2015 YALSA Young Adult Services Symposium: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Saturday afternoon I attended the session Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Connecting School and Public Libraries to Enhance Teen Services presented by school and public library representatives from Nashville who have been involved in amazing collaboration since 2009. It was in that year, thanks to then Mayor Karl Dean, that Limitless Libraries was started.

Limitless Libraries

Limitless Libraries (LL) is a program that seeks to bring together school and public libraries in order to provide students with access to the widest range of resources possible. The program not only allows for students at public schools to easily share materials, but also provides access to a much larger materials budget that has allowed school librarians to vastly improve their collections. Continue reading 2015 YALSA Young Adult Services Symposium: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

2015 Young Adult Services Symposium Preconference: Panels & Pages

YALSA’s 2015 Young Adult Services Symposium included a pre-conference session on using graphic novels to inspire programming, recommended titles, a discussion with comics creators Terry Blas, Faith Erin Hicks, Mariko Tamaki, Gene Luen Yang, Leila del Duca, Joe Keatinge, and a discussion with teachers who use graphic novels in classroom instruction.

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Robin Brennar, Teen Librarian and runs No Flying No Tights website, was our moderator.

First, librarians Cara and Emily talked about graphic novel readers advisory and using graphic novels in teen programming:

Who is your Batman?

Comic books always change. Your Batman may be different from your teens’ Batman. Lego Batman may be the Batman that resonates most with your teens! Keep this in mind when you do readers advisory and programming, your ideas and tastes may not match theirs. Continue reading 2015 Young Adult Services Symposium Preconference: Panels & Pages

2015 YALSA Symposium Session Resources At a Glance

ya_symposium_2015We’ll continue coverage of the YALSA Young Adult Services  Symposium all this week with more detailed session recaps of sessions that focused on collection development and content curation topics relevant to the Hub’s mission, but I also wanted to share links to session slides and other materials all in one place. Find the full program details here.

For a recap in tweets, check out this Storify that highlights some of the takeaways and nuggets of wisdom attendees shared throughout the weekend.
Continue reading 2015 YALSA Symposium Session Resources At a Glance

Take Five: What Was Your Favorite Moment or Takeaway of the 2015 YALSA Symposium?

Hello, Hub readers! I got to spend the weekend learning, networking, and brainstorming with lots of teen librarians and library workers, authors, and other professionals serving youth at the 2015 YALSA Symposium. Fellow Hub bloggers and I will be sharing recaps of sessions the rest of this week, but we wanted to start off with a few of our favorite moments and nuggets of wisdom, advice, or ideas we discovered over coffee breaks and during presentations.

Take Five The Hub

What was your favorite moment or takeaway of the 2015 YALSA Symposium?

I also always leave this conference in particular feeling a renewed sense of gratitude to be able to work with an awesome groups of peers and colleagues and serve teens full time.

My overarching takeaway was the importance of framing our work and values; to stakeholders, decision-makers, patrons, concerned parents, colleagues, etc. Whether you’re framing goals and expectations for your own supervisor, to create a space to experiment (and potentially fail) with new programs and approaches, or explaining the values and research that drive collection purchases to concerned or disgruntled adults intent on censoring access or preserving a (limiting) status quo, good framing can help generate buy-in and understanding from all quarters. — Carly Pansulla Continue reading Take Five: What Was Your Favorite Moment or Takeaway of the 2015 YALSA Symposium?

2015 Young Adult Services Symposium – Supporting Youth Learning Through Building Sustainable Partnerships

A number of The Hub bloggers attended YALSA’s awesome YA Services Symposium in Portland over the weekend. There were so many great sessions and authors there. In case you couldn’t attend the Symposium or missed this pre-conference session, here are some of the highlights compiled by Hub bloggers Carly Pansulla and Sharon Rawlins from Friday morning’s program called “Supporting Youth Learning Through Building Sustainable Partnerships.” All of the presenters were generous and detailed in sharing their experiences of partnering with outside organizations to better serve the young adults in their communities.

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For those of us who enjoy a good checklist, Amy Twito, Informal Learning Program Manager from Seattle Public Library, offered us a list comparing establishing good community partners to finding romantic partners. She advised us all that the same guidelines can lead to success in both arenas:

*Know what you want out of a partner – What are the library’s goals for this relationship? What are the partner organization’s goals? Is the library looking for specific resources or expertise? Is the partner organization? Are these goals and expectations compatible?

*Learn from past mistakes 

*partnerships can be uncomfortable, messy and awkward…(ditch the comfort zone)

*communication, communication, communication ALL THE TIME (don’t assume anything)

*1st rule of partnering: be a good partner

*it’s all about the balance (don’t need to continue with partner forever if things go off the rails)

*everything is harder & takes longer than you think it will (trust your intuition)

Especially if it’s an important project & if it’s new

*don’t be a pushover – maintain your own identity

*have fun, learn & grow! (relax  & be ready for everything)

Continue reading 2015 Young Adult Services Symposium – Supporting Youth Learning Through Building Sustainable Partnerships