Coping with Politically Motivated Censorship - ALA Webinar

A YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) webinar, co-sponsored by AASL (American Association of School Librarians), PLA (Public Library Association), and ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) will be held over Zoom April 11, 2023 at 2:00pm CDT for ALA members.

All around the country, politically motivated challenges to library patrons’ freedom to read and library staff members’ ability to do their jobs are increasing. Many of these challenges have moved from simple complaints and removal requests to abusive, sometimes dangerous behavior. 

In this new webinar, you’ll hear from Darcy Lipp-Acord, the Youth Services Librarian at Campbell County Public Library in Gillette, WY. As someone who has been on the front lines of this harassment, she will present information linking strategies of book challenging groups with abusive behaviors typically found in domestic relationships and offer strategies for dealing with those behaviors as front-facing library staff.

You’ll learn about common strategies used by political groups in their efforts to censor youth materials, how to identify and name these behaviors, and how doing so can empower library staff to develop proactive strategies for responding in ways that protect their safety and integrity.

After participating in this event, learners will:

• Be able to identify common abusive behaviors being used by book challenging groups
• Be able to recognize the patterns utilized by these groups
• Understand how to adapt strategies taught to domestic abuse victims to library situations, and to utilize these strategies to help staff cope with abusive behaviors

Darcy Lipp-Acord is the Youth Services Librarian at Campbell County Public Library in Gillette, WY. Since July of 2021, she has been directly involved in dealing with a local group attempting to move youth materials out of childrens and teen areas of her library. The group, as many such challengers nationwide, has resorted to abusive techniques that demoralize staff. Lipp-Acord has researched the links between these techniques and abusive strategies often used in domestic situations, and presented her findings at the 2022 YALSA Symposium in Baltimore.

This event will be hosted in Zoom. Registration is limited to 1000 individuals who are ALA members. Automatic captions will be enabled for this event. This event will be recorded, and the recording will be freely available to all, including those who did not register for the live event or were not able to attend.

Please stop here at the ALA website to register for this free webinar.

Streamline for Success: Library Programs & Services Reboot in APRIL

We all want our library services to be strong and strategic, but how do you ensure that your library is producing meaningful, intentional services that support your mission, rather than simply falling into the traps of “more is more” or “we’ve always done it this way”? This workshop will lead participants through perspectives on creating and implementing mission-driven library services with a design thinking lens. Participants will have an immediate opportunity to put their learning into practice in this interactive workshop. The workshop will include two 3-hour sessions, with two weeks between sessions. Participants will also be able to continue working with the presenters during select open office hours after the workshops.

Learning Outcomes: Participants will learn to…

1. Conduct a library service audit and needs assessment
2. Identify a desired service goal
3. Apply design thinking principles to developing strong library service plans
4. Utilize tools to enact and iterate a streamlined plan

Ideal audience: Library directors, adult and youth services managers

Presenters: Kelsey Johnson-Kaiser (St. Paul Public Library, MN) and Amy Koester (Skokie Public Library, IL)

This is a two-part workshop. Both sessions will be held online.

Session 1 (choose one)

• 9:00 am - 12:00 pm Tuesday, April 6, 2021
• 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm Tuesday, April 6, 2021
• 9:00 am - 12:00 pm Wednesday, April 7, 2021
  
  

Session 2 (choose one)

• 9:00 am - 12:00 pm Tuesday, April 20, 2021
• 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm Tuesday, April 20, 2021
• 9:00 am - 12:00 pm Wednesday, April 21, 2021

 

To register: https://forms.gle/rBrAZSprjmiYwcxU8  

 

Open to public library staff. 60 seats available for each session. CE contact hours: 6. Maximum 3 people per library may register.

Co-sponsored by Wisconsin Library Systems and the Department of Public Instruction, with funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the form of Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). 

 

Wow! WLA Conference Wants You!

Four days of learning, networking, deep thinking and fun just wrapped up at the WI Library Association's fall conference in the Dells. While there will be reports of individual sessions in the coming weeks on this blog, I wanted to highlight a few reasons I think conferences where we come together are so vital:

• We meet, network & catch up with peers from across the state & across multiple library types.
• We have opportunities to learn things from different perspectives than our own and to stay fresh.
• We get practical information as well as mind-blowing new insight.
• We can have fun with our YSS peers who work so hard to make the conference meaningful and helpful.
• We can celebrate and support each other, cheering and honoring people like Leah Langby, IFLS youth consultant and this year's Librarian of the Year.
• We can take time away from work to refresh and retool.

Wait, you couldn't be there this year? Here are some strategies to make attendance at next year's conference in La Crosse (October 23-26) possible - and probable:

MEMBERSHIP
Join WLA as a member. It's $50 annually if you make $16K or less. If you make more than this, you pay an addition $3 for every $1000 you make. Membership saves you lots of money on conference registration and helps keep WLA strong. Besides benefits listed on the link, you get a strong lobbying voice; opportunities to lead; access to create great content for your peers through YSS committees; and life-long friendships. Your membership runs for 1 year from the date you pay (rather than Jan-Dec). Please join and help us keep WLA strong!

FREEING UP TIME
Plan to take a storytime, outreach and programming break on Oct 23-16, 2018 and let your community know that you are going to learn a ton to help them by attending the conference! Leah Langby shares some reasons why breaks work!

TOO EXPENSIVE?
I hear you. In order to make membership and conference attendance affordable when I was younger, I put a little $$ aside each paycheck for membership dues and conference expenses. I also asked my sweet mom, who gave me thoughtful but often unneeded birthday and holiday gifts, if she would cover my ALA and WLA memberships (win-win!!). Later, I also realized if I didn't go out to eat for one meal each month or skipped two barista-prepared double lattes monthly, I'd have enough for dues as well.

I DON'T KNOW ANYONE...
YSS will take care of you! The booth is full of friendly people and you can chat with so many people there who would love to get to know you and about your work and library. It is networking heaven!

Finally, La Crosse, right on the Mississippi River, is a beautiful, walkable friendly conference site with stores, shops, tasty eating places (BBQ; fancy dancy; bar food; pizza; tapas and noshes) close by to the conference center. It's historical and modern setting makes it a crown jewel of the west coast of Wisco. Hope to see you there!

52 Weeks: Week 38 Yu-Gi-Oh Duelist Tournament

Brought to you by the Wisconsin Library Association Youth Services Section, 52 Weeks of YA Programming is a collection of teen programs submitted by YSS members across the state.

Week 38: Yu-Gi-Oh Duelist Tournament Submitted by YSS Member Emily Heideman

How to Say No

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People who know me know I love to think about how we work towards creating an atmosphere of "yes" in our work. Within the confines of work, this moving towards yes can mean great success in building better buy-in, teamwork and innovative change for your library and community.

But what about outside of work? What about the many things that are peripherally part of your librarianship but serve better to advance your reputation or resume than to serve your community or job. It is tempting to say yes to as many things as possible but it can encroach on your energy, enthusiasm and ideas for your own paid-time work.

How to balance?

Melissa over at Mel's Desk has written three posts walking readers through her process of learning to say no to outside-work professional commitments. They are a perfect thoughtful primer to help all of us work out our own yeses and nos.

What I've Learned About Saying No
How Do You Know When to Say No
Different Types of Saying No
In Defense of Yes