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Concept Picture Books (or How to Make More Room!)
In my library our pictures books are shelved around a large square with shelves around the inside and outside of the square. It’s a really cool idea – leaving space for families and kids to read on the inside and is open so that adults can see over the shelves…
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Winner of the 2015 BoB!
I don’t have any clever April Fool’s joke for today, but excitingly the winner of the School Library Journal’s 2015 Battle of the Kids’ Books was announced today! Drumroll please….. the winner is The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin. And of course,…
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Fore! Mini-Golf in the Library
Today we have an eighteen hole miniature golf course set up throughout the library as a fundraiser. Community members are able to stop by at any point from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm to play a round of golf. The cost for patrons to play is $5/person; $10/family; and $15/groups…
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Parent/Teacher Resources
As a Family Place Library, we are tasked with having an up-to-date parent resource section located near our play area where parents can browse for books while their children are playing and not have to wander off to the adult department to do so. We were gracious enough to receive…
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Funding – A Never Ending Battle
With a fundraiser for our library happening on Saturday, finances, budgets and money has been on my mind, especially after receiving an email this morning inviting me to attend the National Library Legislative Day the weekend of May 3 – 5 in Washington DC to talk with representatives, senators and…
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To Reference or Not To Reference?
Yesterday, I finally got back to a project that got pushed to the wayside last spring. It happens all the time, we start working on something full steam ahead and something else that is more important takes its place. We began working our way through the reference area in our…
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iPads for Us!
We were lucky enough last year to have a little extra money to be able to purchase 10 iPads for the library (and Otterbox Defender cases). I am now (finally!) getting around to setting them up. I spent the morning pulling them all out of the boxes and after watching…
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Advocacy – The Easy Way
I’m so proud of myself – I actually read through Children & Libraries (the spring 2015 edition) already! There were lots of interesting articles, but the one that stood out to me the most was “It’s How You Say It” written by Jenna Nemec-Loise about the importance of using value-based…
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How to Get Kids to Love Books
I think one of the most common questions I receive at the reference desk is, “What should my <insert grade here> be reading?” or “My kid doesn’t like to read, do you have any suggestions?” Parents/caregivers are wanting to raise children who enjoy reading for pleasure, but are often…
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Children's Book Council Resources
“The Children’s Book Council (CBC) is the nonprofit trade association of children’s book publishers in North America, dedicated to supporting and informing the industry and fostering literacy.” I am currently an ALA intern serving a two-year term with the CBC meeting in New York twice a year to talk about…