Archive for November 9th, 2006

BTW

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

If you can make any suggestions about the talk I’m thinking I’d like to give… can I/ should I ask for money? Should I do a program in January in Geneva?

Should I be worried about the little crying kid? Will I end up being the little crying librarian?

Would a grant for homeschooling teens be a good idea, or am I just giving myself too much work?…

Hiya everybody!

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

Wow. You turn around and half a month goes by! I can’t believe I haven’t posted since the middle of October!

Since then I have…

  • Found out that my sister WILL be doing a special school project at my library for 120 hours! Which I am very excited about, because I already have tons of stuff I want her to help me do. The three most important things I want her to help with are:
    1. Summer Reading (for teens) – she wants to be a teen librarian, so I figured that I wouldn’t even bother having her try to help plan summer reading for the kids
    2. Help write a grant with me. Yep. I’m going to try it again. I want to talk to Ogden, Brockport and Hamlin and work with the teen librarians at each library and create a homeschooling grant similar to the one that I’m doing with Webster, Chili and Greece. We’d make educational kits, have programs, and create displays. I’ll have to ask the other librarians if they actually want to do it before I start thinking about it too much.
    3. Marketing – Find ways to market to the teens and their parents. Sally and I have had LOTS of talks about how librarians are TERRIBLE about promoting themselves. We aren’t letting people know how important libraries are and how many services we provide. I’m hoping that my sister and I can come up with interesting and creative ways to promote our services.
  • I went to NYLA and went to quite a few programs. There didn’t seem to be too many librarians from Monroe County, but I did meet a lot of other very nice librarians. One of the librarians even asked me if I would be willing to relocate to Albany to be their teen librarian. But I knew that my mother wouldn’t let me do that, because she thought my commute would be too long. Of course I wouldn’t be able to MOVE to Albany because then she wouldn’t be able to see Jack anymore. I’ll talk about NYLA more in a separate post because there’s quite a bit to talk about.
  • I was asked to speak about comic books by the Wayne School district. They want me to speak for an hour on elementary graphic novels- (roughly K-5). They want me to bring examples to share, lists for people to take with them and sharing of basic information about graphic novels (how to read them, what makes a graphic novel a graphic novel, what to look out for, artwork etc.). The audience would primarily be school library media specialists from the region with some administrators mixed in. She also asked me if I charged any fees. I think that it would be pretty cool to get paid for speaking, especially since its an hour away and I would be speaking for an hour. However I have absolutely NO idea how much I would ask them for. I’m pretty sure that I could find a way to talk for a whole hour about comic books.
  • Tonight I had my weekly Yugioh group, which usually goes fine. The teens are usually so good that I haven’t always even been in the room. Tonight they were quite animated. Two of the teens were chasing each other around and hitting each other in the way teens beat each other up when they “like” each other. Then the youngest one in the group, a ten year-old boy, started getting involved and hitting the teen guy. I thought things had calmed down so that I felt the room for a couple of minutes. I heard things get loud again, and in the couple minutes I was gone, the kid hit/kicked the teens in the testicles and the teen lifted him up and pushed him aside. The kid fell on the floor and started crying. I got back in there, he was crying and then before I could talk to him, he ran out of the room and out of the library. I’m a little afraid that when I get to work tomorrow, I have an angry note on my desk from the kid’s mom and she wants me fired. I guess it would be nice to be a stay at home mom. I’d just have to get rid of my car and I wouldn’t be able to buy more bags or shoes.
  • Oh and Halloween. I got Jack orange pants and a black shirt with skeletons on it. We handed out candy to the three kids and fifteen teenagers that came to the door. We had about 8 guys that dressed up as ladies. Very interesting. Jack had fun answering the door and eating candy.