Monday, June 20, 2022

SRP Week 2 - Mermaids & Monsters

 


As I explained previously, though I didn't really plan on doing weekly themes, it just kind of ended up that way, and for week 2 I focused on mythical sea creatures. And that of course mean mermaids and sea monsters (but NOT narwhals; narwhals are real).

Saturday, June 18, 2022

Can We PLEASE Stop with the Vocational Awe Already?


Vocational awe and children's librarians, youth services and vocational awe, vocational awe in libraries

You know, if there was any good to come from this terrible pandemic, I would have thought it would have gotten us as a profession to kick this ridiculous sense of vocational awe to the curb. You know, the idea that libraries are sacred and that librarianship is a virtuous calling we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves for. The feeling that we have to be all things to all people, fill all the cracks in society that people inevitably slip through, give of ourselves until it hurts. I think this idea is the most pervasive in the area of youth services.

Vocational awe leads to mission creep, overworking, understaffing, and people that are underemployed and/or underpaid (among other issues).

Sunday, June 12, 2022

SRP Week 1 - Going to the Beach

 


So there is always ongoing discussion in youth services about themes, usually in relation to storytime, but also in relation to summer reading. Many libraries follow CSLP or iREAD themes, some come up with their own, and some don't really have a theme, other than "summer at the library". I've always said themes are optional, and sometimes can be fun and make it easier to plan, and sometimes can be too restrictive and make it more difficult.

Most of the libraries in my state follow CSLP, as does mine, so our theme is "Oceans of Possibilities". This was a very easy theme to decorate around, and I thought would be pretty easy to program around, but I found it harder than expected. I ended up picking several activities I wanted to do, looking at when I had scheduled guest performers, and what movies I had planned to show, and picking weekly themes to loosely follow to give me some direction [however, I am thinking more and more of moving away from themes, especially after looking at the CSLP themes for next year]. For the first week, I decided on a loose "beach" theme, with sand-based activities.

Sunday, June 5, 2022

Summer Readin', Happened So Fast....

 


....Summer Readin', Are We Having A Blast??

You may have noticed my blog has been rather quiet lately, or maybe you haven't, because like me you have been so busy getting everything ready for summer reading that you've barely had time to even breathe! I started thinking about summer reading as soon as I got here in December and started seriously planning in February, but June 1st came way too fast!