Librarians Change Lives!

Wow! Two posts in two days. I must be doing well :).

Anyway, I just learned that the fabulous t-shirt I bought at ALA last year, the one with the Unshelved graphic and the tag-line, "Librarians Change Lives" is available for purchase through the ALA online store.

All proceeds to go to benefit Friends of YALSA (FOY). FOY provides funding in five distinct areas:

*Continuous Learning: creating opportunities for all members and library workers to grow through grants, providing scholarships to those in need and offering distance learning and institutes.

*Advocacy: educating members, library workers, the general public and policy makers about the importance of providing excellent library services to teens, and the critical role that library workers and libraries play in helping teens develop key literacy skills and a lifelong appreciation of reading.

*Research: guiding and promoting research in the field of young adult librarianship through grants, publications, and other means to ensure that the field of librarianship has the necessary knowledge to meet the needs of teens.

*Teen Literacy & Young Adult Literature: sponsoring literacy initiatives such as Teen Read Week, YALSA’s booklists and book awards, guaranteeing YALSA's place in the forefront of our nation's adolescent literacy campaigns.

*Planning for the Future: helping to attract new members and retain existing ones, creating public awareness campaigns, planning and carrying out new initiatives to pursue excellence in library service to young adults, and more.

Now, hurry, go buy yours today so you can be as cool as me :Þ.

Info Literacy and You

I am beginning to think that after the need to do YA Services runs its course through me, I may be very interested in moving forward with consulting or supervising or something that involves less direct service and more planning.

I promise you, that is not a complaint.

In the past couple of weeks, I have worked on a couple of projects that have my brain turned on and my interest tuned in -- both in ways that helping a customer use our print software just can't quite accomplish.

My projects have included researching urban literature for teens, building connections between gaming and literacy and, now, researching information literacy standards (I haven't yet found them for the State of California). This newest project will help my public library decide how to bridge partnerships with the local school district in coming months...and years.

I have, however, found some valuable resources that I will need to use in the near future...so, they'll live here!

AASL's Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning

An Educator's Guide to Information Literacy (a book I need to buy)

Building a Partnership Between Public Schools and Public Libraries

Information Literacy Standards at Los Angeles Public Schools (not my school district, but it's a guide post)

WestEd's Evaluation of Workforce Readiness Programs

National Education Technology Standards for Students

California Technology Plan Requirements (as required by No Child Left Behind)

Chavez Bill

Teen Read Week, Take Two

It is Teen Read Week, which means major programming at a lot of libraries. Last year, my first as a YA Librarian, I had two programs - one was a success and the other was an utter failure and also resulted in me getting a wee bit of a talking to by my supervisor.

Actually, they both resulted in sit-downs with my supervisor.

The first, the successful program, was a martial arts demonstration that went along well with the 2006 theme of "Get Active." The martial arts expert who gave the demonstration was one of our own, a library employee who also happened to be a black belt in several different types of martial arts. I had over 70 people attend the program, more than 35 of whom were actual teenagers and not just the little kids or parents who also happened to wander by the demonstration. The talking to? Oh, that came as a result of parents complaining about the gigantic knives and graphic descriptions of what could be done with said knives.

The second, the program that resulted in a whopping two attendees, featured our local state assemblywoman speaking about how the state government works and how people can "get active" in politics. The event wasn't a total failure, because one of the attendees actually ended up getting one of the very rare high school-level internships in the assemblywoman's office. The talking to? I didn't really inform anyone that the assemblywoman was coming. My direct supervisor knew, but the director didn't know, and there was no grand welcome for this important fan of libraries. She felt slighted, and my library director felt concerned that I was going off and doing my own thing, not following the appropriate channels.

Did I mention that my first teen read week happened less than two months into my tenure as a rookie YA Librarian? I had a lot to learn.

I still have a lot to learn.

This year, I'm having an open mic night...in the evening. I realized with startling clarity last week that I should have planned the event for the after school hours, but I had originally wanted to encourage whole families to attend.

In any case, I'm the only person who has to know about it, though I've advertised it far and wide. I'm keeping it low key and not even offering prizes - just certificates or ribbons for participating. I've grown a little cynical in the last year, and that means I don't necessarily feel that I'll have a big crowd. So, I don't feel inclined to plan for a big crowd. If I'm blessed with more attendees than I could imagine, well, then they'll all have to make do without seconds on the snack food.

I'm excited, but I'm also realistic that this may be one of my last opportunities to try evening programming. If people won't come, it's difficult to convince my supervisor that my time wouldn't be better served working at the reference desk.

I'm optimistic, but it's more of a cynical optimism than last year.

At least this shouldn't result in a talking to...and there shouldn't be any knives.

YA Authors

M.T. Anderson is so freakin' awesome.

That's all.

Thank you.

Familiar Face

Luckily, the second half of my Emerging Leaders experience made me feel much less like a guilty teenager struggling to stay awake. I'll admit that it wasn't the content but my jet lag that had me feeling a bit drowsy (and perhaps a bit cranky). The Diet Coke at 10:30 a.m. also may have helped :).

As we were wrapping up our poster session, my library director walked into the room. She had told me that she likely would not be able to make it to the program, so I was so pleased to see her. And she was a face from home!

We hadn't moved our poster out of the way yet, so she get to see that and chat with my group members. She had traveled with someone important in the library community (not that she's not, but someone with a more direct position of power), and I got to chat with her a bit, as well.

All in all Emerging Leaders was an incredibly worthwhile experience. I'm sad to say goodbye to the constant communication with my group members, but I'm also happy about getting to talk to them about more than our project!

Alright, it's off to the exhibits and then a committee meeting.

Wish me luck!

At Heart

At ALA now...learning oodles about leadership and all that good stuff.

I'm also realizing why I make a halfway decent YA Librarian. I'm still a bored teenager at heart.

I really WANT to pay attention. I want to care. I want to write down every last word, but I find my mind wandering, my fingers reaching for my cell phone to check for messages (there are none, as I'm currently three hours ahead of anyone who cares about me), and I just feel guilty.

In a room full of real adults, it's still hard to believe I am one.

Librarians on the Loose

Librarians! Everywhere!

Okay, so I got to DC day early for the conference, but I swear I saw some Librarians on the plane. I think I may have even seen someone from my Library School, but it was 2 a.m., and I could be wrong.

So, what happens when the YA Librarian flies the coop and goes to play amongst her peers? Well, right now, all it means is that my suitcase hit the weight limit due to the various items I needed to bring to meet my various responsibilities while at the conference.

Upon picking me up, my friend said, "I thought you just showed up at a conference."

"Not when you're on a committee,"I replied, "Then you have to bring stuff."

My suitcase will be lighter on the return trip. Noting my box full of books brought back to Seattle, though, someone else commented, "You know that books weigh more, a lot more, than the stuff you brought right."

"I'm not going to get that many books. This time I'm bringing them back for other people, not to keep my own stack going."

"..."

So, we'll see. I've arrived with my 51 pound suitcase, have recovered from reading what I believe may well be the worst YA book I have read since some of the forced reading in Library School, have taken a nap to overcome the red eye flight and am raring to go for Emerging Leaders tomorrow.

Raring may not be the right word. But it will be after a good night's sleep!

Hey, Whatever Happened with that Mentoring Survey?

Remember this?

Well, we're done with the project, just putting on those nice, shiny, final touches.

Come visit us at ALA Annual to see what your answers to the survey helped us do! The poster session and the reception will be from 3-5 PM on June 22 (Washington Convention Center—Room 144 A-C.

Drop by, say hello and see what all the fabulous Emerging Leaders Project Teams have accomplished in the past six months!

Mentoring in Progress

Do you read this blog regularly? Are you a working YA or school librarian? Do you intend to be a working YA or school librarian? Have ever been a working YA or school librarian, and you're just dying to share your wisdom??

Yes, there is a purpose to these questions.

In November, I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of ALA's Emerging Leaders, one of just over one hundred (relatively) new librarians selected to work on various projects for ALA. My group is designing a mentorship program for the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) and American Association of School Librarians (AASL). We will design the program, present it at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington D.C. in June, and after that, it's up to YALSA and AASL to decide whether or not to implement the program.

We have decided that, since no librarian works in a vacuum (although, don't you wonder what that might look like? Would it be like the moon, or the inside of a hoover?), we ought to get some feedback from the people who would actually participate in a mentorship program. This will both strengthen our final paper and presentation and offer YALSA and AASL some real-life feedback on some possible responses to a mentorship program.

If you are interested in helping us shape our project, answer the following questions (or at least the ones that apply to you) in the comments by Monday, April 8.

Here are the questions:

1) If you are new to young adult or school librarianship (in the field for less than five years or still in library school), how interested would you be in having a mentor to orient you to your profession and to your professional organization?

2) If you have been a librarian for longer than five years, did you have a mentor? Do you think you would have benefitted from participating in a formal mentoring program?

3) If you have been a librarian for longer than five years and active in either YALSA or AASL for three years (active means any and all of the following: participation in online listservs, attendance at professional conferences, participation on a committee or board), how interested are you in sharing your knowledge with a new librarian?

4) What are your general thoughts on mentorship programs and their place in the field of libraries?

Thank you so much for your help with this! I will be sure to let you know if and when this program gets off the ground so that you can be involved!

Thank you for your help...and I promise to review something next week :).