INLS
733 – Administration of Public Library Work with
Children and Young Adults
(Spring 2016)
Manning Hall,
Room 014
Thursdays,
6:00-8:45pm
Dr. Brian Sturm
Office: Manning Hall #215-A (962-2460)
Office Hours: Drop-in or by appointment
This course is designed to
expose graduate SILS students to the multiple facets of services to youth
(children and young adults) in public libraries. Each week, the class will address a
particular issue and explore how it interweaves with related concepts of
service. The class is a service-learning
approach, so each year we “adopt” a local library and use that context as the
focus of our work. This year we have
adopted the Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough, so our tasks will
revolve around their needs and related issues.
There are no pre-requisites
to this course, though it may be more useful during your second year as a SILS
student.
This is your chance to learn
“how to be a children’s/YA librarian. By
the end of the course you should:
1. Understand the overall job of the youth librarian in
all its dynamic aspects
2. Be confident in designing and presenting
age-appropriate and engaging youth programs
3. Understand how public library services to youth have
evolved
4. Understand how context and physical setting influence
library services and success
5. Be able to assess a user community as evidence in
providing relevant services and collections
6. Be confident in interviewing for your next position
and/or hiring someone to fill a vacancy
Class
Schedule
Articles listed in the
Readings section of the syllabus are either hyperlinked or on the class Sakai site in the Resources section.
There is no textbook for this class.
January 14th (Our
Beliefs)
In
Class: Introductions, course overview and
expectations; Examine YALSA
competencies and/or ASLC competencies;
Analyze sample mission statements (Sakai), professional philosophies; divide
into “consulting” groups for the semester (by 1st/2nd
year students and child/YA focus), sign up for January 27th history
decade to research.
January 21st
Field
trip to Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough to examine site and
collection. We’ll meet at the library! If you have a car and are willing to help
carpool, we’ll coordinate transportation from SILS (I can take four students in
my car, leaving from SILS at 5:40pm).
The goals for this visit are: 1) to explore the physical layout of the
space to see what it tells us about librarianship and children, and 2) to
examine the collection for similar clues and to get an initial sense of the
depth and breadth of the collection in areas that we might analyze (see the
collection assignment description at the bottom of this page).
January 27th
(Our History)
Topic: Seminar on history of library services and
spaces for children and young adults…choose a decade.
Readings: Maack article; History
timeline; YA
Services Chronology; Future
of Library Services for and with Teens: a Call to Action.
Assignment
Due (ungraded): Find two (2) articles in Library Journal from your chosen decade (browse the print editions
in the SILS library – older ones are on the 4th floor) dealing with
youth services and be prepared to share their main points in class; while
browsing, look at advertisements and photos as well to get a sense of library
culture.
February 4th (Our Employees/Colleagues)
Topic: Scheduling,
job descriptions and interviews, management styles and communication patterns
Readings: Adkins 2004
and Spoor 2012 (Sakai)
Assignment Due: Draft Personal philosophy
February 11th
(Our Programming: Children)
Topic:
Designing exceptional library
programs for children
Readings: Dowd & Dixon 1996, MacLean 2008, Peck
2009, Stippich 2012, and Albright, et.
al., 2009 articles (on Sakai), and explore the many youth services books in the
SILS library. Do a subject search in our
OPAC
on “children’s libraries--activity programs” for a list of the 210+ books we
have in our UNC libraries on this topic (or browse the Z718 area of the
stacks). As you look at these various kinds of programs in these books and
articles, ask yourself, “Do they really
fit the mission and goals of public library youth services, would they really appeal to today’s children, and
why/why not?”
February 18th
(Our Programming: Young Adults)
Topic: Library programs for young adults
Readings: Bostian 2010, Shay 2011,
and Wallace 1993 articles (on Sakai); Do a subject search in our OPAC
on “young adult libraries--activity programs” for a list of the 80+ books we
have in our UNC libraries (or browse the Z718 area of the stacks).
February 25th (Our Space)
Topic: Building Design
workshop
Readings: Mulaney 2013 article; Skim book: Lushington,
Nolan (2008) Libraries Designed for Kids
on SILS RESERVE. See Black
and Rankin history of library design. Read IFLA report on library design
for children (Sakai).
§ There are many books on library design (search UNC
OPAC under: s=“library architecture” as a place to start your exploration.
§ Have a look at a retail layout approach to design for
libraries at: http://www.infotoday.com/MLS/jan05/koontz.shtml.
§ Examine some floor plans (Sakai:
hollyspringsfloorplan.pdf) and at:
·
http://www.williamsburg.lib.ia.us/library-information/NewLib
·
http://www.mymcpl.org/_uploaded_resources/mcw_final-plan_0.jpg
§ Look at the furniture examples at: http://www.librarydesign.com/products_children.html
§ Image search the web on “library design” or
“children’s libraries” to see some interesting pictures for further study.
March 3rd (Our
Community)
Topic:
Child and adolescent development;
reading preferences; Community Assessment Workshop
Readings: Nespeca 1994, Sturm
2003 “Dogs and Dinosaurs” articles (Sakai); Sturm’s “Reading
Preferences” article
Skim the Youth Development websites below:
(Normal
child development: birth -5 years)
(Normal
adolescent development)
Also
Read Conducting
a Community Assessment. Read Community
Profiling handout. Explore the US Census site
related to children & the NC State Data
Center site. Look at State Library
of NC public library statistics webpage. What is the “community” of users for the
Orange County Public Library? How could
we assess their needs?
Assignment Due: Draft Program (use progtemplate.docx on Sakai)
March 10th (Our
Collections)
Topic: Collection evaluation, management, and Challenges
Readings: Read ALA’s approach to materials’ challenges;
Work through the Arizona Libraries Collection Development Training website at: http://apps.azlibrary.gov/cdt/. How do the issues discussed here apply
specifically to work with youth? Pay
particular attention to the “Collection Assessment” section and the “Community
Needs Assessment” section. Finally, see
MCPL Collection Development Policy for Children (Sakai).
March 17th
NO CLASS: SPRING BREAK
March 24th (Our
Finances)
Topic: Grant-writing
Readings: Bayley 1995, Boylan 2013; Engelfried
and Reynolds 2002 articles and Grant Resources.docx (Sakai)
Assignment Due: Draft Community Assessment
March 31st (Our
Marketing)
Topic: Displays,
signs, digital presence, transmedia storytelling
Readings: Biggs & Calvert 2013 and Block 2001articles
(Sakai). See the Marketing – Library
Success wiki; Read an overview of transmedia
storytelling for marketing. Work
through the self-training in
marketing from the Ohio Library Council.
April 7th (Our
Legislation and Advocacy)
Topic: Legislation relating to youth services and advocating
for your library
Readings: Laws Affecting children’s librarians (Sakai). ALA’s advocacy webpage (http://www.ala.org/everyday-advocacy/);
LibraryLaw.com (seems to be no longer
updated, but still useful for archival purposes); Search Google for “library
laws” and explore some of the state-library-hosted (usually) legal information
pages for librarians; look at the Best
of the PubLib listserv on laws and ethics
affecting libraries (scroll down on the left for state-by-state coverage, but
remember this is a compilation from a listserv, so judge the authenticity
accordingly).
Assignment Due: Draft Collection Analysis
Reminder (not
course related): Master’s Papers are due April 11th
April 14th (Our
Interactions with Youth)
Topic:
Reference interviews, youth information seeking, and reader’s advisory
Readings: Bishop and Salveggi
2001 and Chelton 2009 articles; Searching Problems
spreadsheet (Sakai: other documents)
April 21st
(last class)
Consultant
groups’ final presentations (no more than 15 minutes for the presentation and
5-10 minutes for questions)
Assignment Due: Final presentations
Assignments
Individual Assignments:
Personal/Professional
Philosophy 10% due:
February 4th
Live
Program Performance Write-up 10%
due: post-program delivery
Class
Participation 10% due: ongoing
Reflection Blog on Sakai 10%
due: ongoing but finalized by
final
exam day at 5:00pm
(Saturday,
April 30th)
Group Assignments:
Your
other assignments this semester are designed to help your “consultant group”
create a portfolio to present to the Orange County Public Library, including:
Draft
Program (use progtemplate.docx on Sakai) 10% due:
March 3rd
Draft
Community Assessment 15%
due: March 24th
Draft
Collection Analysis 15%
due: April 7th
Final
Group Presentation 20%
due: April 21st
Assignment Descriptions (by date due):
1. Draft Personal/Professional
Philosophy of Service
This is your chance
to express your feelings about who you are as a future youth librarian. Include such issues as: priorities of service (which are your most
crucial and why), things you feel a library should NOT do, how you feel about
freedom of access to information and/or privacy for children, why you decided
to serve children/YAs and how you feel it is best to serve them (and their
parents?), your stance on the role of technology in a youth library, your
belief in the kind of collection you should offer, and any other personal
stands on pressing issues in the field.
What do you believe in (go ahead and use the words “I believe that….”)?
What are you willing to stand up for?
What are your values? What do you
want to accomplish as a librarian? Focus
on philosophical issues more than practical concerns (i.e., “I believe the
library is the place to build children’s imaginations,” instead of “I want to
have romance novels in the collection”; this latter statement is actually fine
IF you use it as an example of a philosophical argument, for example, to
provide what the public wants, or to offer a balanced collection).
2. Draft Program
Your program should
follow the Template for Thinking about Programming
(progtemplate.docx on Sakai: other documents). This is your group’s
opportunity to build an effective, fun, and age-appropriate program that should
work well with your target audience.
3. Live Program Performance and
Write-up (whenever you complete the event
you’ve designed)
The idea of this
assignment is that your group takes the program you designed for the assignment
above, and performs it live at the Orange County library (or an outreach
location in collaboration with Amber) to see whether it actually works, or what
parts of it are successful, and to gain practical experience working with
children/YAs.
4. Draft Community Assessment
For this piece of
the assignment, I want you to collect as much pertinent data about the clientele
of the Orange County library environment as you can. Find out the actual demographics and
statistics of the Hillsborough area; see what it looks like from the air to get
a sense of topography; explore schooling, crime rates, ethnicities and where
they are located; and any other information you can find that describes the
community who might use the Orange County library, then put together a
presentation that best summarizes what you’ve found. This can be a webpage, a video, a PowerPoint,
a Prezi presentation, a digital storytelling project, etc. Your job is to describe the uniqueness of the
community in as much detail as you can, but in a presentation format that is
easily accessible and provocative.
5. Draft Collection Analysis
For this assignment,
your group needs to collaborate with Amber Campbell at Orange County Public
Library to define a portion of the collection to analyze. You are to do a circulation study of that
portion of the collection as well as (if possible) a list-checking study. The final written product will be: 1) a short
summary of your process and methods, 2) an evaluation of the existing part of
the collection you have chosen identifying gaps, and 3) recommendations for
acquisition and weeding. Amber has
already identified some specific collections she would like assessed (in
priority order):
·
Biographies (core
collection)
·
NC
literature/authors
·
Native American
non-fiction
·
Historical
Fiction (Colonial era or Early American)
·
Poetry
(contemporary and/or classics)
·
Comparative Religions;
·
Mythology
·
Folktales
6. Final Presentation
This will be your
group’s presentation of your semester’s study to the class. You are to design a NOT MORE THAN 15-minute presentation to
share – in encapsulated form – all the work you have done as consultants to the
Orange County Public library. Please
dress professionally (for most youth positions, this is casually dressy) and
present your ideas concisely and incisively.
You may decide how your group divides the responsibilities for this
presentation. Your desire here is to
perform in such a way that the listeners find your portfolio appealing, and the
information included, interesting and useful.
Your grade will evaluate both your content and delivery and will be
based on my observations and each of your personal assessments of the group
members’ contributions.
7. Reflection Blog
This is an ongoing
assignment throughout the semester. I
have activated the Blogs function in Sakai so that each of you will have a
personal space to post your ideas and thoughts (the default setting is that
your posts will be publicly available;
I suggest that you change this to “members of this site only” for each post,
but if you want to post something that only I can read, select “only site
administrators and I.”). I want you actively contributing to your blog throughout the
semester (please don’t do a “blog-dump” at the end as this defeats the
purpose).
Possible things to
include in your blogs:
·
Thoughts/questions
you have related to the readings
·
Reflections on
classroom activities and new insights they’ve provided you (if any)
·
Changes to your
philosophy of youth librarianship
·
Connections you
see to other learning you’ve done at SILS in other courses
·
Problems you
encounter finding the relevance of course content (so that can make sure to
clarify that; I often make assumptions after having been in this field for
nearly 25 years that I need to clarify, so help me ensure that you understand
everything)
·
Links to
interesting website or articles you’ve found on your own
·
Final assessment
of your group process and functioning (successes and struggles, but
make sure to keep this one PRIVATE)
Grading
Grading
for assignments will follow the H, P, L, F scale for graduate students.
Course
Policies
Attendance
Class
participation is vital to your learning in this course, so I expect you to
attend class each week. While I
understand that life can get in the way of your education, this class needs
your participation and input each week, so that you can build on prior knowledge,
share your experiences, and help your classmates learn and grow.
