Last week as a part of the YALSAblog innovation series I posted about failure and how being ready and open to failing is a key ingredient in innovation. Once that post was published, in the comments, and via email and Twitter, I had lots of conversations with colleagues and friends about how one might be open to failure for themselves in the workplace, but if they didn’t feel supported in the possibility of failing in the profession or their work institution, then moving forward with failure as an option was pretty impossible. People I communicated with were particularly concerned about the tone of online discussions over the past couple of weeks. This tone makes those I talked with hesitant about presenting their innovative ideas. Who wants to open themselves up to failure when the profession (and colleagues) is going to call them out on it publicly, and sometimes in not the most supportive manner?

These conversations I had over the last week got me thinking more about how as a profession we need to breed a culture in which innovation can take place and where people feel safe in making mistakes and even in failing. I often talk with librarians about making teens feel safe in the library environment. And by safe I don’t mean safe from violence, I mean safe from bullies and from behaviors that center around putting one person down in order to make someone else feel better about themselves. In libraries in order for innovation to happen we need to make sure that staff feel safe from bullies, embarrassment, and plain old negativity. These are some ideas I have for making that happen: (more…)

A weekly short list of tweets that librarians and the teens that they serve may find interesting.

Do you have a favorite Tweet from the past week? If so add it in the comments for this post. Or, if you read a Twitter post between April 13 and April 19 that you think is a must for the next Tweets of the week send a direct or @ message to lbraun2000 on Twitter.
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Imagine this: You work in a library in which anything goes. Money is no object. Space is no object. Staffing is no object. Going out into the community is no object. And so on. If you worked in that library what would your wildest and craziest ideas for serving teens be?

Would you…

• Have libraries all over the community but not in a traditional library facility? For example, a library in the pizza place where teens go every day after school and every weekend? A library in the clothing store where teens go to see the latest fashions? A library in the park where teens hang out?
• Make sure that every teen in the community – no matter what their book reading preference – was a library user in some way?
• Give every teen a tablet of some kind with free Internet access so they could download books and apps, play games, do homework, talk with friends, participate in social media from everywhere anytime? (more…)

Title: Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe
Cost: 6.99
Platform: iPad 2 and higher with iOS 5 or higher

“Wonders of the Universe, a new app from the BBC, HarperCollins, and Professor Brian Cox, takes you zooming through our universe, from a broad view at multiple galaxies all the way down to a look at subatomic particles–with more than a film’s worth of videos, a staggering amount of gorgeous space photos, and hundreds of interesting articles as well. It takes the idea of an interactive textbook far beyond what we’ve seen before.” — from Wonders of the Universe App Is Your Space Textbook of the Future

In previous App of the Week posts I’ve talked about how librarians will want to start thinking about and looking at apps as a part of their non-fiction and textbook collections. Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe is a perfect example of this. The app is filled with lots of good text-based information. (more…)

It’s almost here, April 12 is YALSA’s Booze for Books fundraising event that is focused on raising monies for the association’s Books for Teens project. Books for Teens aims to get books into the hands of underserved adolescents. Throughout the United States supporters of the project are hosting events:

• In Manhattan (NYC) YALSA members are meeting at a restaurant for dinner, conversation, and YALSA donating.
• In Virginia a YALSA member is hosting a dinner at her home with book trivia and opportunities to donate to Books for Teens.
• In Boston, a couple of days before the official Booze for Books there will be a KidLit event that includes Books for Teens fundraising.
• In Chicago, ALA staff is also getting involved with an event at a watering hole near ALA headquarter offices.

For those hosting and participating in Booze for Books events, thanks for your work in putting the pieces together. Don’t forget that the YALSA Fundraising Guide and Toolkit includes information you may need on how to collect funds, and record donor names, for YALSA’s Books for Teens project. In the Guide you will find donation forms and donor list sheets.

Anyone hosting or attending an event should make sure to Tweet, take photos, post on Facebook, and record video in order to create a record of the event. Don’t forget to tag your photos, tweets, videos, and posts with #b4byalsa and that way all of the buzz from all of the great events people are sponsoring can be easily captured in one place.

When I was growing up failure was not an option. It’s not that my parents told me that. It was just a general mindset in the world. People didn’t think that mistakes were something that promoted growth and learning. Trying something and not succeeding just wasn’t done. If someone or something failed it wasn’t talked about, or if it was, it was discussed in hushed tones as if something truly terrible had happened.

Today we are fortunate to live in a world in which mistakes and even failure are OK options. Failure is even looked at as a way to learn and to be able to take an idea or initiative and make it even better. This is a great opportunity for librarians working with teens. We want to accept that failure is OK and be willing to try something new with and for teens even if not sure that it will be 100% successful.
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A weekly short list of tweets that librarians and the teens that they serve may find interesting.

Do you have a favorite Tweet from the past week? If so add it in the comments for this post. Or, if you read a Twitter post between April 6 and April 12 that you think is a must for the next Tweets of the week send a direct or @ message to lbraun2000 on Twitter.
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Because of my job I get to travel around to conferences and meetings and talk with librarians all over the place. Wherever I am I spend a lot of time discussing advocacy and the importance of helping members of a community understand the value of teen services. We frequently talk about the image that people have of librarians and how that image is often not based in reality. We also discuss how hard it is to change how people see librarians and libraries.

During these trips and in these conversations, it often feels a bit strange because I’ll be talking to someone about library and librarian image and that person will be wearing a book t-shirt with a cute saying, or book earrings or necklace (or both), or a book themed-watch, or….. you get the idea. I don’t believe I can say during these conversations, “Have you ever thought about the image you portray by wearing book related clothing and accessories?” Even though I really really really want to.
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A weekly short list of tweets that librarians and the teens that they serve may find interesting.

Do you have a favorite Tweet from the past week? If so add it in the comments for this post. Or, if you read a Twitter post between March 30 and April 5 that you think is a must for the next Tweets of the week send a direct or @ message to lbraun2000 on Twitter.
(more…)

A weekly short list of tweets that librarians and the teens that they serve may find interesting.

Do you have a favorite Tweet from the past week? If so add it in the comments for this post. Or, if you read a Twitter post between March 23 – March 29 that you think is a must for the next Tweets of the week send a direct or @ message to lbraun2000 on Twitter.
(more…)