Great finish to Winter Break Activities

Friday was a snow day so we weren't able to make our video and have the teens perform.  Saturday we showed the Movie MegaMind and had a great turnout.  We put out snacks and juice for everyone during the movie.  Over all for the week, we had around fifty children and thirty-five adults attend the scheduled events. We never know how many will show up for an event and that is frustrating for everyone.  We had good attendance for our movie and game playing but not for story hour and the storytellers.  We have consulted with neighboring libraries who experience similar event attendance.  I have been putting flyers out in the children's section and in the foyer hoping to generate more interest in the activities I am planning.  
During the movie I was preparing prize bags for the Dr. Seuss quiz planned for next week and children asked what they were for.  When I told them, they wanted to have the quiz today so I put them out with the display for Dr. Seuss' Birthday.  I am afraid we won't have any Dr. Seuss books left by midweek when we have Storytime.  Oh, What a problem!!  Display books go very fast.  I will put out a display this week for Women's History Month with a poster at the front desk also.  I have been trying to put a new display out every week.  This month we will also have St. Patrick's Day, Spring, trains and  Perseverance displays.  We have three places we can set up individual displays so I will alternate them throughout the library. 
This coming week will be a busy one also as we have Advocacy Day on Tuesday, Dr. Seuss Story hour Wednesday, Summer Reading Program conference on Thursday and a Scavenger Hunt on Saturday.   We are also getting ready for Parents as Reading Partners (PARP) kick off this week.  We are offering a goodie bag to every child who comes in and gets a new library card. 

Great Gaming Day

Today was day three of our winter break activities.  Tuesday and Wednesday were disappointing since we had very few people at our scheduled activities.  Today was gaming day with making games this morning using recycleables and file folder games for elementary students and this afternoon gaming for older kids using Wii or board games. We had a great turn out.  Families worked together making and playing games.  We have no idea why todays program was more successful than the other ones but hope that tomorrows activities, showing teens how to make Movie Maker Videos and having Teen Coffee House performers will be just as successful.  I have created how to sheets to assist those who don't know how to use the program yet.  We are going to create videos for the You Are Here contest for the Summer Reading Program.  Weather permitting, we hope to  have another good turnout.  Several bands and individuals are scheduled to perform at the Teen Coffee house.  We also are showing the video MegaMind on Saturday to end our week of activities.  Many people don't take advantage of the programs we are offering at the library.  It's frustrating.  Besides the chilren's programing this week, we have had a Battle of the Books practice and a book club meeting. 

Winter Break Begins

Today began with both the director and Senior clerk out of the library most of the day, so many of my questions were not going to be answered.  This is Winter break for our schools so we are planning events every day.  I am trying to get plans finalized for several activities at the end of the week.  The teens are going to have several events using technology and I want to make sure we have everything in place.  One of the pages has volunteered to help with the Teen Cafe and she will  help with getting the computers set up for making the videos.  If all else fails, ask a teen to help figure it out! 
I have decided to create a new display everyweek with my storytelling themes or  monthly themes in the childrens section.  My hope is that the children will begin to notice or look for the next themes and activities that I am planning.  Today I put out six new books for the Trustworthines/ Character development theme I did last weekend and before I got back to take pictures three hours later, five of the new books were checked out.   Saturday, I will create a new display for Dr. Seuss' Birthday next week.  I have already put out activities for Dr. Seuss books and am planning a quiz for next week.   
Our activity for today is a husband and wife team who are musical storytellers.  They were scheduled for 6:30 tonight. Unfortunately, we did not have any children come to the program.  This again is something we are struggling with as a library.  We discussed this issue after they performers left and will look into a program mentioned at a conference last week that can email our patrons whenever we have a program scheduled.  We also have a very small sign in front of the library that allows for only one event at a time to be posted, so we don't get much advance notice for events during a week where we have more than one event  scheduled.  This week we advertised in our usual places but didn't get the publicity we needed.  We are going to post a video of part of their performance on You Tube ( with their permission of course), which we just created last week.  I love learning all this new technology. 

Disappointing Day

Today only two children came for the storytelling hour planned at the library.  I am trying to make a connection between the school and the public library through the character education program they have.  This month's theme is trustworthiness.  I composed a list of books the library has or has access to through ILL and chose ten books that would be appropriate to address this topic.  I also created a bookmark with the theme Trustworthiness with characteristics of the trait on one side and a listing of suggested books on the other which was part of the activity planned.  I created characters for the tale The Boy Who Cried Wolf so the children could be interactive with the story while I read it.  The last activity had them making a Trustworthy Friend Kit.  The two children who came enjoyed the hour very much but it would have been better with more participants. Several families who came into the libray were told about the activity but stated they were too busy to attend.  If they had known earlier would they have made time?
The library has been focusing on getting more participation at programs the last few months, but we are limited in our advertisement options. I am having difficulty in getting a consistent group for Preschool Storyhour as well.  I tell people who come in with children while I am working that we have a storyhour on Wednesday, many don't know it. And then they need to remember, since it is not posted on the outside sign every week although it is listed on our library home page.    We have a newspaper that is published once a week and they are very good at posting our library events, the other print source is a county wide Shopper advertisement paper published once a week and they will post our advertisement if they have room.  We also have a local television station that will post our weekly events which are sent to several other local web sites as well. We are still not reaching everyone we should be.  The conference last week identified that there are many high tech ways to reach patrons now and it appears we need to begin using them to reach our intended audience.  
To reach more people for todays storytelling, I could have put a display in the childrens section and advertised it more that way. I created a display and activities for Valentines Day, next month I will crete a display in the childrens section early.  We are having a series of activities next week while the children are out of school and have gone to the school and asked them to publish the events in their newsletter. We have also given bookmarks to the fourth grade students with the schedule of activities during the winter break.   Activities are also published in the usual places and there have been bookmarks at the circulation desk all week for families to take.   I hope that we have better participation with this coming weeks events. 

Snapshot New York

Today at the library we let the public know how important they are to us.  We took pictures, statistics, and statements documenting a typical day at the library  to share on Advocacy Day in Albany on March 1st.  I created a poster for I Love My Library Because ... and had patrons write comments on a post it note and attach it to the poster.  We also had patrons complete a statement that said "The library is essential to me because... The circulation desk staff recorded how many reference questions were asked and we will get circulation stats tomorrow.  I will be going to Albany with the information and pictures to share with our legislators Tuesday.  I am going with the Mohawk Valley Library Association staff and will follow their schedule to meet with members of hte legislature. 
We are very busy getting ready for next week with the children off from school for winter break. I am looking forward to being active with the student population in our community.  I am actively participating in Parents As Reading Partner activities, Winter Break activities, Summer Reading Planning, Advocacy Day plans and Storytelling activities.  Today we scheduled activities for March and will be planning a science based spring break program.  I am noticing that publicity within the library has not been created for next week and will address it tomorrow.  I am going to create a bookmark and put flyers in the children's section.  I also noticed today while I was sitting at the table keeping record that I am more assertive in talking to people about programs we have than other staff members and will mention that tomorrow to Lee.  In the last month I have worked 50 hours. I typically work 16 hours a week but am planning weekend activities so will be putting in more.  We have scheduled childrens activities every Saturday in March to support the Parents as Reading Partners. When I was teaching full time I completed a great deal of prep work at home and notice I am doing the same now.  I need to spend more time working on completing reading and projects at home and more library work during library hours.  I guess that is a key part of scheduling and organizing.

Polly Farington Workshop

This morning Lee and I attended a workshop at the Mohawk Valley Library System called Expanding Connections workshop.  It focused on helping incorporate a varitey of online tools to help better serve our library patrons.  Polly gave an overview of a variety of tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Wordpress, Blogspot, You Tube , Flickr, etc.  Those of us attending, were instructed to send issues we might have that we want to address to Polly so she could get an idea of what we wanted to cover.  Many librarians stated they wanted to find ways to better inform their patrons as to events and programs going on.  Polly covered some of the specific questions and then let us loose to explore new tools and she would guide whoever had questions.  Lee and I both decided to investigate Facebook since we would like to include photos and videos on our site.  We created a Library account and then downloaded movie maker. Polly encouraged using free sources if possible.  We downloaded a video we recorded yesterday at school, but chose not to post it since the video showed students and we do not have permission to show faces.    After  setting that up Lee began exploring Polldaddy since he wants to create a survey for patrons about resources they use.  We also are going to create a survey asking patrons what services such as facebook, twitter, etc. they use that we can develop to further meet their needs. 
I worked on finding out how to add a link to our library webpage, Jan Brett has a contest going and we are adding a link and asking patrons to help us get more votes to help us win an author visit.   Polly also helped me add a link that I was having trouble with to my Wiki about character education which we are going to add to the library web page as a resource for parents and school personnel. 
Polly mentioned setting up an RSS feed connecting libraries.  I will work on trying to connect all country libraries later.  She also mentioned Chimpmail for sending mass messages to patrons quickly and 4 square and Yelp as sites that people are using to keep track of where friends are.  Front Page is a free web based site many libraries are now using.  MVLS is considering updating the libraries in the system to Front Page.  
  Polly mentioned Linked in as a resource rthat many libraries are using.  Lee said he would show me how to create an account.  I already subscribe to LM-NET.  They explained Linked-in as a resource more useful in finding connections to resources.   The workshop was very informative and I felt very worthwhile attending.  Since working in the public library, I have begun to identify the many different leadership roles of the public librarian as opposed to the school library media specialist.  As the director of the library, Lee has to identify priorities and determine which tasks to designate to staff members. For some people, delegating is difficult.  I have even noticed that some of the activities that I like to do such as shelving and circulation activities, I need to allow others to do so that I can focus on activities I need to accomplish for my internship. 

Making progress

Over the week end I was able to put together a Black History poster for the Library.  Last week I created a bibliography of books we own and one of the pages pulled and displayed them.  They displayed the poster by the front desk today and brought attention to some of the resources we have.  I also created a "Make and Take" for Valentines Day.  I put materials into baggies that children can take home and make a valentine.  They are put into the children's section where children help themselves.   I also display a finished valentine.  Tomorrow when the children come for story hour, I will remind them to go upstairs and look for them.  The staff tries to provide activities that children can take with them since childrens programs are slim during school months. 
Today I also attended a meeting at the school for their PARP program.  We discussed the role the community library will play in encouraging families to visit the library during the schools program.  During their family fun night we will be providing bookmarks and flyers with our months activities and applications for families to fill out if they want a library card.  Yomorrow we will also begin going to the school library talking with fourth grade sharing a video tour of The Community Library.  We will give them a flyer with all of the winter break activities and events this month.  Some of the students already are part of our Battle of the Books and chess club that meets at The Community Library.
I started a brochure today also for Women's History Month and will finish it tomorrow for printing for March.   Quite a lot going on at The Community Library.

The end of another week

I never realized how much goes on at a Public Library!  Aside from all of the normal exchange of books and information, tutoring, art exhibits, author visits, book clubs, chess and Magic clubs, Teen Coffee House and now a string quartet! I never knew.  We started with a staff meeting this morning and discussed many items for this month.  We will be busy.  Besides the winter school break, which will be very busy,  we are participating in Snapshot New York.  We will be documenting what goes on in our library with stats and photos and send them to the capital on library advocasy day in March.   We are also getting ready for PARP and  Battle of the Books.  We discussed the benefits of adding a fax machine for public access and will debate more before bringing it up to the board.  Lee wants to develop teen resources by purchasing more teen magazines, fun non-fiction resources, carreer, college and health information.  We have a cozy teen section upstairs that is used often.  The library staff tries to offer teens many activities with gaming nights, coffee house and poetry slams and will be offering them an opportunity to create a video for our summer reading contest. 
After the meeting, I met with Lee to go over what I had accomplished this week and what my goals were for next week in writing.    He provided me with several articles from School Library Journal on the importance of summer reading programs and reading habits since we are working on this years Summer Reading Program.  He also had provided  felt board activities, finger plays and storytelling resources to asssist with story hour.  
I worked at the circulation desk also and was amazed at how different the circulation process is from a school library.  In the school library checking books in and out didn't involve so many resources from other libraries.  We can borrow from three different library systems so items circulate quite a bit.  I also finished training on the desk and checked in and out and directed materials to all three library systems and made patron calls to notify books were in.  I love to pull items for the send list as it helps me to identify where things are located but I tend to spend a lot of time reshelving when I am looking.  I love working on the desk on Fridays and performing all of the activities that keep the library functioning. 

On the Move

Tuesday began with lots of snow.  I have been concerned about stepping on toes with some of the projects I am planninfor February winter break.  The library has always provided activities for students while they are on break from school. With a new director who is a childrens librarian and a senior clerk who has previously taken care of these activities, I needed to clarify who I need to discuss ideas and issues with.  I will discuss program issues with the director and any maintenance or advertising issues with the senior clerk.  They are both very willing to share examples and ideas from events they have provided before.   I need to remember to ask questions and look at examples to ensure I cover all bases.  Lisa usually completes all advertising but I am creating the poster and bookmarks for the February break this week so we can get them to the school to distribute early.  Lisa will provide suggestions and changes necessary. 
Lee provided me with an opportunity today  to actually create a conference presentation which is one of our assignments.  In March, we will attend an all day conference for Summer Reading Programing. Volunteers are asked to create a "Sprinkle" which is a mini program idea that can be used in any library at little or no cost. Our theme for the summer reading program is One world Many Stories for elementary students and You are Here for the teens.   The Sprinkle idea should be a three minute presentation.   I am hopefully developing an idea for each group and will choose the best one to present.  My idea for You are Here is to create a pathfinder which identifies all of the wonderful places to visit in the county.  We can identify each attraction and any resources we have to learn more about it. We could have the children/ teens create pictures to illustrate each attraction.  I'm excited to be able to use this for the assignment and actually present it, but I'm a little anxious also.  
Wednesday school was closed so we had a snow day!