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Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Symposium on the Future of Libraries 2019: A Youth Services Opportunity!

Do you have ideas about the future of youth services? Five years in the future will be here in no time. How about 20?

I've been honored to represent the youth services perspective on the Center for the Future of Libraries Advisory Group the past few years. The Center is a great resource for tracking library trends and sharing future-focused stories through the weekly "Read for Later" newsletter. The Advisory Group's main duties so far have been to review and make recommendations for the Center for the Future of Libraries Fellowship and the Symposium on the Future of Libraries. The Symposium has quickly become a popular offering at the Midwinter Meetings.

A lined background with a red stamp that says, "Due 8/15/18." 
In black text: "Symposium on the Future of Libraries: A YS Opportunity!"


As you know, the Midwinter Meeting is where the Youth Media Awards are announced, which makes it a great space for more youth-specific sessions. This Midwinter's last-minute "Storytime Deep Dive" in the Uncommons was an attempt to fill this need by ALSC member Melissa Depper.

As I said about the the Center for the Future of Libraries Fellowship earlier this year (I mean it double this time):

"I'd love to see a ton of Youth Services submissions. I really feel like there are so many great conversations happening about even the nature of youth services itself, but implementation can be tough when you're running 15 programs a week/managing tours for your whole district/on the desk several hours a week/yelling 'walk please' every 20 minutes/getting Child Germ Flu/constantly planning either Summer Reading or Battle of the Books/ etc etc etc. Or maybe you're facing a rough time and buzzing along and could use a new project to sink your teeth into.

Youth Services IS the future of libraries; we're literally shaping family library legacies and creating lifelong library users and supporters, everyday. But we hardly get the time or support to really consider what that even means. We see it in the courses that are offered, the conference proposals that get accepted, the Storytime Underground questions that get asked again and again: we're looking for quick tips for right now, and that's what we're getting.

And that's great, and it can work.

We ALSO deserve the space, the time, and the support to really consider what youth services actually means, and what our future could look like"


SO: I want to see your proposals for the Symposium in 2019! What ideas are floating around in your head that you want to shake out? Have a presentation in mind, or a discussion you want to see had? The proposal application is live now! Submit your youth-focused proposal by August 15th (not that there's anything else going on for youth services folks right now...).  I know it's all in the throes of SRP,  but I'd love for anyone who has the bandwidth to consider this opportunity.

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Rerun This Fall! The Disability Community in the Library: The Class



I am so happy to announce that this Fall I will be teaching the online course, "The Disability Community in the Library" with the University of Wisconsin-Madison iSchool Continuing Education program! The course will run November 5-December 16, 2018. Register by October 22, 2018 for a 10% discount!

Unsure if this course is for you? Need some help justifying this course to your admin? Read on for more information!

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Battle of the Bands Escape Room for Tweens and Teens

This post is written by Jennifer Johnson, my current programming blog intern. Find all of her posts here.

Happy summer! I hope that everyone’s summer reading programs are off to a great start! Like most libraries, we are absolutely loving the music theme this year with Libraries Rock! And like most libraries, escape rooms are hugely popular with our patrons at the moment. Up until this summer, we had used pre-made games from BreakoutEdu for our escape room programs, but we just couldn’t find one that struck the right chord (pun totally intended) with our music theme. Thus, we embarked into the unknown territory of writing our own games!