will be starting a Next-Gen Advisory Group in the summer. And we will continue to find what you need from the Community Library Network at Hayden.
Hope you have a great week and thanks for reading!
Now, I won’t say that I have successful teen programming at this point. But I will say that I hope to create a successful teen program in the next few years. What do I base this confidence on? Well the first thing is that other libraries have done it. Other libraries, of equal size to our library and district, have created and maintained a successful teen program. I hope I can learn from their experiences and successes to help our success.
Another confidence booster is the budding success of Airband Awesomeness. I’ve contacted one of the families that came to the event, and they are excited that we are doing something similar with Jingle Bell Rock. They said they would be spreading the word about the event. I think this will be the biggest step toward a successful teen program; teens and families wanting to get involved with it. I can try to create great programs, post things on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, but if young adults aren’t being served and enriched, it is all for naught. I hope I can remain even more fully focused on serving our young adult patrons with everything I do.
Finally, I am starting to see interested educators come along side our efforts to start teen programming. As soon as I’ve mentioned teen programming to parents, educators, and librarians, they immediately get excited about it. There hasn’t been a lot done for teens in the library, so I think having somebody on that encourages people. Obviously, I can’t create a successful program on my own, and I thank everyone who has helped me to this point, and everyone who will help me in the future.
So, what is your Community Library Network at Hayden doing in the next few months? We will be launching a Library Next-Gen website. We will be involved in Teen Tech Week and our annual Three Minute Teen Film Festival. We will be continuing to get you new books, and keep our collection up to date. We will start posting book lists that hopefully you will enjoy. We will be starting a Next-Gen Advisory Group in the summer. And we will continue to find what you need from the Community Library Network at Hayden.
Hope you have a great week and thanks for reading!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Where did last week go?
Well my last blog post ended talking about my crazy week that wasn’t quite over, so I figured I’d tell you how my last week ended.
Just after writing my blog post I went over to Mountain States Early Head Start. Karen Yother has a day care that comes in once a month, and this time Head Start was at the same time. Although Karen would like to, she can’t be in two places at once, so off I went to Head Start. Obviously Head Start isn’t in my target audience of middle and high schoolers, but I still enjoy playing puppets with toddlers. We went over some colors, animal sounds, sang some songs; it was good.
Right after Head Start I jumped into our library van with some other staff members and drove over to Gonzaga University for INCOL’s spring workshop. Inland Northwest Council of Libraries (INCOL) does two workshops a year, and this workshop was on “Intellectual Freedom.” We had about thirty librarians discussing the Library Bill of Rights, Censorship, Freedom of Speech, Intellectual Freedom, the First Amendment, and obviously Intellectual Freedom. Once we got these overarching documents and principles, we got into the nitty-gritty of how these principles apply to libraries and librarians. As the Library Bill of Rights says, “materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation,” and “libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues.”
Well that was Friday, and the next day we had our award night for our Teen Film Festival that started back during Teen Tech Week 2009. Of our six entries, Ryan took first place with “Earth in Focus,” Josh and Daniel took second with, “We are the Earth,” and Matt took third with, “Life.” Congratulations again to our winners, and thanks to everyone who submitted an entry.
Well I’m already half way through my blog post, and I still haven’t talked about this week yet. My week started meeting with the Coeur d’ Alene School of Woodworking. One of our tween summer reading programs is going to be making wooden boats, and the shop said they would donate wood and materials for our program. Thank you to the CDA School of Woodworking.
I had my second meeting with the Teen Read Week Coordinating Committee. We talked about promoting Teen Read Week, and there were some really fun ideas that might get funded through the state. Stay tuned as October gets closer. Although I’m still new to the idea of meeting through the internet, I think its pretty slick that people from different time zones and from every area of Idaho can speak directly to each other through a pair of headphones and a microphone. Good stuff.
Two more quick things to mention. First, summer reading registration is coming up June 1 for all ages. So stop by the Hayden Library, or register online at ksalibraries.org.
Secondly, I’m going to be adding some new content to the blog every Wednesday, so be looking for my announcement.
Hope you all have a great week, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.
Just after writing my blog post I went over to Mountain States Early Head Start. Karen Yother has a day care that comes in once a month, and this time Head Start was at the same time. Although Karen would like to, she can’t be in two places at once, so off I went to Head Start. Obviously Head Start isn’t in my target audience of middle and high schoolers, but I still enjoy playing puppets with toddlers. We went over some colors, animal sounds, sang some songs; it was good.
Right after Head Start I jumped into our library van with some other staff members and drove over to Gonzaga University for INCOL’s spring workshop. Inland Northwest Council of Libraries (INCOL) does two workshops a year, and this workshop was on “Intellectual Freedom.” We had about thirty librarians discussing the Library Bill of Rights, Censorship, Freedom of Speech, Intellectual Freedom, the First Amendment, and obviously Intellectual Freedom. Once we got these overarching documents and principles, we got into the nitty-gritty of how these principles apply to libraries and librarians. As the Library Bill of Rights says, “materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation,” and “libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues.”
Well that was Friday, and the next day we had our award night for our Teen Film Festival that started back during Teen Tech Week 2009. Of our six entries, Ryan took first place with “Earth in Focus,” Josh and Daniel took second with, “We are the Earth,” and Matt took third with, “Life.” Congratulations again to our winners, and thanks to everyone who submitted an entry.
Well I’m already half way through my blog post, and I still haven’t talked about this week yet. My week started meeting with the Coeur d’ Alene School of Woodworking. One of our tween summer reading programs is going to be making wooden boats, and the shop said they would donate wood and materials for our program. Thank you to the CDA School of Woodworking.
I had my second meeting with the Teen Read Week Coordinating Committee. We talked about promoting Teen Read Week, and there were some really fun ideas that might get funded through the state. Stay tuned as October gets closer. Although I’m still new to the idea of meeting through the internet, I think its pretty slick that people from different time zones and from every area of Idaho can speak directly to each other through a pair of headphones and a microphone. Good stuff.
Two more quick things to mention. First, summer reading registration is coming up June 1 for all ages. So stop by the Hayden Library, or register online at ksalibraries.org.
Secondly, I’m going to be adding some new content to the blog every Wednesday, so be looking for my announcement.
Hope you all have a great week, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Technical Irony
Ever feel like there is too much to do, and not nearly enough time in which to do it? That is kind of what my week was like, and it isn’t over yet.
It started with a couple webinars that I decided to attend. The first one was on 24/7 book advisory. The webinar highlighted what other libraries did to get book suggestions into the hands of their patrons. It was really interesting. The next webinar was technically an online symposium, and it was about mobile devices. The presentation was supposed to be three hours long, and it consisted of different tech masters talking about the future of mobile devices. There was a panel of judges that asked questions on how these changes in the mobile universe will affect libraries. Turns out that even though we were talking about staying connected with mobile devices, the audio wasn’t reaching my computer. There is a little bit of irony for you. Luckily because I signed up for the symposium, they are going to send me a recording of it later. I like technology.
Another thing that took up a bunch of my time this week was submitting a video to the “Win $10,000 to your Idaho Nonprofit” contest. Consumer Financial Solutions was an Idaho Nonprofit that helped people with too much consumer debt. There have been several shifts and changes in the last decade, and the board of directors decided to dissolve the organization, and divide the assets among other Idaho nonprofit groups. Even though the Hayden Library isn’t a nonprofit, the Friends of the Kootenai Shoshone Area Libraries are a nonprofit group, so I submitted a video for them. The video was only allowed to be 30 seconds, but if you want to view it, it’s on my Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/KSL4NextGen.
The video doesn’t have very much time, but the gist is that the Hayden Library wants to become the first Family Place Library in Idaho. The registration fee for that status is $10,000, so we figured it was perfect. “Family Place Libraries™ is a network of children's librarians nationwide who believe that literacy begins at birth, and that libraries can help build healthy communities by nourishing healthy families. The Family Place Libraries network currently includes more than 250 sites in 25 states and continues to grow,” according to http://www.familyplacelibraries.org/index.html. Our youth services staff already has this focus in mind, and wants to continue to expand that direction by becoming a Family Place Library.
So apart from videos and webinars, there is always more planning for summer reading, details coming soon, and don’t forget about the Teen Film Festival Award Night at the CDA library tomorrow night.
It started with a couple webinars that I decided to attend. The first one was on 24/7 book advisory. The webinar highlighted what other libraries did to get book suggestions into the hands of their patrons. It was really interesting. The next webinar was technically an online symposium, and it was about mobile devices. The presentation was supposed to be three hours long, and it consisted of different tech masters talking about the future of mobile devices. There was a panel of judges that asked questions on how these changes in the mobile universe will affect libraries. Turns out that even though we were talking about staying connected with mobile devices, the audio wasn’t reaching my computer. There is a little bit of irony for you. Luckily because I signed up for the symposium, they are going to send me a recording of it later. I like technology.
Another thing that took up a bunch of my time this week was submitting a video to the “Win $10,000 to your Idaho Nonprofit” contest. Consumer Financial Solutions was an Idaho Nonprofit that helped people with too much consumer debt. There have been several shifts and changes in the last decade, and the board of directors decided to dissolve the organization, and divide the assets among other Idaho nonprofit groups. Even though the Hayden Library isn’t a nonprofit, the Friends of the Kootenai Shoshone Area Libraries are a nonprofit group, so I submitted a video for them. The video was only allowed to be 30 seconds, but if you want to view it, it’s on my Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/KSL4NextGen.
The video doesn’t have very much time, but the gist is that the Hayden Library wants to become the first Family Place Library in Idaho. The registration fee for that status is $10,000, so we figured it was perfect. “Family Place Libraries™ is a network of children's librarians nationwide who believe that literacy begins at birth, and that libraries can help build healthy communities by nourishing healthy families. The Family Place Libraries network currently includes more than 250 sites in 25 states and continues to grow,” according to http://www.familyplacelibraries.org/index.html. Our youth services staff already has this focus in mind, and wants to continue to expand that direction by becoming a Family Place Library.
So apart from videos and webinars, there is always more planning for summer reading, details coming soon, and don’t forget about the Teen Film Festival Award Night at the CDA library tomorrow night.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Make a Splash
So our Youth Services Director, Karen Yother, is wearing a baby blue shirt with a crazy design which reads, “Make a Splash, Read!” We must be getting close to summer. Karen is a part of the CSLP, the Collaborative Summer Library Program, which is a national consortium of libraries and educators in 49 of the 50 states who come up with a theme, program ideas, and giveaways every summer. This year the theme is water related. For the younger kids, the theme is “Make a Splash.” For Next-Gen adults, the theme is “Make Waves.” For the adults, the theme is “Water your Mind; Read.” We’ve had a very successful summer reading program for our younger patrons for the past six or seven years. This is our first year of creating events and programs that are designed for our Next-Gen and adult audiences. So stop by the library this summer, and check out our awesome events!
Summer reading is a huge push for the Hayden Library and libraries in general. During the school year, school age patrons have more than enough things to read and write. But during the summer, we all just want to take a break from that kind of work. It turns out that if you don’t work out the brain for three months, it tends to lose some of the things that were learned. For that reason, summer reading has been designed to keep patrons reading through the summer months, and to also provide fun ways to learn. That way, our brains aren’t getting quite as squishy, but we also aren’t busting out a Calculus book or something.
Once again, the life of a Young Adult Librarian has included a few meetings this week. My week started with a three month review of my work as a Young Adult Librarian. Our Youth Services Director, Karen Yother, and the Director of the Kootenai Shoshone Area Libraries, John Hartung, sat down with me for an hour and we discussed what I’ve been doing for the last three months, and what I plan to do over the summer, and in the next year. They were both really excited about the direction that I’m taking, and I’m really appreciative of the support that they’ve both given me. Yesterday, just before I ran away to take my sister to the airport, I met with Kent Nelson, the director of the CDA Rock School, which runs out of the Guitar Stop on Government Way. Kent is going to talk to a few of his student bands about doing a concert for the library in July. We’re thinking of calling it, “Rock the Stacks!”
The last thing I wanted to mention is coming up next Saturday, the 22nd. As some of you might know, the branches of the Kootenai Shoshone Area Libraries (KSAL), the Coeur d’ Alene Library, and the Post Falls Library all teamed up to put a Teen Film Festival together. We have had six entries, and our award night is happening at the Coeur d’ Alene Library on the 22nd at 7pm. You can check out my video on the event at http://www.youtube.com/user/KSL4NextGen or you could check out the Facebook event at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121336761224498.
Hope you all have a great week, and I’ll be checking in next Friday.
Summer reading is a huge push for the Hayden Library and libraries in general. During the school year, school age patrons have more than enough things to read and write. But during the summer, we all just want to take a break from that kind of work. It turns out that if you don’t work out the brain for three months, it tends to lose some of the things that were learned. For that reason, summer reading has been designed to keep patrons reading through the summer months, and to also provide fun ways to learn. That way, our brains aren’t getting quite as squishy, but we also aren’t busting out a Calculus book or something.
Once again, the life of a Young Adult Librarian has included a few meetings this week. My week started with a three month review of my work as a Young Adult Librarian. Our Youth Services Director, Karen Yother, and the Director of the Kootenai Shoshone Area Libraries, John Hartung, sat down with me for an hour and we discussed what I’ve been doing for the last three months, and what I plan to do over the summer, and in the next year. They were both really excited about the direction that I’m taking, and I’m really appreciative of the support that they’ve both given me. Yesterday, just before I ran away to take my sister to the airport, I met with Kent Nelson, the director of the CDA Rock School, which runs out of the Guitar Stop on Government Way. Kent is going to talk to a few of his student bands about doing a concert for the library in July. We’re thinking of calling it, “Rock the Stacks!”
The last thing I wanted to mention is coming up next Saturday, the 22nd. As some of you might know, the branches of the Kootenai Shoshone Area Libraries (KSAL), the Coeur d’ Alene Library, and the Post Falls Library all teamed up to put a Teen Film Festival together. We have had six entries, and our award night is happening at the Coeur d’ Alene Library on the 22nd at 7pm. You can check out my video on the event at http://www.youtube.com/user/KSL4NextGen or you could check out the Facebook event at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121336761224498.
Hope you all have a great week, and I’ll be checking in next Friday.
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