Hot Tips from the April State Youth Consultant's Meeitng

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

Did you know that that the WI systems youth services consultants and liaisons meet six times annually via Zoom? They do! 

During the pandemic, Tessa Michaelson Schmidt morphed the day-long annual consultant's meeting into hour-long meetings to make sure youth services folks could share and get information. They are joined by DPI and CCBC representatives, and your YSS president (and often a YSS blog reporter!).

At the most recent meeting held in April there were a few things that popped up. We want to make sure you know about them!

• PBS Wisconsin Education content is available to augment Summer Library Programming. https://dpi.wi.gov/wilibrariesforeveryone/pbs-wisconsin-education-resources-available 
• In addition to National Library Week celebrated earlier this month, April is School Library Month. Please consider giving a shout-out or a friendly hello to your local school librarian. 
• Annual Report Program and Activity Tracker: Our updated program tracker worksheet is now available. See our blog post for more information: https://dpi.wi.gov/wilibrariesforeveryone/2022-public-library-annual-report-programming-and-activity-count-tracker-now
• Charlotte Zolotow Award presentation, with Cheryl Minnema and Meg Medina, Saturday, May 21, 2:00-4:00 at Union South, Madison. Registration  (feel free to share this info and link)
• Double presentation–2020 award and 2021 award
• Award winners (Cheryl Minnema and Meg Medina) will be at event
• Limited seating. Register early.

In addition, reports were given by DPI (Beanstack webinars; they are working through procurement for Beanstack in 2023 and beyond. More soon, but we do intend to renew the subscription); reports by the CCBC (upcoming events; outreach is back; IF services reminder); and YSS (upcoming webinars; invite to submit fall conference proposals especally on COVID and post-CVID programming/services; WAPL events).

Additional discussion centered around sharing experiences and tips on SLP coupon incentives and reading programs sponsored by sports organizations.

For more detailed information, reach out to your system youth liaison/consultant and they can share more!

The Future of the DPI Youth Services Consultant Position

Image by nvodicka from Pixabay

As many of you know, Tessa Michaelson Schmidt will be leaving her DPI Division of Library and Technology Consultant position at the end of June. Tessa, who has been in this position for nearly 10 years, will now be the Assistant State Superintendent for the Division for Libraries and Technology beginning July 6. This is the first time in over 20 years that a librarian has been in this role.

So what will happen to her current position? 

At the June 15, 2021 meeting of system youth services liaisons and consultants, Tessa shared some of the developing plans.

The vacancy will be filled, but probably not right away.  There are many position changes happening currently at DPI, including a few positions already in the queue for the team. The team is also moving forward on changing their telework policy, so it might be possible to have someone who is based elsewhere in the position [ML-W note: pandemic remote work has taught all of us many useful lessons on working in the new millenium!]. It will be important to have the DPI expectations on teleworking clarified before filling the position.  Tessa wants someone who is really passionate about youth and inclusive services, so it will be worth waiting if necessary to find the right match.  The currrent DPI/YS liaisons/consultants collaborative network will hopefully be able to keep things going well.

The monthly and then bi-monthly meetings with the system inclusive services and youth services staff will continue until at least the end of the year. Started virtually during the pandemic, Tessa facilitated these meetings to share information and provide a forum to discuss issues of concern to systems and their member libraries. Going forward, these meetings will be hosted on a rotating basis by willing system volunteers on their platforms.

To keep communication robust among the system YS folks, volunteer liaisons/consultants will rotate as facilitators for these meetings for the rest of the year. The facilitator will remind people of the upcoming meeting and link, remind people to add to the agenda and facilitate the meetings. She is also hoping the group will help monitor questions that come up at the meeting and on the wissysys (email list for the system youth services liaisons/consultants) to pass on queries to Tessa or Ben Miller for answers. This will help streamline getting answers from DPI to all liaisons/consultants.

Finally, Tessa's final Friday FAQ will be the June edition. This will be the 26th recording (the archives can be found at the YSS blog).