Black Lives Matter: Community Read - free without wait-lists or holds

I thought this might be helpful for our staff assisting customers or just wanting resources for themselves.

From Overdrive:

Knowing that our library partners want to provide antiracism and social justice titles to their patrons, we are launching a new program called Black Lives Matter: Community Read. The titles included in our Black Lives Matter: Community Read program are focused on #ownvoices and are intended to help patrons read, listen, learn and grow as they expand their knowledge of race relations. Donated by OverDrive, titles will be made available to United States and Canada libraries at no cost and patrons will be able to check these books out without waitlists or holds.  

Blackhttps://company.overdrive.com/2020/06/30/now-available-free-to-libraries-without-waitlists-or-holds-black-lives-matter-titles-to-read-listen-learn-and-grow/

The titles included in Black Lives Matter: Community Read are provided at no cost to your library and you will be able to use these like any other OverDrive titles for curation or promotion in various reading rooms, featured lists, and other programs at your discretion. Be sure to also visit the Resource Center to get a marketing kit that you can use to promote these titles to your community.

ALA Annual - Best Fiction for Young Adults

In attending ALA 2019, I was lucky enough to sit in on a panel discussion of YALSA's best fiction for young adult lists led by students from the DC area. It was a rare treat to actually hear reactions from teens who thoughtfully read and reviewed the list, taking into account literary quality, plot, inclusiveness and #ownvoices. 

This filled in my knowledge gap around what teens and precocious tweens are reading, as well as providing actual feedback in real time around important texts with which to be familiar. Because my teen literature knowledge is limited, this was a condensed opportunity to hear from the actual demographic what they like to read. I can't wait to pick up a copy of A.S. King's Dig!

This was also a networking opportunity, as several members of the local literary committee, Capital Choices team, were there to provide feedback about  programming in the greater Maryland area. 

http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/about/selected-lists-the-hub/best-fiction-young-adults-nominees/

Cornelia Beckett

Programs and Outreach

ALA Annual - Safer Libraries

I want to first start out by saying that ALA 2019 was great and I really enjoyed my first experience. The weather in DC that weekend was perfect for a conference. I got to meet some many different people. The atmosphere was inviting and exciting. I had a full itinerary for each day and for the most part, I was able to attend all the sessions I planned to attend.

The opening session featured young adult author Jason Reynolds who spoke of libraries as sacred spaces where all are welcome and one can build a family and be of service. Reynolds also drew a parallel between religious institutions and libraries. He challenged librarians to reimagine their roles in the lives of their young patrons, and to be willing to consider changing the way they do things to meet that role.

My favorite session was presented by PLA entitled, Safer Libraries: Building Staff Resiliency and Library Safety Branch by Branch. In the session staff from DC Public Library collaborated with Defend Yourself, a local company that works to empower people — especially women and others targeted for abuse and assault — to end violence and create a world where they can be fully themselves. Together, DCPL and Defend Yourself developed a library-specific safety training for staff that teaches self-defense concepts such as avoidance and prevention, assertiveness, direct communication, and boundary setting, de-escalation, and bystander intervention.

I am encouraging all my fellow colleagues to please consider attending a conference like this one. I learned so much and can’t wait for other opportunities to attend.

Ashley T. Mitchell

Edmondson Avenue

ALA Annual - Teaching Teens Readers’ Advisory

Are you looking for a creative way to engage your teens with the library and books? Does your YA collection need a boost to get it off the shelves and into the hands of readers? Do you need some ideas for how to put your CYC intern to work this summer? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, read on to hear about BookMatch Teen, a session from this year’s ALA Annual Conference. 

 During this session, two librarians from Brooklyn Public Library talked about the teen internship they started about two years ago that centers around training teens in readers’ advisory. Teens had to apply for the internship, go through an interview process, and then commit to completing the 9-week internship. During those 9 weeks, interns were trained in readers’ advisory (librarians showed them how to use the OPAC, Goodreads, Novelist, etc and taught them how to do a reference interview), met authors and other professionals from the publishing world, learned about marketing techniques like #bookstagram, went behind-the-scenes of the collection development department, learned how to write book reviews, and made book lists as a final project. The teens also made a “Match Box” where people could submit readers’ advisory requests and the teens would make a personalized list for them.

 This internship had some really great results for both the teens and the library. Teens got to experience the interview process and were exposed to careers not only in librarianship but also in publishing and marketing. They learned valuable customer service skills as they tackled the reference interview process, and also realized that everyone, including teens, deserve great customer service. They became confident, comfortable library users and had great success getting teens to check out books. My favorite result was that many teens mentioned the program helped them improve their social skills, and many made new and lasting friendships with other interns.

 BookMatch Teen was obviously a large-scale program. The coordinators advised offering a stipend or another incentive like volunteers hours since it was a big commitment and teens’ time is valuable. It would be great if we could incorporate something like this into our CYC program here at Pratt, but I think there are ways to do aspects of this on a smaller scale, too. You could start a “Readers’ Advisory Club” with teens you notice already have an interest in reading and introduce them to basic library skills. You could show your CYC intern how to use Goodreads or other RA tools and ask them to make booklists around specific themes. Maybe you could set up a table for them in the teen section so kids could go to them for recommendations once you’ve given them some training. You could even make this into passive programming by creating a “Match Box” and recruiting a few enthusiastic readers to answer the requests. The possibilities are endless! For more information on the BookMatch Teen program, visit their website: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/incubator-submissions/bookmatch-teen . 

Meaghan McKeron

Collection Management

MLA 2019 - William G. Wilson Maryland Author Award winner Mary Amato

The 2019 winner of the William G. Wilson Maryland Author Award is children’s author Mary Amato.  Ms. Amato is an author of YA books, poetry, plays, and songs, and her books won numerous awards including The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators National Magazine Writing Award and Nonfiction Book Grant, the Beehive Book Award, the Buckeye Children’s Book Award, and the Arizona Young Readers Award.  She is also the founder of The HIVE, The Brown Bag for Creatives, and the Silver Spring Town Center, Inc. Arts Salon and co-founder of the Firefly Shadow Theatre.  Ms. Amato works with numerous non-profits in Maryland and teaches workshops on writing and the creative process.  She also gives ukulele lessons. 

Starting with a song written just for the award luncheon, Ms. Amato shared that when she was a child she knew every inch of her public library, where her “friends in fiction” would put images in her head.  After the luncheon, Ms Amato signed copies of her books and chatted with many of the attendees.  For her afternoon program, she used examples of her works and those of other children’s authors for her discussion on how to incorporate themes and songs into programs for children.  Passing out several of her own ukuleles, Ms. Amato discussed how useful the instrument can be not only for singing with children, but also how easy they are for children to learn to play and how suited they are for little hands.

As part of Ms. Amato’s lively and fun program, attendees worked together to re-write “Row, Row your Boat” as a library based song, and then the group sang their creation “Read, Read, Read your book” while accompanying themselves on the ukuleles. 

Lisa R. Kenyon

SD&T

Recommended (by me) reading:  

Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery Sixteen-year-old slam-poet Lacy Brink wakes up dead—and confused—in Westminster Cemetery. It’s the job of Sam, a young soldier who died in 1865, to help her adjust to the strict rules of the afterlife. Lacy proposes hosting an open mic; and when Sam and the other ghosts finally express themselves, surprising emotions emerge in this darkly hilarious tale about truth, forgiveness, and love. Contains explicit language and mature themes so probably best for mid-teens and up. 

Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook  In this humorous and touching mystery, fifth grader Edgar Allan tries to catch a thief who leaves poetry instead of fingerprints at the crime scenes. Recommended for ages 8-12. 

Note:  although these are YA books, both can be enjoyed by adults

Spice Up a Program with a Dash of Literacy

Spice Up a Program with a Dash of Literacy

YALSA Webinar presented by Kelly Czarnecki of Charlotte, NC
 Sep 6, 2016

Ms. Czarnecki presented 5 specific forms of literacy that can be relatively easily incorporated into programming for tweens and teens: 

·         Critical—critical thinking skills

·         Cultural—multicultural, multiethnic, etc.

·         Digital—the use of digital devices as well as social media, the internet, etc.),

·         Information—identify, locate, evaluate and effectively use information

·         Print literacy—following print instructions such as a recipe

and

·         Multiple literacies—incorporation of more than one literacy into a program.

She clarified that there certainly more literacies than she enumerated but did not list them.  These 5 are certainly wide-ranging and allow for a great deal of innovation and interaction.

Many of her examples were quite involved in time, planning and execution (Turn It Up  Teen Radio, SCRATCH (a game-maker tool from MIT at https://scratch.mit.edu/ ), QR Code Scavenger Hunt, Kitchen Chemistry, Cotton Club-esque talent show, etc.

However, we at RLN have some experience with interactive bulletin boards and scavenger hunts – both part of her “self-directed” programming.  Below is a photo of the bulletin board we put up at RLN for Black History Month that shows the influence of this webinar.  Jay pulled articles and headlines from the online database for The Baltimore Afro-American and created an appealing bulletin board that includes instructions on how to access the databases. 

After discussing the ideas with Stefanie Thomas, the children’s librarian, we think we may be able to incorporate some of the literacies into activity sheets (scavenger hunts, bulletin board displays, maker space programs, etc.) that we hope to tie into this summer’s SRP themes and use during the SRP.  

Julie Johnson
Roland Park Branch

You can view the webinar at :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceGcnPWhbTo

ALA 2016 - Libraries and Community

ALA Annual placed a large focus on inclusion of patrons from all walks of our communities, whether or not they fit into our majority demographic. From collection development practices to programming development, attendees were encouraged to listen and learn from their patrons.

I attended so many inspiring programs, but my top three were:

• We Need Diverse Books and More: This panel - which included authors and scholars - discussed best practices for creating a truly diverse collection of voices in YA and children’s departments. Librarians were encouraged to investigate books for authenticity and strive to include characters who have intersectional identities.
• Literacy Inside and Out: When one member of a family is incarcerated, it has a lasting effect on the entire family. How can we serve our community members during and after incarceration? One excellent program idea came from the Hennepin County Library: their program, Read to Me, allows incarcerated parents read a children’s book and record it on a disc for their child.
• YALSA’s President’s Program: Grant recipients presented inclusive programs they created for young adults, including teen parents, GLBTAQ youth, and teens who are blind.

If I had to choose one key piece of advice that echoed throughout every program, it is the importance of building your library according to your entire community. While we think we know what our community wants, we should never assume we’re doing the right thing. No event should be planned without input from your target audience; creating space for dialogue and listening without judgment is the key to creating lasting community relationships.

Rebecca Starr

Information Services

Young Adult Services Symposium (YALSA) 2015

This month I had the exceptional opportunity to attend the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Annual Symposium in Portland, Oregon. It was my first time attending the conference and I was blown away by the experience. All of the programs I was able to attend were incredibly useful and inspiring and the camaraderie amongst the all the attendees was invigorating. I have only been a YA library associate for a little over two months but this experience affirmed that I am in a profession where my colleagues are by and large a wonderfully supportive and passionate group of people.

It’s difficult to pick a highlight of the conference since so much of the experience was positive. Some of the programs I attended that I particularly enjoyed were on the subjects of: starting teen theatre groups at the library, creating welcoming physical space for teens in the library, helping LGBTQ teens transition out of high school, using graphic novels to teach about race relations, and how to introduce middle school students to more advanced YA literature.  I learned so much from these sessions about why YA library services are meaningful and about what fellow YA librarians are doing to meet the ever-changing needs of their adolescent patrons. One phrase in particular that I heard used over and over again which really stuck with me as a simple yet all-encompassing objective for the YA librarian was “buy-in.” Like stake holders in a business, the goal of “buy-in” is to get teens to be supporters of library services by making them feel like active and significant participants in the endeavor. This principle has been particularly helpful to me as I start new teen programming at Waverly. My services will be most effective if I can get the teens and young adults who use this branch to feel invested in their library and rewarded for their commitment. I feel that after attending the YALSA Symposium this year I am much more confident and prepared to make the teen services at Waverly the best they can be!

Isabelle Briggs

Library Associate

Waverly Branch