YALSA Snack Break: Creativity in Leadership

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YALSA’s November webinar, Creativity in Leadership, was facilitated by three librarians in Montana – Rebekah Kamp, Heather Dickerson, and Cody Allen – who inspired attendees with strategies and examples of bringing innovative practices and leadership to services for and with teens. The November YALSA Snack Break is a five minute excerpt from this webinar. It focuses on how to make decisions about teen services activities, the importance of risk in teen services, and accepting and reframing failure. Check it out below:

You can view all of YALSA’s Snack Breaks by accessing the Snack Break playlist.

YALSA members have free access to all webinars (login required). Non-members can purchase webinars for a low cost.

YALS Spring 2016 – The Cupcake Innovation

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at the innovation celebration a photo of a teen at the podiumIn the spring 2016 issue of YALS, Darcy Coffta, the Upper School Librarian and Director of Innovation at the Berwick Academy, provides an overview of the school’s Innovation Center and some of the projects that students have worked on. One of the Innovation Pursuits mentioned is the “Cupcake Innovation.” And, as promised in the article, the recipe is available so you can try it out yourself.

You can read more about the Berwick Innovation Center, access mentor materials, and more on the Berwick Academy website.

YALSA members and YALS subscribers can access the current issue of the journal, along with past issues, on the “members only” section of the YALSA website. (Login required.)

YALSA Professional Learning Series: The Future of Library Services for and with Teens – Thinking Differently

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photo of sneakered feet surrounded by notebooks, devices, and writing implements In the final week of discussion related to thinking differently about library services for and with teens, let’s talk about barriers and successes that people have had with thinking differently and implementing change. Thinking about what you’ve read related to this topic, and what you’ve been able to accomplish, let us know:

  • What barriers have you faced to making change and thinking differently
  • How you overcame those barriers, or questions you have about overcoming those barriers
  • A success you’ve had in your library implementing YALSA Futures Report related ideas that help make change in your work with and for teens
  • What you think helped to make the change possible
  • Ideas and suggestions you have for others who are also working towards change
  • Questions you have about implementing different thinking, innovation, and change in your work with and for teens

You can read the original post in this series as well as the follow-up.

YALSA Professional Learning: The Future of Library Services for and with Teens – Thinking Differently

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photo of sneakered feet surrounded by notebooks, devices, and writing implements This week in discussion related to thinking differently about library services for and with teens, let’s talk about successes that people have had with thinking differently and implementing change. Thinking about what you’ve read related to this topic, and what you’ve been able to accomplish, let us know:

  • A success you’ve had in your library implementing YALSA Futures Report related ideas that help make change in your work with and for teens
  • What you think helped to make the change possible
  • Ideas and suggestions you have for others who are also working towards change
  • Questions you have about implementing different thinking, innovation, and change in your work with and for teens

You can read the original post in this series as well as the follow-up.

YALSA Professional Learning: The Future of Library Services for and with Teens – Thinking Differently

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photo of kid feet in sneakers surrounded by books, notebooks, tablet, and smartphone Last week in the first post in this month’s YALSAblog Professional Learning series on innovation and change, I posted a set of resources to read, listen to, and view. This week it’s time to start a discussion about barriers to thinking differently about teen services in libraries and how the resource materials posted last week help you to think about new ways to overcome those barriers.

One of the barriers I regularly face, and also see in other people’s institutions, is that of time. There are lots of ways to think about time within the context of thinking differently. One of the things that I found the article about disruptive innovation focused on really well is that thinking differently, doing things differently, and disrupting traditional practice takes time. And, not only that, but it takes time to fail, analyze what didn’t work, and try a new or different approach. In libraries this time factor can be a really big barrier to thinking differently. It’s a lot more convenient and takes less time to keep doing things the way they have been done before.
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YALSA Professional Learning: The Future of Library Services for and with Teens – Thinking Differently

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photo of kid feet in sneakers surrounded by books, notebooks, tablet, and smartphone Welcome to the first in YALSA’s new monthly professional learning series. Each month we’ll highlight a topic and give readers the chance to learn about it as well as discuss it with others. Here’s how it works:

  • On the first of each month the YALSAblog will post an overview of the topic of the month. That overview will include links to resources to read, watch, listen to, etc.
  • If you are interested in participating in the learning during the month, comment on the initial blog post to say something like, “yes, I’m in.”
  • Each week the facilitator of the topic – that’s me this month – will check-in with participants with a post that poses questions and helps to focus conversation on the topic.
  • Participants can converse with others about the topic by commenting on those posts.

We hope this is a low-stress way to learn something new or expand your knowledge on a topic. There is no pressure, just a desire to learn and discuss your learning.

Onto this month’s theme – Thinking Differently
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Connect, Create, Collaborate: The Next Big Thing Takes Leadership & Finding Your Voice

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In 2011, I attended the Eureka! Leadership Institute in California. It was one of the best professional development experiences I have had to date. For 5 days, I worked alongside 31 other librarians around California with a variety of experience and years in the field—from directors to supervisors and managers to part-time and full-time librarians. All had a passion to be a driving force for change in their library systems and were eager to learn how to start the process.

We went through a series of planned exercises and discussions related to management, leadership, change, and the importance of vision. We exchanged some laughs and some tears, ideas and insecurities, and most importantly, we opened ourselves up to our fellow colleagues and really got the chance to examine what it means to be a librarian in the 21st century. After the intensive training was finished, we each went back to our communities, inspired, and committed to a year-long project that filled a demonstrated community need. Another valuable aspect of our training was to participate in an online grant-writing course, develop outcomes and evaluation measures for our projects, and write our own grant to secure funds.
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30 Days of Innovation #19: I’ve grown accustomed to that face

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When this month’s theme was announced I got to thinking of some of the innovations that have entered into my world since I was a child. I should state here that I am defining innovation according to its “invention” and “evolution” roots. I wanted to think about what new systems/ideas/products have been brought into librarianship that have made me wonder how we could have ever done without.

Like poor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, what have I grown accustomed to? So, I’ve been thinking about this for a while and here are a few of my favorite innovations without which I am sure my job and my life would be far more challenging and far less enjoyable. Read More →

30 Days of Innovation #16.5 (bonus post!): E-readers as supplements

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Can we finally put the argument to rest? E-readers are not killing reading, nor are they killing books. As research shows, people who own e-readers not only read more than people who don’t, but they read both e-books and print books. Not to mention, there are plenty of populations, from prison inmates to seniors, who will need print books for a long time coming. Neither one is going away.

That’s not to say that they’re the same, though. Far from it. In my experience, e-readers attract different types of readers than print books, and they’re also engaging more people who were previously non-readers. Anybody who thinks that’s not great, well… There are also scads of e-reading apps available for phones, tablets, and computers, so e-content is available to more than just people with Nooks and Kindles. People use e-readers for a variety of reasons, from pleasure reading to research, so it’s good to consider how many bases you can cover. The Pew Research Center released a report on reading, readers, and e-readers recently, and ALA of course responded. While Pew’s data is encouraging (among other statistics released, the study found that people who use e-readers read more books per year than people who only read in print), ALA pointed out that the stats of who reads at all, and who reads in what format, are also related to education and income level. So what can you do about it? Read More →