An up-to-date spot for library staff serving youth around Wisconsin to find relevant news, events, and resources. Links should be correct at the time of publication. If a link is incorrect, please contact the blog administrator within a month of publication. Links on older posts may have changed.
Any YSS member wishing to write posts, please e-mail us at yss.wla@gmail.com.
Showing posts with label community partners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community partners. Show all posts
Tiffani Roltgen brings a fresh perspective to the YSS Blog. With blogs from the school library side of things in Verona, WI, we are always excited to hear from Tiffani!
Dear Youth Librarians,
My name is Tiffani Roltgen, and I am the library director/teacher librarian at New Century School and Verona Area International School in Verona, WI. I love my local public library and am thrilled to share some suggestions to help build partnerships between schools and libraries.
Back to School season brings with it a variety of emotions. Here are some simple and engaging ways to help families with the transition.
Set up a Back to School paper chain countdown craft station. Support math and fine motor skills with a simple passive activity that allows students and families to create a way to count down the days until school begins.
Photo by Tiffani Roltgen
Display Back to School books featuring a wide variety of characters and families. Include titles about the range of feelings students may experience from excitement and anticipation to nervousness and sadness that summer is coming to an end. Be sure to include Your Name is a Song, The Magical Yet, First Day Around the World, The Proudest Blue, and The Day You Begin.
Create an interactive “Summer Memories” board where students and families can post their favorite activities and stories from the summer months. This will jump start those narrative writing skills and help mark and celebrate the transition from summer to school.
Offer helpful handouts for caregivers such as information about ways to ease the school transition, how to adjust bedtimes, or laminated morning routine or backpack checklists for families to post and use during busy mornings. Consider hosting a freezer meals or lunchbox workshop to inspire quick and creative nutrition.
Don’t forget the teachers and staff! Help reacquaint them with public library resources including classroom library cards that allow them to check out materials without worries about charges for lost items, time saving services like placing holds on multiple copies of a book, field trip opportunities, or kits that support classroom activities such as science or mindfulness.
Photo by Krista Brinkmeier Photography
But until that first bell, enjoy these last days of summer sun!
Thanks to Lori Baumgart at Nicolet Federated Library System in her Nic News Weekly 6/21/24 for gathering these great tips.
CLELCON24 Proposals are Due Sunday, June 30th
Share your early literacy insights at CLELCON24! CLEL (Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy) is now accepting proposals for the 2024 virtual conference, which will take place Thursday October 3 and Friday October 4. CLELCON24 is a welcoming conference that attracts a national audience, and presenters get free registration. Need some inspiration? Check out 2023's conference schedule. Submit your presentation via this proposal form by 11:59 p.m. by June 30th.
Wisconsin PATCH Teen Consultant Program is hiring
The PATCH Teen Consultant Program is currently hiring youth ages 14 to 19 throughout the state of Wisconsin. PATCH is for anyone who is passionate about adolescent health, learning new perspectives, sharing their opinion as a young person, and working with a group to transform knowledge into tangible community impact. The team meets in person for an annual training in August and then moves to Zoom, where they connect weekly to hear from community experts, hone important skills, give feedback on statewide adolescent health initiatives, and work toward making positive change. Access the job application here.
Ready NOW: Supporting Youth and Families During Crisis Scholarship
Would you like to build community relationships? Do you want to be ready for crises that may affect youth and families in your community? If so, you’ll want to consider participating in the University of Maryland led Ready NOW: Supporting Youth and Families During Crisis initiative.
Project activities for selected library staff begins in September/October of 2024 and continues through the spring of 2025. Staff from 13 libraries across the United States will be selected to work with their state library agency to participate in year two of this initiative. A $2000 stipend to use in support of learning about community and building crisis related services will be provided for selected libraries. Learn more by registering here to attend an information session on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 at 1 pm CT. If you have any questions, please contact the Ready NOW team at readynow@umd.edu and/or visit readynow.ischool.umd.edu to learn more.
DPI to Highlight Libraries' Inspiring Summer Programming Work
The Wisconsin Department of Instruction (DPI) is looking to highlight the inspiring work done by our Wisconsin librarians during the summer. If your library or any other library in your network has exciting and/or innovative Summer Library Program (or just taking place during the Summer) events planned (can be all ages!), DPI would love to learn more – so they can shout you out! "Before" and "after" photos are welcome, if available.
Libraries should email Beth Tomev with information and photos; consider using the subject line Summer Events and Summer Library Program Highlights for DPI to ensure they capture them in their inbox.
PBS Wisconsin Seeks Early Learning Manager
PBS Wisconsin Education is looking for a manager to lead the growth of our nationally recognized early learning program.
Do you resonate with the public media mission and have a deep understanding of the role of developmentally appropriate educational media in early learning spaces? Are you a strategic thinker who is excited to manage people, programs, and budgets to achieve the greatest impacts possible? If you answered yes to those questions, we invite you to join the team at PBS Wisconsin Education.
The Early Learning Manager is a new position created to help the PBS Wisconsin Education team scale early learning programs that combine the strengths of our successful work activating national Ready to Learn resources from PBS KIDS with statewide early learning initiatives and priorities through train-the-trainer models developed by our talented team. Visit https://jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/early-learning-manager-madison-wisconsin-united-states for the full position description and application instructions.
When Jbrary posts on their blog, the article is always worth reading. Recently Lindsey Krabbenhoft shared her thoughts on the immediacy and importance of seeing our youth library work through the lens of community-led work and relationship building.
Lindsey writes: "Recently I attended afew presentations on community workthat reminded me of my favourite part of my job: Relationship building. In truth, I felt disconnected from community work for a long time. The pandemic disrupted many relationships. Libraries were closed, practising social distancing, and dealing with high staff turnover. Community partners had the same stressors. Upon returning to in-person service at a new branch I found it especially challenging as many places were not open to outside visitors. Layer on the immediate demands of in-branch service and you can see why community work is often the first thing to be set aside."
Her thoughtful reflection is an inspirational call to action.
Please click here to read the full post. [The Heart of Our Work. Krabbenhoft, Lindsey. Jbrary. November 14, 2023.]
Looking for a fun, cost-efficient program that takes very little preparation?
Why not host a Stuffie Adoption?
Inspired by the fab Tricia from Waterford Public Library, I decided to open a Stuffie Adoption Center at the library to help celebrate this year's Summer Reading Program. To ensure that I had enough critters to go around, I both asked for donations of smaller, clean stuffed animals and also raided my local Goodwill of SO MANY BEANIE BABIES. (Insider's tip: they wash up quite nicely, though anything with really fluffy--like the lion's mane--might be a bit more...condensed...when they emerge from the dryer.)
The idea was that kids could adopt an animal of their choice, provided they promised to share books with them. (I changed it from "read to" to "share books/stories with" as I had a few younger patrons who weren't reading independently yet who feared they couldn't take home a stuffie of their own)
Once they'd chosen their critter, they could give it a name and sign the adoption certificate, promising to share books with them. (The certificates were created on Canva. Sweet, sweet Canva.)
The adoption center officially opened at our Kick Off to Summer Celebration, where they could not only adopt someone, but make them a collar/leash at our craft center. (Thanks, oodles of donated yarn!)
After the kick off, I moved our Stuffie Adoption Center to the Youth Services Desk, so anyone interested in joining in the fun could do so. The center will remain open for the entire summer and the kids are so excited!
Additionally, to continue the stuffed animal fun, I decided to hold a Stuffie Vaccination Clinic, in hopes that it would increase children's understanding of the vaccination process and help to eliminate fears. For supplies, I purchased some needle-free syringes and athletic tape in an assortment of colors. We also created stickers for the stuffies to earn for being so brave--not a tear was shed and the kiddos were so proud!
To help increase awareness and excitement, we created a special badge on Beanstack that could be unlocked only by those who chose to join us at the clinic. (Or made arrangements for a drop-in after the fact. I've had to vaccinate a few stuffies on the fly, not gonna lie.)
Lastly, I partnered with our local Department of Public Health who joined me at the library with kid-friendly information and coloring books discussing vaccines and health, as well as a stethoscope and thermometer for an after-shot health check.
The following article does a great job exploring the origins of Storywalks® and highlighting some fun uses. In WI, many libraries have used walks and strolls at parks, in the downtown and around the library to engage communities!
The StoryWalk® ranks among the most ingenious ideas of the last 20 years. Its beauty comes from its simplicity. It literally refers to the idea of reading a story as you walk (or roll) along a path.
StoryWalk® Origins
From humble origins in Montpelier, Vermont, this idea has spread throughout libraries across North America, and beyond. The three parties that came together to develop this program were, according to a how-to guide(pdf) put out by the Vermont Department of Libraries in May 2008: Anne Ferguson, Nancy Schulz of the Vermont Bicycle & Pedestrian Coalition, and Rachel Senechal of Montpelier’s public library, the Kellogg-Hubbard Library.To ensure that the StoryWalk® term is only used for “educational, noncommercial projects … to promote literacy” (pdf), Anne Ferguson secured a registered trademark, and she requests that all StoryWalk® projects use the following: “The StoryWalk® Project was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, VT and developed in collaboration with the Kellogg-Hubbard Library.”
StoryWalk® Installations and Collaborations
Any physical book that your library owns can be used for a StoryWalk. As long as you do not alter the pages in any way, you can use them as you see fit. The initial idea was to deconstruct children’s books, laminate their pages, and post them along trails in parks using simple, DIY tools like garden stakes. As the project developed, different libraries have taken the concept of the StoryWalk and spun it in all kinds of different directions. Some StoryWalk programs actually focus on adult readers, including an annual PoemCity program sponsored by the Kellogg-Hubbard Library.
Anne Ferguson told me that “Rachel Senechal from the Kellogg-Hubbard Library and I contacted Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver and asked permission to use a few of their poems for a StoryWalk” as part of the annual PoemCity celebrations. “When we received permissions, we sent out a call for artists for works to accompany each line of each poem. A local calligraphy artist volunteered to write each line and a photographer donated her time in photographing each of the art works. From there we coupled a line from each poem with an art work, laminated it and posted them.”
Photo courtesy AMY Regional Library System on Facebook
Other libraries have created permanent StoryWalk installations in which stories can be swapped out periodically. Once you have a StoryWalk installation in place, you can put in it whatever you want. In Illinois, the Urbana Free Library is working with Urbana Park District and the Urbana Arts & Culture Program to enable community members to tell their own stories on the StoryWalk. For StoryWalk® in Urbana Parks, “Read stories created by the community while you walk in the park. StoryWalk® in Urbana Parks highlights the creativity and ingenuity of our neighbors and presents it in exhibits that you can visit outside while social distancing. The stories on display at each StoryWalk® may change as new stories are submitted.”
The most successful StoryWalk programs are community collaborations. WebJunction has supported such community placemaking, including at New Hampshire’s Wilton Public & Gregg Free Library, who as part of their participation in Small Libraries Create Smart Spaces (pdf) worked with their community to add a StoryWalk to the library’s outdoor active learning space. And WebJunction’s Kendra Morgan featured the history of StoryWalk and the power of partnerships in a 2018 article, Take a Walk, Read a Book, Have an Adventure.
Taking StoryWalk® Downtown
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, a downtown poetry StoryWalk featured poems written by adult literacy learners. Students enrolled in The Literacy Project wrote poems about food. The poems were then posted in the windows of businesses throughout downtown Greenfield, through a partnership with Greenfield Public Library.This example from Massachusetts brings me to the main topic of this article, namely how and why public libraries work with local businesses to create downtown StoryWalk® programs. It is unknown when the first downtown StoryWalk occurred, but in 2016 Ohio’s Tiffin-Seneca Public Library kicked off its summer reading program with a downtown StoryWalk. As community members walked through downtown, they read pages from the story in the windows of 14 businesses, ending up with the last page in the window of the public library.
As a self-paced program, StoryWalk installations can be safely enjoyed while practicing social distancing. By installing the pages in downtown storefront windows you have the added benefit of not having to worry about people touching the different pages as they walk.
A downtown StoryWalk also builds community. Typical partners for such endeavors are Chambers of Commerce or downtown associations. Sometimes librarians just reach out to local businesses and ask them if they’ll host a page. Other times that recruitment is made through the chamber. In either case, you’ll want to clearly explain to hosts the ideal height at which the pages should be mounted to enable easy reading by those strolling by, including the youngest of community members. You’ll typically need about 15 to 18 downtown locations to join you in the StoryWalk.
Libraries often create maps of the StoryWalk that can be printed or displayed online to help orient families to the locations of the pages. Here’s an example (pdf) from Appleton, Wisconsin. Here again, you can count on your partners. This map was made by the library’s partner, Appleton Downtown Inc., who also spearheaded the recruitment of local businesses. And the map above was created by Albany Public Library, New York, for their downtown StoryWalk.
The long-term benefits of a downtown StoryWalk program include the fact that you will now have working relationships with your downtown businesses, relationships that could be parlayed into enhancements to summer learning at the library, or to host community conversations about economic development. A downtown StoryWalk is yet another way the public libraries throughout the United States add value to their communities, creatively deploying their resources and expertise.
Noah Lenstra is an assistant professor of Library and Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is an active member of the Association for Rural and Small Libraries and in 2016 started Let’s Move in Libraries.
Engaging your community is a common--and important!--goal of every library. But how can you do that when COVID-19 limits your opportunities to interact with one another?
One solution that we came up with at Aram Public Library in Delavan, WI was to create a Summer Storyteller Series: each week, we'd feature a guest reader--or readers!--in a video series on the library's Facebook page.
Now, the first thing to do was to secure our arsenal of readers. I put out feelers to a multitude of local entities, including some of the more expected sources, such as the local schools and/or city departments. It was important, however, that a wide variety of our community was represented. To ensure that this was the case, I also reached out to local businesses and different clubs, including some of the local restaurants, the nearby UW-Extension office...even a local motorcycle club!
Once I had my list of interested folks, I provided them with some basic information and offered to either: a) contact the publisher of their preferred read or b) send a suggested list of possible titles, if they didn't have a specific title or author in mind. Additionally, I let folks know that, if they needed assistance filming, that could be arranged.
As the submissions began arriving, I scheduled out the posts for the summer. While my extraordinarily talented coworker created some opening and closing credits to use for each installment of the series--ensuring that our patrons would recognize it as part of the Storyteller offering--I set to work alerting the publishers of our intent to read their titles online.
In order to allow viewers to participate as though it were live, I'm scheduling the videos using the Premiere function on Facebook. I also made a point to announce our guest readers, the author, the illustrator, and the publisher, tagging their social media account whenever possible.
Our Summer Storyteller Series officially kicked off today, with our guest readers, the members of the Rustic Road Riders!
Rhinelander (WI) District Library displays
a story stroll in downtown businesses
We saw this idea of a downtown businesses "story stroll" in the June 2020 issue of WVLS (WI Valley Library Service) newsletter. The Rhinelander District Librarty's passive program wasfeatured in a local TV news story too!
My colleague Marianne Steadman and I wanted to find another way to provide storytimes during "Safer at Home," in addition to our weekly virtual storytime. I contacted businesses to see if they would be interested in being part of a story stroll with an author who had ties to the community. This was a visible way that the library could show its presence, and it would be a fun collaboration.
The response was very positive as we wanted to not only give families a fun activity to do outside but to spotlight the businesses that may be struggling during this time. The spreads are displayed in plastic pockets and hung on the outside of the window.
The book featured is "Hannah's Tall Order: An A to Z Sandwich,” by Linda Vander Heyden. The story can be read two pages at a time, in the windows of 15 downtown businesses. Families can stroll through downtown Rhinelander and read a children’s book along the way.
We have heard great comments about this project. In the future, the library plans on leaving the displays up and changing out the stories.
Today's guest post is from Sue Abrahamson, Head of Youth Services at the Waupaca (WI) Area Public Library. In reply to someone hesitant to do digital storytimes because of recommendations on limiting screen time for young children in Storytime Underground on Facebook, Sue wrote : "There is a tsunami of digital resources
pressuring families right now. It is not developmentally appropriate for a
young child to be expected to sit in front of a screen for a 25-45 minute
storytime! The best app at this age is a lap! My staff is concentrating on
short poems, rhymes. Less than a minute. To remind parents of ways to
engage." We asked Sue to tell us more:
I've been thinking a lot of late about the pressures parents are feeling now during this pandemic. We are hoping not to add to their stress levels, but still meaning to provide encouragement and support. This leaves librarians in an important position.
As we sometimes are prone to doing, we take the things we love to do the most and concentrate on that. I've seen many examples of online story times posted around the Internet. Seeing your beloved librarian can offer comfort to kiddos who might be struggling with the topsy-turvy world right now.
Our library's strategic plan focuses on three main areas: access, partnerships, and inclusivity. Does the work we do from home still help meet those outcomes?
Access - to information, to books, to ideas. We have curated a list of the little free libraries in our community, put it up on our website with safety tips on using LFLs, and added great new paperback books that are popular with young readers. We are sharing out rhyme and song sheets from our Babygarten fun with links to short video clips so parents can see and hear the actions and tunes, We are challenging our patrons to get outside and spread hope and kindness.
Partnerships - I think because we had so many strong partnerships in place before the virus hit, we were able to really rely on our collaborators to work together, spread the word, and make our work more meaningful. We had a quick turn around in making face shield frames using our 3D printer and knew others in the community who could help. We found our school partners, teachers and media specialists, in daily communication about ways to help families use our digital collections and established, very quickly, a way for them to get a library card to do so.
Inclusiveness - When you take the time to remember the faces of the folks you saw every day at the library, remembered their names, and remembered how they used the library, it became very easy to imagine ways they might be missing what you provided for them. Bringing our puzzles, honor books, games to low income housing areas serves this population well. Laundromats, food pantries, meal sites, are needed more than ever. Asking how we could partner brought forth a flood of crowd sourced problem solving from our staff.
The caution to take is not to make it about the librarian, but to make it about the patron.
Developmentally, what is appropriate for you to share and how? Knowing your audience is the key here. If your story time crowd is like mine - lots of 3 year olds - a 30-minute story time online is not appropriate. My sharing a poem, or a puppet, or a quick fingerplay, might be a better choice.
The more we throw at parents with the message of "do this...it's good for your kids," the greater the stress and risk of shame we lay on families who are all just trying to do the best they can. Remove our sense of privilege and try to see the situation from their perspective. Some parents are still working and having to homeschool their children. For some, access to the internet isn't a sure thing. How are we supporting those families?
The other thing to consider is that we are just at the beginning of what could be a very long period of providing virtual library service to children and families. What plans are we considering to sustain our services well into the summer? It might require throwing all previously made plans right out the window, and that's okay.
We need to give ourselves permission to be flexible and take this opportunity to make something new and exciting. Doing so with those library missions, outcomes and goals in mind will be invigorating for you, your staff and your patrons.
