Youth Services Certificate
Children and Youth Programming
LIS 519: Programs and Services for Youth was a favorite class and the only one that had craft projects for assignments! I enjoyed doing each project and collaborating with other students to generate ideas for different activities, projects, and sites to visit for ideas and inspiration. This is another class that helped to hone video recording, editing, and uploading skills by requiring tutorials of at least one craft activity per week. In addition, to making a variety of crafts, compiling a list of sites for ordering supplies, and brainstorming different activities, each student also received a puppet and had a puppet practice session during a class. This was not a favorite activity for some students, but a very fun (and sometimes funny) class session.
To culminate the 8-week summer course, the final project was a 12-month program guide. The program guide provided a template for program planning including specific areas for information such as program cost, advance marketing, staffing help, setup, and supplies. The parameters of the program guide included a predetermined (hypothetical) budget which had to be used for each program in the guide and also depleted by the completion of the programming. This project provided me with a template for use in my daily and monthly programming needs. Filling out a year's worth of programs for the assignment provided additional practice for creating programs and allowed me to see the problem areas in my current planning methods. Additionally, I gained much practice in creating program flyers with appropriate information for the patron(s) and implementing design concepts learned in LIS 692: Library Marketing.
Resource Lists
During the course of LIS 517: Literature and Related Media for Children the focus was on learning about materials appropriate for children. By developing skills related to material selection for collection development the class was actively learning how to discern information that would be beneficial for parents and caregivers of young children. Similar to the pathfinder for LIS 501, this resource list designed for parents could be any topic of our choice as long as the list related to children and informational needs of parents/caregivers.
Reading the variety of materials required in the coursework created a foundational framework to understand and disseminate children’s literature. These best practices and key points allow future children’s librarians to make better choices and overcome bias as they curate book collections.
The resource list assignment allowed creativity in design and helped to foster technology skills. Parameters of specific items were required for inclusion in the resource list. Awareness and representation of neurodivergence is more common today than in the past yet there is always more to be done. This list includes an annotated booklist of titles that feature representation of autistic characters for young readers, web sources for parents/caregivers, multimedia as both movies/shows featuring representation and web-based game links, and finally a listing of articles for additional information.
LIS 518: Young Adult Literature and Related Media served as a continuation of LIS 517: Literature and Related Media for Children with the focus being on literature that is age appropriate for a young adult audience. In addition to reading selected titles from a variety of YALSA book lists, students were able to self-select titles of interest from different lists to complete a sampling of current YA titles. The course-work focused on the content of the material and how books relate to the current issues and concerns that teens today face.
After sampling a variety of books, movies, games, and websites geared towards teens the final project was to create a resource list with any theme of our choosing. The resource list was to contain a specified number of items with books as a must and movies, games, and websites to be included as possible. The goal of the resource list is to create a well-balanced list to provide information to teens on a particular topic.
Accurate representation of LGBTQ+ information is especially important for teens as they make decisions about their health and bodies. Everyone deserves access to reliable information to make the best decisions possible. This resource list provides book recommendations for teens to see their representation in literature and movies but also links to navigate difficult topics and conversations to make transitions easier.
Videos
Storytime Read-a-loud
In LIS 517: Literature and Related Media for Children the focus was reading books for children. In this class I read a variety of books from board books, picture books, graphic novels, and upper elementary to middle grade fiction. Reading each of the selected titles allowed me to see what kinds of books children are interested in and provided more understanding of the discernment skills when selecting titles for collection development.
Additionally, to help facilitate becoming a children’s librarian or to hone skills already in place a few assignments required reading aloud and recording it, as if I was hosting a story time in my living room. I did take this class during the height of covid so recording myself provided more practice in filming myself, reading aloud to a camera, and skills in uploading and/or editing as needed. During this time period, spring of 2021, I was still providing programming in a virtual format. Classes, such as this one, that required video recordings of readings allowed me to have more practice in a format that had previously been unfamiliar.
Book Talk
LIS 670: Graphic novels, manga, comics, and anime was my favorite elective course and possibly my favorite class altogether. This class was a jam-packed 8-week class requiring several graphic novels to be read each week. In addition to reading the required titles for each week there was the flexibility to choose an additional title or two per week. Between all the books, which are now my favorite format to read, assignments and projects included watching movies and writing critiques and recording a few book talks.
Prior to this degree, I was unfamiliar with the concept of a book talk, which is not unlike an elevator pitch for a book. As a librarian, often there is not enough time to elaborately sell a patron, particularly youth, on a book. When providing a recommendation one has a limited amount of time to "sell” the information to the potential reader. Book talks are a great way to practice this skill and also practice video recording, uploading, and editing skills. Recorded book talks also make for great advertising on a library website or YouTube channel, not only for reader’s advisory but also to show how the library and librarians are knowledgeable and helpful staff for the community’s needs.
Catalog Tutorial
Website Verification Tutorial
LIS 590: Library Instruction introduced library programming in a different format. Often library instruction felt geared towards academic libraries though instructional classes, such as how to use a database or another library-hosted website, could be beneficial at a public library. Library instruction programs often had an adult audience. Despite this, I learned how to apply this framework to my current position, such as showing field trip groups how to use a grade appropriate database for finding resources.
Though this class was geared towards serving adult patrons, I appreciated a class that offered a change of pace. As I grow and develop in my library career, I may not always be a children’s librarian and having the information and perspectives of other programming skills is important. Furthermore, there are often times when it is necessary to share jobs within a library, if an employee is sick or resigned. Having additional skills makes sharing the workload less of a burden. Creating each of these tutorials, how to use a library catalog and how to verify the legitimacy of websites, utilized skills developed in previous courses. I enjoyed each of these projects as I also enjoy providing training to other employees and providing knowledge and skills to patrons.