Month: January 2018

Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: That’s a Wrap (Sort Of)

competencies coverYALSAblog posts throughout this month focused on different aspects of the Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff. Authors covered topics related to specific content areas of the Competencies – Teen Growth and Development and Cultural Competency and Responsiveness for example – and ideas related to the implications the Competencies can have on the library as an institution – for example job descriptions and policies. You can read all Competencies related posts by searching the Competencies tag on this blog.

YALSA will continue to provide opportunities for library staff to discuss and learn about the dispositions and content areas covered in the Competencies. We’ll do that through blog posts, 10 months of free webinars that begin in March, and Twitter chats that also start in March.

You can learn more about building high-quality teen services with YALSA’s wide-variety of resources. These include: Continue reading Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: That’s a Wrap (Sort Of)

YALSA Executive Director

Colleagues-

After 13+ years at the helm of YALSA, Beth Yoke, our Executive Director, has tendered her resignation, effective August 31, 2018, to begin the next chapter of her career. During her time with YALSA Beth has helped the Board to advance its mission and support our members.  She has led a dedicated team, each of whom play an integral role in the everyday running of our organization and in our success as an organization in supporting our members. While we are sad to see Beth leave, we are grateful for her leadership and wish her the best of luck in her next position.

YALSA’s Board has begun implementation of YALSA’s succession plan, with the goal of having a replacement in place by August 31st to ensure continuity and a smooth transition to a new Executive Director.  We will provide updates to the membership periodically as the search process progresses.

I am confident that as a community YALSA will be able to move forward in a productive and unifying manner.

If you have questions, please reach out to me or to any of the other Board members.

Respectfully,

Sandra Hughes-Hassell
YALSA President 2017-2018

Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: What’s Your Policy?

I just did a search in the YALSA Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff document on the word “policies” and found 13 results. That’s not surprising since it’s essential to make sure that a library’s use and customer related policies allow for high-quality teen services. However, have you looked at the internal staff policies and procedures your library has in place that might hinder developing the skills needed as outlined in the Competencies? For example.

  • Are there internal policies that make it hard to get out of the building in order to become skilled at developing relationships with community members, partners, families, and even teens? What policies are there about desk time and/or how you are supposed to spend your time while at work? Do these make it hard to succeed in areas related to Community and Family Engagement?
  • What about professional learning polices or procedures that focus the Continuous Learning you can engage in in areas that do not allow for the skill and knowledge development covered in the Competencies? Continue reading Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: What’s Your Policy?

I Love My Librarian Award Spotlight: Laurie Doan

Hand-scripted text reads I Love My Librarian Award 2017.

Recently, I had the pleasure of catching up with Laurie Doan, a 2017 recipient of the ALA I Love My Librarian Award. She currently serves as a Young Adult Librarian at the Tredyffrin Public Library in Wayne, Pennsylvania. One of only ten librarians to earn this year’s recognition, she was nominated for her extraordinary work in fostering educational opportunities for the teens in her community, and for encouraging a wide variety of creative pursuits. Among the countless projects she supports, an alternative theater program within the library has been wildly successful with teens and adults alike. We discussed this and other aspects of her work when we spoke earlier this month.
Continue reading I Love My Librarian Award Spotlight: Laurie Doan

Transforming Teen Services Through CE Town Halls

photo of small groups working at National Forum on Transforming Teen Services Through CE meeting in LouisvilleWhat are the teen related continuing education needs of library staff? That’s what YALSA wants to know. To find out the association is hosting two Town Halls this week. The first is on Wednesday, January 31, at 2PM Eastern. This session is geared to library administrators. The second Town Hall is on Thursday, February 1, also at 2PM Eastern. The audience for this session is non-administrative library staff. Each session will last approximately an hour and will take place using the Zoom platform. To attend either session use this login information:

URL: https://zoom.us/j/816954867
Phone: 408 638 0968
Meeting ID: 816 954 867
Continue reading Transforming Teen Services Through CE Town Halls

Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: Experimenting with Learning Cohorts

This post was written by Amanda Barnhart. Amanda is a teen librarian for the Kansas City Mo. Public Library and began her career as an undefined teen library services member in 2003. She serves as the YALSA ALA Liaison.

cover of the YALSA competenciesBy its very definition, the journey of a Continuous Learner is never complete. The skill attainment levels within YALSA’s Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff are set out vertically in order to illustrate how the initial skills build upon the next, much like Maslow’s hierarchy. Yet, the way in which we navigate through “developing, practicing and transforming” may not necessarily lead us straight down the list. Once we start becoming competent in one area, we more fully begin to understand how far we still have to go treading up and down along the scale as we deepen our knowledge of a topic.

A couple of years ago, I was awarded an LSTA grant to utilize tabletop games for the development of young adults’ job readiness skills. I established a small, four person learning cohort that was made up of both teen and children’s professionals within the Kansas City Mo. Public Library organization. At our branch libraries, we already had several teen groups that enjoyed video games. However, we wanted to offer a different type of gaming experience, one that more strongly connected with specific skills. The cohort met 1-2 times per month, for a couple of hours around these topics of Tabletop Games, job readiness skills and youth programs.
Continue reading Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: Experimenting with Learning Cohorts

Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: Social Emotional Learning

cover of teen services competencies for library staffFor over a year I’ve been thinking a lot about libraries and social emotional learning (SEL). In part because many school systems are developing curriculum (or integrating SEL into curriculum), in part because it’s something that library activities support – even if library staff don’t think of what they do in that way, and in part because the new Teen Services Competencies of Library Staff include Dispositions and Content Areas that strongly connect to SEL.

The most recent edition of the Future of Children journal notes, in the introduction to the issue:

Researchers, educators, and policymakers alike have trouble pinning down exactly what’s included in this broad domain—and what isn’t. The popular press has highlighted a wide array of skills, such as grit, empathy, growth mindset, social skills, and more. At its core, SEL involves children’s ability to learn about and manage their own emotions and interactions in ways that benefit themselves and others, and that help children and youth succeed in schooling, the workplace, relationships, and citizenship.”

Think about that. Wouldn’t you say. that in order for youth to gain SEL skills they need adults in their lives who help them to “learn about and manage their own emotions and interactions in ways that benefit themselves and others, and that help children and youth succeed in schooling, the workplace, relationships, and citizenship?” These adults include library staff and teachers along with family members, caregivers, community members and so on.
Continue reading Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: Social Emotional Learning

Dig Into IFLA and Get Involved with Librarians Across the World

Do you dream of traveling to exciting places like Cape Town, Columbus, and Wrocław? Have you considered becoming involved with an energetic and passionate group of international library workers? International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is in full swing for its annual World Library and Information Congress (WLIC). This year the conference takes place in Kuala Lumpur.

You can, of course, get involved by merely attending the conference in Malaysia in late August. For those looking to present, I have highlighted some opportunities with particular appeal to those who work with youth.

Satellite Meeting in Singapore: Inclusive Library Services for Children and Young Adults

IFLA calls them satellite meetings, but satellite meeting is just a fancy name for pre-conference. Usually they are held in a city close to the conference site. The focus of this meeting, sponsored by Libraries for Children and Young Adults (my section!) and Library Services to People with Special Needs Section is inclusive library services. The deadline for the call for papers is February 15, 2018.

Continue reading Dig Into IFLA and Get Involved with Librarians Across the World

Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: The Competencies at Midwinter Meeting in Denver

teen services competencies for library staff coverIn just aver two weeks the ALA Midwinter Meeting gets started in Denver. While in Denver YALSA is hosting two News You Can Use sessions, each focused on the Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff.

On Sunday, February 11, at 8:30 AM, is a session titled, Incorporating the Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff into LIS Curricula. This 90 minute session looks at how LIS educators and continuing education coordinators can leverage YALSA’s new Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff to better prepare future library employees to work for and with teens. In a participatory format attendees will have the chance to redesign and re-envision their very own youth and school library courses to support successful teen services skill development. Those who plan on attending are encouraged to bring a current syllabus, or lesson plan, to use in re-envisioning activities. This session will be facilitated by YALSA President and Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science, Sandra Hughes-Hassell, YALSA Board member and Associate Professor at the University of Maryland College of Information Studies, Mega Subramaniam, and YALSA CE Consultant, Linda W. Braun.
Continue reading Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff: The Competencies at Midwinter Meeting in Denver

Gimme a C (for Collaboration!): Reach Across the Aisle for Partnerships that Transform Youth Services

Through school-public library collaboration, librarians support one another in expanding and nurturing their communities’ literacy ecosystems. Patricia Jimenez is the school librarian at Sunnyslope High School (SHS) in the Glendale (Arizona) Union High School District. At the time of their collaborative work, Emily Howard was the young adult librarian at the Cholla Branch of the Phoenix Public Library (PPL); she is now the assistant branch manager at Desert Sage. Together, Patricia and Emily developed a series of programs based on their determination to take literacy “where teens are.”

School librarian Patricia and public librarian Emily’s partnership began when Emily reached out about visiting the Sunnyslope campus to discuss what the Desert Sage Branch had to offer SHS students. Patricia was thrilled because she had been meaning to do exactly the same thing.

After their initial meeting, Patricia arranged for Emily and a colleague to visit SHS’s library during lunch periods, helping students sign up for PPL library cards when they are most frequently in and out of the media center. The visits offered a low-key way for the collaborators to get to know one another better. They chatted during the set-up, the time between lunches, and during the tear-down as well.

The collaborators learned they had a great deal in common. Patricia showed Emily some typical SHS library programming, sparking the idea of having Patricia bring that programming to the Cholla Branch. A month later, Patricia boxed up her FebROARary activities and headed to Emily’s PPL branch. Participants in the joint program made dinosaur buttons, colored dinosaur bookmarks, and applied dinosaur tattoos. While the PPL teens were not as excited to participate as SHS students usually are, parents with their younger children stopped in and got involved. Patricia was able to work with a different audience, which was truly fun for her.

Continue reading Gimme a C (for Collaboration!): Reach Across the Aisle for Partnerships that Transform Youth Services