Writing a Successful Grant Proposal

As funding for programs continue to get cut, a great way to fund your passive programming library initiatives (the ongoing stuff that may bolster check-outs with minimal extra staff time in the long run) is through grants.

As school funding gets cut, so does funding for extraneous frivolities like gym and field trips. For our Library Stars initiative, we knew that a large part of getting all second graders to visit us during school hours required about 14 buses. Buses are expensive, between gas prices and extra pay for the driver. We knew that if we couldn't offer to pay for the buses, it would be an uphill battle for schools to agree to visit (no matter how much they would like to, personally). So that's what our grant application asked for.

Book Trailer Making Program for Kids

Friday was a no-school day for the kids in my city, so I thought I would tackle something that I've wanted to do with kids since I learned of its inception: the creation of book trailers. Because I knew it was going to be pretty involved, I had registration and capped it at 10; 7 registered, and I ended up with three (hey, it was a sunny, warm, no-school Wisconsin Friday in February).

Film reel

The kids who did show up were from other program that I've run; 2 from Wednesday-ology and one from the Garfield party. Knowing them like I did already, I couldn't ask for a better group to try out a brand-new program that was entirely conceived, written, and implemented while I was hyped-up on cold medicine.

Monsterology

Halfway through the Wednesday-ologies, and I started to get a little crazy. Well maybe not crazy, but I decided to run with Monsterology into this Crypto-zoology wonderland.

My search, as always, began downstairs in the Shelves that Craft Day Forgot. There, I found glow-in-the-dark bracelets, and farmer's hats. Upstairs, I found passport-like stickers left over from the Summer Reading Program. Put the stickers on the farmer hat, and you have a great Indiana Jones hat.

So with this, I decided to make nametags with ______ Jones on them, with the ______ being the name of a state. I have a LEGO Indiana Jones keychain on my library lanyard, so naturally that name was taken; then I took the name Wisconsin Jones, Wisconsin being the state our library is in. All fights averted, I randomly handed out other state names to the kids.

We learned about monsters according to the Monsterology book. Here's a write-up of what was taught (I had pictures so that the kids could get good visuals. Never underestimate a Google image search and a quality color printer.You can skip to the activity if you don't care; my feelings will not be hurt. MAYBE my pride):

Pirate-ology

Now that we're in the Wednesday-ology swing, I decided to go this time with pirate-ology. Yar har!

I set the mood with a few CDs by the incomparable Captain Bogg & Salty, a pirate-themed children's band from the Pacific Northwest. Like last week's Spyology, I brought back the nametag idea. This time, I pre-populated a sheet of 20 nametags with pirate names, and had the kids pick them at random from a bag. My personal favorite was a little kindergartener who totally owned the name "Muscle-Arm Jones". Other examples of names were Sloppy Skipper, Happy Shoes, Rusty Boot, and Gilly Grog. Yes, I made these up from the top of my head. It took a disproportionately short time to do. But hey, when you're listening to Captain Bogg & Salty....

In case you were wondering, I also had a nametag; I am a cheeseball, after all. My name was Cap'n Pegleg, of course, as Pegleg is my undergrad nickname and remains, for the most part, the only name I will respond to in a crowded place (do you know HOW MANY PEOPLE are named "Sara[h]"?! My best friend in undergrad shared my biblical name, which I'm sure would've confused a whole lot of people if my name wasn't actually Pegleg instead).

Spy-ology

Wednesdays in February I decided to hold camps/classes based on the Ologies series. My first -ology was Spyology. Seventeen school-age attendees learned about all things Spy-related. For effect, the Agent Cody Banks soundtrack was played in the background.

Gaming for Elementary Kids: A Program, Full Stop

Last week I held a program on a no-school day. It was two hours long, and was especially for kids over 8 years old.


And we went on....

...the Internet.

Preschool Tour: Dog's Colorful Day



 After the success of the school-aged tourlibrary Field Trip ADVENTURE!, we decided to revamp the preschool tour library Field Trip ADVENTURE!.

As always, the preschool tour we offer revolves around a book. Last year was "Knuffle Bunny" by Mo Wilems. This year the book du jour is "Dog's Colorful Day" by Emma Dodd.

Cover of the book "Dog's Coloful Day":
A wyote dog with a black spot on its ear sniffs a rainbow bone

Childn00B Programming

Okay, so the title's pushing it since there's no clever way to incorporate my #n00brarian status. Or there is, but my sad trombone wittiness has been beaten out of me by a horde of children whose only weakness was Spiderman books (but at least they had one!). It's the calm after the storm now that my Spidey sense for misbehaving children has been deactivated (or, maybe it's more of a release valve. It slowly hisses out).

I constantly think of stuff to do at the library. Like, when I'm in the shower, in the middle of the night, watching a horror movie (not all at the same time). But, being new, I did have a fear of planning something that doesn't sound good. Not for fear it would fail, but the fear of something like this:

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:

(Iron Fist Sold Separately): Welcoming environments

The first professional development I'll be giving (when I talk about The Boat) is tomorrow. Last night I wrote up some things I'll be saying to go along with the morning script, which was given to us but needs to be embellished a bit. I get to talk about two "principles" to mindfulness with patron interaction-- one is relating to a feeling powerlessness and another is creating welcoming environments.

Powerlessness: The script says to talk about "last week" when I saw a mom and kid in the grocery store: "I was the grocery store a few weeks ago. A woman had two toddlers and was talking out loud. She said, 'James, it is not my fault that you did not take your nap. I'm tired and I need one, too!'

We all have this happen, this powerlessness. People are doing the best they can with what they have!
We need to have compassion and understanding. We don't need to know the whole scenario, but it helps to remember."

A mean looking baby. Text says "you nap when I say"

Now, this is a fine story. But it didn't really happen to me, or to anyone I witnessed. I figured this was disingenuous,  and that the principle of "powerlessness" isn't about an objective understanding of the idea of powerlessness and more about recalling (probably hurtful) memories of times that we have felt powerless in order to empathize properly.

Here is what I am going to add. This is a true story:

Child Management. With an Iron Fist.

In the middle of the children's department at my library, there is a boat.

Yup. A boat.

Wall of a library that is a replica of the side of a steamboat.

This monstrosity lines the entire right (erm, starboard) side of the room with bright colors, steps and a facade that clearly screams: PLAY ON ME!

I hear it used to be worse. It used to have a steering wheel and I think paddles, and like, cannons, or something. Its safety has increased (there is now vinyl lining the steel sides, and the wheel was taken down after only two kids' heads got stuck and started bleeding). 

But the worst part about it, is it's a memorial. So that means, no matter how many times the staff can be like, "seriously, there's a boat in our library" it cannot be taken down.

I wish I was kidding or even remotely hyperbolic about any of this. Maybe there weren't any cannons, but really, that's it.