Thrive Thursday July Round Up!

I'm happy to say that I'm hosting the Thrive Thursday School Age Round-up for July. Want to know more about Thrive Thursday created by Lisa Shaia? Check out past round ups at Thrive After Three. Make sure you don't miss a thing by following the Pinterest Board and Facebook group!

There are so many great things to share this week, so let's get started.

SLP Stories in Action Table

A cartoon donkey drawn in crayon with a speech bubble.
Text reads: "Tell us about a book you've read!"

Late last year we lost our fish tables (tables that looked like fish; not made of fish or specifically for fish), which meant that my space for the Story Action Pods went away. As I was brainstorming a new place for it, I thought about covering one of the tables we already had with butcher paper so kids could draw directly on it,  like some family restaurants do (I don't know which ones those are now, but there was one in Tallahassee Mall that did that. a Ryan's?). Exactly two days later, Rebecca at Hafuboti posted her Table Top Time inspired by Mo Willems, which gave me the courage to try it out... eventually.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Passive Programming: guest post by Ariel Cummins

Behold, a Boredom Buster!

Ariel Cummins started her career as a teen librarian, but quickly decided there was far too much drooling with teens and switched to the under 13 set. She writes about her (sometimes bumbling) exploration of what it means to be a children's librarian at http://hushlander.wordpress.com/ and frequently Tweets about authors, librarianship, and ridiculous things at https://twitter.com/hushlander. She works at San Antonio Public Library, and will probably never leave Central Texas because: breakfast tacos.

When I transitioned from teen programming to children’s programming, I also transitioned from a very busy neighborhood branch to a huge Central Library located in a downtown area. While the collection at our Central Library is huge, it was really, really hard to get people to actually attend programs on a regular basis. It was more of a “tourists drop in on vacation” or “residents come once a year to get books for reports” kind of place, rather than a “part of families’ weekly routines” kind of place. We tried programming in the mornings, in the evenings, on the weekends, and on weekdays, with varying success.

Boredom Busters and a Halloween Story Action Pod

Today marks the 6 month anniversary of me starting my job, and it's also when benefits kick in. I'm using a floating holiday to take off Thursday, thereby turning an unthinkable 10 day stint into a slightly grating though bearable 8 days of library goodness [2018 edit: I believe there was a time a few years later that I worked 17 days in a row. Having grown up in Downriver Detroit, getting ready for work at all means "work day" so if I work 4 hours I might as well have just stayed for 10. Not that I did, but the feeling, dude.]

This is also Day 3 of a week-long Reference Question Tally. We do these twice a year in our department, which I understand is way better than the daily tallies others make, but it is the first time I've ever done this.

Being me, I usually go about unaffected by any kind of crazy questions or requests I get. But, now that I am forced to think about it, my humor radar is sharply attuned.
Here's a few choice questions I've heard in the past few days: