You’ve heard about connected learning right? Does it seem really huge and impossible? Is finding the money for technology not a reality for your library right now?
Keep learning more by reading posts oover the next few months in the YALSA blog. A good place to start is with this post from earlier this month, which includes some additional resources and watching and reading on connectedlearning.tv and there are lot of awesome new spaces and programs happening in libraries throughout the country.
But meanwhile, here is one pretty easy thing you can do today in your library – you may be doing this already!
When a young person asks you a question, connect him or her to print and online resources like you always do, but also think about other resources outside your library. At Hennepin County Library, we have a partnership with an organization called Learning Dreams. Their purpose is to connect patrons (young people and grown-ups, too) to resources in the community that can help them pursue the learning that really excites them. Are they interested in music and recording? Where can they learn more about this? Are there internships you can help them find? What are other resources in the community for this? Are there any actual schools? Are they obsessed with legos? Sure, you have some lego books, but are there any lego robotics clubs or big lego set-ups near them?
The specific links are examples from the Minneapolis-St Paul area, but you can find your own by talking with youth, and using both your awesome reference skills and knowledge of your own community.
Good luck connecting!
