Service to New Americans Toolkit

The ALSC Library Service to Underserved Children and Their Communities committee is working on a new toolkit.

Entitled "New Americans", this toolkit seeks to provide resources and guidance to help libraries better serve refugees, new immigrants, asylum seekers, and migrants.  The toolkit, as it is developing, has a booklist and a growing list of resources to help us serve these New Americans more effectively.

This toolkit is one of 6 that the committee has developed in the past 2 years (others include Children with Print Disabilities; Access to Technology; Spanish Speaking Populations; Financial Insecurity and Homelessness Resources and Autism and Sensory Processing Disorder Resources). They can all be accessed for free here.

Stop here to access the new developing toolkit as well as contribute with your experiences and ideas. Together, as these resources are developed and shared, we are stronger!!

Happy Juneteenth

A special celebration day made all the more meaningful with this week's signing of a bill adding Juneteenth to our national holidays. Let's celebrate with this Juneteenth booklist about the holiday gathered by The Conscious Kid

Juneteenth for Mazie by @floyd.cooper.4. Ages 6-9.

Juneteenth by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and Drew Nelson, illustrated by Drew Schroder. Ages 7-10.

All Different Now: Juneteenth, The First Day of Freedom by Angela Johnson, illustrated by E. B. Lewis. Ages 5-9.

Free Toolkit on Children with Print Disabilities

ALA's Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Committee on Library Service to Underserved Children and Their Caregivers has produced their newest free monthly toolkit and it's amazing! 

This longstanding ALSC committee has been leading the way for decades long before the pandemic highlighted how critical the need is to expand our thinking and service. Recently they began producing free, monthly toolkits to help libraries serve their underserved populations better. Chockful of resources, booklists, hints and practical suggestions, these toolkit google docs are extremely helpful.

They write: "This month, our focus is on serving children with print disabilities.  According to Maine – Accessible Educational Materials, “A student with a print disability is one who is unable to gain information from printed materials at an anticipated level for their grade, and needs alternative access or an accessible format (i.e., Braille, Large Print, Audio, Digital text) to gain information from and use those materials. Print disabilities commonly affect students with blindness, visual impairments, learning disabilities or other physical conditions that make it difficult to hold or manipulate educational materials.” For clarification, those with visual impairments can include those who are legally blind and vision loss. Those with learning disabilities can include dyslexia." 

To access this kit, which includes book suggestions resources and suggestions for other materials to purchase, please stop here.

Inclusivity and Social Justice in Storytimes with Abby Bussen!

Guest Post Alert!

Click HERE and let Abby Bussen of Muskego Public Library take you on a fantastic, informative journey about Inclusivity and Social Justice in Storytimes!  

This presentation was originally created for Milwaukee County Federated Library System, but, let's be honest, it's too good not to share far and wide with all library staff serving youth!

Towards a Dyslexia Friendly Library

One step towards an inclusive, accessible library for everyone is working towards creating a dyslexia-friendly library space and collection. There are a few simple tweaks that anyone can take to benefit library users of all ages. Consider using OpenDyslexic or another good font for people with dyslexia for signage and instructions in any take and make kits you might be making. OpenDyslexic is a free typeface designed to improve readability. Other good fonts are Helvetica, Courier, Arial, Verdana, and Comic Sans. Italics actually decrease readability and should be avoided if possible. To read more on font readability, try this 2013 research paper called Good Fonts for People with Dyslexia.

 

Several years ago, Brianne Mintz wrote an article for Everyday Advocacy on Creating Dyslexic-Friendly Children's Libraries. Another useful document is the Dyslexia Resource Guide for Families from Read On Arizona, while created as a guide for families, it contains helpful information for those serving youth in libraries.

 

 

 

Safe Spaces & Teen Services Workshops!

We're lucky to have library systems in our state that sponsor free and minimal cost professional development opportunities. Here's one such program coming up September 14, 2017 on Safe Spaces and Teen Services to be held at the Eau Claire Indoor Sports Center, 3456 Craig Road in Eau Claire.

Workshop Schedule:

Safe Spaces Training, 9-11 am with Christopher Jorgenson (Women’s and LGBTQIA+ Center, UWEC): The basics on creating a safe, inclusive, and welcoming environment for all, regardless of sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression.

Teen Services Workshop, 11:15-3:30 with Heather Booth (teen librarian, author, contributor to Teen Librarian Toolbox): Learn about teen brain development, and how that impacts our interactions with teens in readers advisory and programming contexts. There will be time for exchanging ideas and questions, and a focus on low-cost, low-time solutions.

(Don't worry, we'll break for lunch from 12:30-1:30. Lunch can be on your own or is available on site for $10)
Register for one workshop or both workshops; both will be fabulous!

Register by September 8: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSejipxVVhb5CWMN_JupgD592QsVD1gYKAE0jtR7NaqJJXQEww/viewform.