School librarians reassigned to classrooms

From the Seattle Times article Reassigned school librarians get attention beyond Bellevue, by Katherine Long:

[Sandy] Livingston, the Sammamish librarian, echoed UW professor [Michael] Eisenberg's analysis: that a library without a librarian is just a depository of books. Among other things, school librarians help guide students to credible sources of information on the Internet, and teach them how to decide if a source they've found online is legitimate or not.

When I worked for King County Library System, I visited the Bellevue, Washington elementary public schools for summer-reading program visits. The librarians were knowledgable, in touch with their students, and maintained excellent library collections. Many of the students were avid readers. Had I gone the school librarian route, the Bellevue School District would have been a dream location.

Once upon a time.

Will you miss them when they're gone?

Walter Minkel has a post with a link to an article about librarians in Wausau, Wisconsin, dealing with pay cuts and demotions. Besides financial anxieties as a result of higher health insurance costs, library director Phyllis Christensen said that, "Librarians today do less complex work." As a result, there is a call for "pay adjustments" and "more technological assistance."

When I worked in the public library system, "technological assistance" sometimes translated to "tinker with the jammed printer" or "show the caregiver how to find the games on the library homepage for her 2 year old son." More often, that technological assistance involved teaching children and grownups how to find online materials that had authority and relevance to what they needed for research projects, book reports, and independent seeking of knowledge.

In my first year of library work, I once helped an adult patron who said in a chirpy voice, "I really don't see why you have to get a degree for this work." She uttered this remark after she had asked for my help for some in-depth children's reference question. I tried to explain to her that I couldn't summarize for her in two minutes what I had learned in two years. One spends a relatively short amount of time in library school, learning about organizational and research tools, ethics and philosophies of services, usually followed by an internship in one's speciality. The majority of library education is on the job experience, but that prior schooling is as important as prepping one's walls with TSP before painting.*

Over the years, librarians have been working to help educate the public on what they do so that people actually understand (and therefor value) what they do. The public, however, needs to let library directors and elected officials know why they value librarians with specific examples of how they have benefitted from being helped by professionals. These specific examples can't come from the librarians themselves, or it looks as if we're working in our own self-interest.

It may well be that the people don't value the services they've previously received, and would prefer just to have someone around to fix the printer or show them how to find the games on the internet. Perhaps the people don't want toddler and preschool storytimes planned by professionals who have bothered to study a wide range of stories and rhymes to know what works for different groups. If the demand for excellence isn't there, then librarians probably will be phased out in favor of technical assistants and library host/esses. But here's the question: when the librarians go, will you miss them when they're gone?

*You did wash your walls before you painted them, I hope...!

In search of the elusive Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

Last month, Walter Minkel asked, "Are Young People "Experts" in Googling?" While the post was more about satisfactory results in internet searches than it was about determining the accuracy of the information found, I was reminded of my school librarian friend Seattle-Jane and her use of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) in library instruction. As she walks her students through the site that explains why the Tree Octopus is an endangered species, what one can do to help save it, and other pertinent points, inevitably one or two children say that they in fact have seen the tree octopus in their backyards. Seattle-Jane doesn't have a mean bone in her body, so she gently lets her students down and talks about how to have a healthy skepticism of the internet.

Take a look at the site. It's quite thorough. However, I am a bit dismayed that the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus has a new predator: the Japanese Maple Octopus (the picture is at the bottom of the page).

02/13/08 update: Here is an article about the use of the Tree Octopus website in classrooms: Tentacled Tree Hugger Disarms Seventh Graders, by Matthew Bettelheim.

Seven Tips for Satisfying Library Preschool Programs

Pictured: Chester, my storytime monkey. Every year, I'd celebrate Chester's birthday on my birthday. Every year, Chester turned 3 years old, and he baked cardamom sugar cookies for the children and their caregivers.

MotherReader would like you to submit tips related to children's books for her November 2007 Carnival of Children's Literature. I didn't have any tips specifically related to children's literature this year, so I made some new ones. Please add your own library program tips in the comments section.

Seven Tips for Satisfying Library Preschool Programs

1) Start the opening song late. Before I had a child, I was incredulous that these caregivers couldn’t get it together to bring their children to the storytime room at 10:30 am for a mere 30 minute storytime. After I had a child, I understood the reasons for the tardiness. My solution: I would pretend to start the program with a warm-up song. By the time the late-comers arrived, they thought the storytime had already begun. At 10:35, after the warm-up song, I’d make any general announcements that I needed to convey, and then start the official opening song.

2) I used to have a number of guidelines for the caregivers before I began my programs. Now, I have just one: turn cell phones and pagers off. Everything else (the rowdiness of the children, the nannies chatting away in the back, the toddler grabbing the cardboard and construction displays off the walls) is gravy. In the end, no one can truly control a child, but for thirty minutes, a grownup can control electronic noises.

3) You really don’t need a specific theme. If a unifying theme helps you prepare a storytime, that’s great, but don’t choose mediocre books just so you can read 5 books about frogs or fingernails. Choose books for their pacing, their ability to convey plot in a short amount of time, and how much you yourself enjoy the books. If you need something to unify them, there’s always “And now, for something completely different!”

4) Read your picture-books ahead of time. I cannot stress this enough. The one time you think, “Oh, I’m sure this book will be just fine” will be the one time you realize midway that the book is tedious, too long, or simply too weird for you at that juncture.

5) While some people are not comfortable with their singing voices, I prefer the storytime leader’s own natural voice, no matter how weak it may be, over playing recorded music. Whether you play an instrument or rely on your voice alone, when you lead the audience in a song, you are the one in charge. Besides, if you’re playing prerecorded music, there will always be the young toddler who persists in crawling behind you to unplug the player.

6) “Eensy Weensy Spider” often calms a fussy room. For slightly older kids, suddenly bursting into “Simon Says” will compel the room to order. I don’t know what it is about “Simon Says,” except that children don't want to be caught putting their hands on their heads if Simon didn’t Say for them to do it. The mortification is too much to bear.

7) Have a good ending song or rhyme. All flaws are forgiven with an ending that helps everyone walk out feeling good. I'm a fan of "Roly Poly" for the wee ones, and a song or poem in 3/4 time for the older ones.

A few of my favorite picture books for preschool storytimes:

Zzzing, Zzzng, Zzzng! --Phyllis Gershator
Chicken Chasing Queen of Lamar County--Janice N. Harrington (long)
Mama Don’t Allow—Thatcher Hurd
Round Trip—Ann Jonas
The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle—Margaret Read MacDonald (long)
Flossie and the Fox-- Patricia McKissack
Guys From Space—Daniel Pinkwater
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World—Marjorie Priceman
Saving Sweetness---Diane Stanley (long)
Twenty Four Robbers—Audrey Wood

Related post: Seven Tips for Successful Storytelling at Parties

Library grrrl

Hey all,

If you're going to the ALA Midwinter Conference in Seattle, Washington this weekend, I'd love to see you, even if it's just a wave from across the exhibits hall. I've been looking forward to this particular conference ever since I moved away from New York City. I miss my old friends and colleagues from NYPL. Many of us have dispersed. It's a bit humbling to know that colleagues who have started their careers the same time I did are now managing branch librarians and award committee members. It's not as if my friends had pegged me "Least likely to pause her career in order to stay home with her child," but there are times when I am rueful about having left a 30 hour job with benefits and paid holidays. Truth be told (I get stomachaches when I lie), I quit my salaried job a year before I got pregnant. Officially, I quite because I believed I could make a steady living a substitute librarian while pursuing my writing career full-time. They say, "Don't quit your day job," and I did just that. It was the proverbial "jump off the cliff" into who-knows-where. Had I thrived as a freelance writer, people could say, "How inspiring, she followed her dreams, blah blah." Really, I wanted to see what would happen. If I didn't quit my job (which had a schedule that was leading to burn-out), I would have wondered what my life would have been had I not had the chutzpah to leave.

Did I make the right decision? In the short term, no. However, the long-term effects are still up for debate. After I gave birth, I was glad that I didn't have to think about leaving my child in someone else's care. I was relieved that I had made my decision to put my library career on hold before the era of multiple night-wakings and round the clock nursing. I would have gone back to work had there been need to do so, and yes, I know how extraordinarily lucky I was that the family could survive on one income. I was glad to know that my colleagues who had both children and full-time salaried jobs also had parents in the area who would take care of the grandchildren.

I don't miss my library work schedule, but I do miss my colleagues. I miss talking about children's books with patrons. I miss my colleagues and I trading wacky patron stories. Oh, whoops, we didn't actually do that last bit. Really!(Uh-oh, here comes the stomache-ache.)


Photo: Pre-pregnant Alkelda in her usual reference desk attire.

You'll be dancing in the stacks

From Cursor Miner's The Library:

"The library, the library,
It's the place where books are free.
The library, the library,
(Librarians are often sex-y)."

LIBRARIANS: the COPS version

I've not yet gotten tired of videos featuring librarians as tough-talking enforcers of the peace. This skit is brought to you by the folks from Almost Live (the origin of Bill Nye the Science Guy):

LIBRARIANS

ALA Midwinter Conference 2007

Ever since I left New York, I have been looking forward to the 2007 American Library Association Midwinter Conference. I was never much of a conference goer in general, and the last time I went to ALA was in my last semester of library school. In January 2007, the conference will be in Seattle, Washington. I won't have to travel anywhere further than a short bus or car ride Downtown. I'm hoping to see friends and colleagues with whom I've lost touch, as well as fellow bloggers who happen to be traveling librarian types. I'm not an ALA member, but I'm planning on registering early. I've not decided for sure yet, but since I am currently unafilliated with a library system (yeah, I substitute, but I'm not considered a staff member), I may have "Saints and Spinners" on my badge.

[Note to potential stalkers reading this post: Back off. Now. And forever.]

The rest of you have an open invitation to hang out, eat cupcakes and gush about Stephen Colbert. Whatever else floats your boat in our drizzly little city is fine, too.

I'll bet you didn't know I had my own celebrity READ poster. Then again, neither does ALA!

Warrior Librarian

Librarians love it when librarian characters show up in popular culture. I used to have a thick handout bundle that cited librarians in key and minor movie roles. Until I started watching Buffy: the Vampire Slayer a month ago, my favorite librarian in film was Rachel Weitz's role in The Mummy. When Evelyn Carnahan says, "I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O'Connell, but I am proud of what I am."

("And what is that?" asks the Brendan Frasier character.)

"I am... a librarian!" Evie replies with fervor. The music soars. The audience cheers. What a rush.

Still, Evelyn Carnahan is no match for school librarian, demon-expert and mentor to the Vampire Slayer, Rupert Giles. As a new watcher (no pun intended), I cannot do justice to honoring the character of Giles. However, librarian extraordinaire GraceAnne DeCandido can, and she does. Ms. DeCandido gave her assent for me to link her article on the Hero Librarian.

Here it is:

Rupert Giles and Search Tools for Wisdom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, by GraceAnne A. DeCandido

P.S. Why does my library system not yet have Librarian: Quest for the Spear?

P.P.S. I've just ordered a used copy of "Librarian: Quest for the Spear." I am willing to send it around. Just let me know, and we'll get a list going.

Fuse # 8 and the CCR*

*Not Credence Clearwater Revival

Here's a shout-out for Fuse Number 8, a children's literature blog written by a librarian at the Best Library in the World. I used to work there, so I'm biased. Here are ten of the reasons why I loved my brief stint at the Central Children's Room so much:

1) Working in the same room where Mary Poppins' umbrella was displayed.

2) When someone came in to get information on a book he or she was writing, chances were that I'd already read the author's previous works.

3) Hanging on the coat-tails of library luminaries to attend author/illustrator parties, including the 35th Anniversary of Where the Wild Things Are, and Madeleine L'Engle's 70th birthday party.

4) Walking by the display of the original Winnie-the-Pooh characters and seeing Eeyore smirking to himself.

5) Even if I never really had time to go to the Museum of Modern Art, I appreciated working across the street from MOMA.

6) Working during the time of the lovely Winnie-the-Pooh controversy.

7) Accidentally-on-purpose bumping into the cute reference librarian with the devastating smile.

8) Only having to work every other Saturday rather than 2 Saturdays in a row followed by one Saturday off, then 2 Saturdays in a row again. (Argh!)

9) Raiding the Annex for extra copies of books that patrons would otherwise have to wait days to receive.

10) My colleagues. I miss my colleagues.