Teen Behavior for a Positive Library Experience (curriculum manual and CD)

Young Adult Library Services Association. (2012). Young Adults Deserve the Best: Understanding Teen Behavior for a Positive Library Experience Manual and CD. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

Dynamic and full of energy, teens can be a challenging patron population to serve, even for the most experienced library worker. From the circulation desk, to the reference desk to the security desk, everyone is involved with addressing behavioral issues in the library. This instructional kit provides training on: the developing teen brain and how it affects teen behavior; how to build successful teen programs and Teen Advisory Boards; how to prevent and address teen behavior issues, and how library administration can support and foster teen development. Contributing authors include: Amy Alessio, Erin Downey Howerton, and Sarah Flowers.

This kit addresses the following areas in Competencies for Librarians Serving Youth: Leadership and Professionalism; Knowledge of Client Group; Communication, Marketing, & Outreach; Administration and Services.

This kit contains:

1.  Manual (binder-ready, three-hole punched and tabbed) 

• Literature Review
• Instructions on how to use the modules
• 4 learning modules which contain:
• Introductory paper 
• Module overview with key talking points and links to the YALSA Competencies
• Printout of four PowerPoint presentation with accompanying script 
• Three optional activities per module to deepen participants’ understanding of the module’s  material
• List of works consulted 

2. CD with PowerPoint presentations and resources for the four Understanding Teen Behavior for a Positive Library Experience workshops 

The Developing Teen Brain and Guidelines for Service to Teens

This module examines the developing teen brain and how it affects teen behavior. It also discusses guidelines for library service to teens. 

Teen Programs and Teen Advisory Boards

This module discusses how to build successful teen programs and Teen Advisory Boards.

Addressing Behavioral Issues in the Library 

This module examines how to prevent and address teen behavior issues in the library.

Library Support of Teen Development

This module examines how library administration can support and foster teen development.

 

(curriculum description)

Building Blocks for Planning Functional Library Space (book)

Library Administration & Management Association. (2011) Building Blocks for Planning Functional Library Space 3rd Ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. 978-0-8108-8104-4.

This volume outlines the measures of space needed for the use of equipment and furniture within a library setting. It provides drawings of typical library furniture and equipment along with diagrams of the space required for their use. In addition, this volume also contains a brief text that provides an overview of the planning process, as well as details on several aspects of design and planning. With this expanded and revised edition, planners of new, renovated, or existing space will be better able to effectively utilize the space they have and to resist the temptation to overload a given space with too many functions. This third edition significantly expands the number of illustrations found in the previous edition, adding information on newer library technology and amenities. Photographs of furniture and equipment in library settings further enhance the user's understanding of applicable square footage needs. Designed to be consulted after the decision to build has been made, this volume answers the critical question, "How much space do we need?". (book description)




Library Administration & Management Association. (2001) Building Blocks for Planning Functional Library Space: Buildings and Equipment Section. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. 0-8108-4136-3.

Provides detailed formulas to help calculate the square footage required for every conceivable element of a library building. New to this edition are up-to-date specifications for computer workstations, and visual representations of complex configurations. Designed to be consulted after the decision to build has been made, it answers the critical question, 'How much space do we need?' (book description)

Emergency Preparedness for Libraries (book)

Todaro, J. (2009) Emergency Preparedness for Libraries. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Despite the volumes of information they contain, few libraries, whose population at any given moment is as unpredictable as the weather, know how to prepare for, endure, and survive a disaster, whether natural or man-made, and even fewer put their know-how to paper. Emergency Preparedness for Libraries provides library management with a comprehensive guide to planning and executing emergency procedures.

Based, in part, on an emergency preparedness seminar the author has presented for the American Library Association, Emergency Preparedness for Libraries provides library personnel with detailed instructions for protecting staff, patrons, and the facilities themselves, including

• Steps to take now, before disaster strikes


• People and procedures to include in an emergency/disaster action plan


• Practical ways to turn written plans into an instinctual team response


• Safety considerations to take into account when caring for people on-site during an emergency


• Information to provide to the umbrella organization and the media after a disaster


• Key things to do the first few days after an event


• Tips for getting back to business

In addition, the author examines possible scenarios and provides step-by-step solutions for all types of libraries—academic, school, public, and special—and all types of disruptions, including floods, fires, civil disturbances, and theft. (book description)

You may also be interested in ALA's Fact Sheet on Disaster Response.

From Children's Literature to Readers Theatre (book)

Poe, E.A. (2013) From Children's Literature to Readers Theatre. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. 978-0-8389-1049-8.

How do you get children excited and engaged with books?  Get them onstage! Readers Theatre is a staged reading of literature with participants reading from scripts, conveying the book’s story using voice and facial expressions. In this book Poe introduces and shows how to implement the concept, demonstrating how Readers Theatre offers educators an innovative opportunity to acquaint children and young people with quality literature, develop their public-speaking skills, and teach teamwork in an activity that is as entertaining as it is educational. A veteran of many Readers Theatre programs, she explains how to create successful programs, providing

• Detailed instruction for ways librarians can help children and teens develop and perform their own Readers Theatre scripts
• An annotated bibliography of 100 books suggested for their Readers Theatre potential, with excerpts from scripts and the passages from which they were adapted
• Programming ideas that can be adapted for use across different age levels, from preschool to YA
• Comments from prominent children’s authors who have shared Readers Theatre experiences with Poe

Combining the theoretical and the practical, Poe’s book helps children and YA librarians assist young people in developing a lifelong love of literature. (book description)

More Storytime Action! (book)

Bromann, J. (2009) More Storytime Action! 2000+ More Ideas for Making, 500+ Picture Books Interactive. New York: Neal Schuman. 978-1555706753.

Add 500 more books to your repertoire with More Storytime Action! This follow-up to Jennifer Bromann’s popular first edition features all new content, and is a treasure trove for any librarian who needs complete, easy-to-implement storytime programming. Find hundreds more interactive activities, plot summaries, crafts and games certain to engage children in storytime and inspire a lifelong love of reading.

This practical guide to storytime includes an exciting new selection of recently published picture books, as well as a comprehensive theme index for hassle-free program creation. Also included are twenty sample storytime plans paired with immediately-usable activities, as well as a time-saving outline that can guide your planning. Bromann also offers an expanded collection of multicultural materials, as well as a helpful new chapter with suggestions for involving teen volunteers. Order one for yourself and one to circulate since this volume is sure to be popular with parents and teachers just like Bromann’s original volume. (book description)

Teddy Bear Storytimes (book & CD)

Yousha, L. (2009) Teddy Bear Storytimes: Ready-to-Go Flannel and Magnetic Storyboard Programs That Captivate Children. New York: Neal Schuman. 978-1555706777.

Let Teddy Bear and his enchanting adventures ignite a lifelong love of reading in young children. Complete with storytelling guides, dramatization tips, easy-cut-out patterns, and enrichment activities, on-the-go librarians can focus more on storytime and less on time-consuming research and preparation. Yousha uses a proven approach to early-childhood programming through recognizable, recurring characters and interactive narratives. Vibrant stories and patterns will turn your flannel or magnetic storyboard into a magic board that will captivate young library patrons.

This brand new storyboard book includes a variety of engaging and educational Teddy Bear tales, including learning to be a good sport and a good friend and Teddy Bear vacations and holidays, all with child-friendly titles like “You’re Never Too Young to be a Hero,” “Finding the Perfect Pet”, and “Let’s Make Some Noise”. Yousha also recommends additional books to read aloud that extend each chapter’s theme. The companion CD-ROM offers easy viewing, sharing, and printing of the patterns needed for characters and scenery, a bonus for busy teachers, librarians, especially those who work in multiple locations. (book description)

Leveraging the Power of Afterschool and Summer Learning for Student Success (book)

Peterson, T.K. (February 2013) Expanding Minds and Opportunities: Leveraging the Power of Afterschool and Summer Learning for Student Success. Washington DC: Collaborative Communications Group.

Expanding Minds and Opportunities presents an impressive and significant body of work that comprises almost 70 reports, research studies, essays, articles, and commentaries by more than 100 authors representing a range of researchers, educators, policy makers, and professionals in the field. Collectively, these writings boldly state that there is now a solid base of research and best practices clearly showing that quality afterschool and summer learning programs-including 21st Century Community Learning Centers-make a positive difference for students, families, schools, and communities. (book description)

Building a Teen Library Program (book)

Ludwig, S. (2011) Starting from Scratch: Building a Teen Library Program. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. 978-1-59884-607-2.

Starting from Scratch: Building a Teen Library Program is an instrumental resource for librarians who are either entering an established teen program with no previous experience, or establishing a new teen program in a library. It covers all steps in the process of becoming a successful teen librarian, from getting the job and advocating for a teen department to adding qualified staff and ongoing professional development.

Features
• Provides invaluable information that will help teen librarians successfully face the common challenges of running a YA department, such as communicating with teens, budgetary and space limitations, theft, and lack of staff support
• Includes bibliographic information in each section, such as useful related works, booklists, and additional reading material

Highlights
• Offers a comprehensive guide to establishing the basics of teen services, assuming that the librarian has to begin with no resources, additional staff, or space
• Contains suggestions on how to advocate for a teen services department in your library
• Appropriate for both public and high school libraries
• Provides information based on the author’s direct, real-world experience in setting up a new teen services department. (book description)

Cart's Top 200 Adult Books for Young Adults (book)

Cart, M. (2013) Cart's Top 200 Adult Books for Young Adults: Two Decades in Review. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. 978-0-8389-1158-7.

Michael Cart, former YALSA president and the best-selling author of Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism, applies his considerable expertise as one of the nation’s leading experts on YA literature to identify exceptional adult books that will satisfy a variety of young adults’ recreational reading tastes. Drawing on his work as columnist and critic for Booklist, Cart bases his recommendations on the notoriously choosy reading interests of today’s older young adults, and his roundup of high-quality titles

• Features only the best of the best—no cheesy star bios or chick lit lite here
• Covers a wide range of genres, from graphic novels and real-life adventures to romance and speculative fiction
• Includes numerous read-alikes and related-titles lists, making it a great tool for both collection development and readers’ advisory
• Makes finding a great book easy, with multiple indexes and thorough annotation

Put together with insight and obvious affection, Cart's guide spotlights hundreds of great books for a hard-to-satisfy audience.(book description)

Preserving Local Writers, Genealogy...

Smallwood, Carol, and Elaine Williams. Preserving Local Writers, Genealogy, Photographs, Newspapers, and Related Materials. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-81088-358-1

Publisher's Description

Preservation of historical documents and library related materials is a growing problem in all library types and institutions. Fortunately, editors Carol Smallwood and Elaine Williams have pulled together the wisdom of practicing professionals to elucidate how to cope with the many problems that arise when preserving, managing, and digitizing important collections.

Preserving Local Writers, Genealogy, Photographs, Newspapers, and Related Materials contains informative chapters on physical preservation, collection management, cooperation with organizations and communities, various formats, and special projects. Each part covers the preservation of specific materials, from newspapers and scrapbooks to photographs and oral histories. In addition, chapters cover repair and restoration of materials, while taking into consideration the current state of funding for agencies with an interest in history. Contributors also shed light on how the racial, economic, and political dynamics of the past affect how collections are gathered, maintained, and presented today.

Preserving Local Writers, Genealogy, Photographs, Newspapers, and Related Materials offers plenty to inspire anyone facing backlogs of unprocessed papers or boxes of artifacts. Stories of the rescue efforts of a group of volunteers, or the discovery of a lost diary, show that the hard work of preservation is well worth it. Libraries, archives, and historical and genealogical societies all have their role to play in preserving important historical materials, as do patrons, sponsors, and volunteers; such institutions and individuals will find this book extremely helpful in their preservation efforts.

Make a Big Impact @ Your School Board Meeting

DelGuidice, Margaux, and Rose Luna. Make a Big Impact @ Your School Board Meeting. Santa Barbara, CA: Linworth, 2012. ISBN: 978-1-59884-900-4

Publisher's Description

This book details effective strategies for promoting a library beyond the building level in order to make an impact with the influential individuals who make the key decisions that directly affect the school district and library program.

The recent economic climate has deeply affected library programs across the country. Many librarians are understandably concerned about budget cuts and staff positions being eliminated. In order to avoid these negative impacts, librarians must be effective advocates for their programs and reach out to the administrators and community members who can champion their cause.

Make a Big Impact @ Your School Board Meeting was inspired by the authors' experiences speaking at local and national library conferences on the topic of making presentations to school boards and forging relationships with key administrators. It became clear that many librarians are unsure how to create a comprehensive marketing plan, and are simply too busy with their day-to-day tasks to tackle this daunting project.

This book is written specifically for K–12 librarians in the field. It can also serve as an instructional tool for school library certification programs. It spotlights the importance of ongoing advocacy and leadership, teaches school librarians how to demonstrate the tremendous value of their library programs and how they directly impact student achievement, and showcases library-specific marketing techniques that can be used during good and poor economic times. By using the straightforward methods and tools provided, librarians will greatly improve their ability to avoid detrimental budget cuts to their programs.

Features
• Supplies critical marketing, outreach, and public relations tools, including a sample monthly report for the school principal and sample press releases
• Provides an extensive checklist to help librarians prepare for the night of the school board presentation
• Includes useful forms such as a customizable advocacy PowerPoint presentation accessible from the accompanying CD
• Describes useful Web 2.0 tools for advocacy and reaching the audience

Highlights
• Supplies critical marketing, outreach, and public relations tools, including a sample monthly report for the school principal and sample press releases
• Provides an extensive checklist to help librarians prepare for the night of the school board presentation
• Includes useful forms such as a customizable advocacy PowerPoint presentation accessible from the accompanying CD
• Describes useful Web 2.0 tools for advocacy and reaching the audience

Book Clubbing!

Littlejohn, Carol. Book Clubbing!: Successful Book Clubs for Young People. Santa Barbara, CA: Linworth, 2011. ISBN: 978-1-58683-415-9

Publisher's Description

This practical guide demonstrates how to sponsor a successful, student-led book club for grades K through 12 that is fun, easy-to-implement, and encourages reading.

Establishing a book club for children and young people that's self-sustaining and successful long-term is a challenge that this book addresses and conquers. According to recent research, allowing young people to choose their reading material, environment, and activity can make the vital difference in establishing a lifelong reading habit.

Book Clubbing!: Successful Book Clubs for Young People offers practical tips on creating book clubs that involve students of all ages and reading levels—including special education students, second language learners, and reluctant readers—making it easy to have fun, productive, and educational book clubs and other reading events.

The book begins with a discussion of the current research on reading and practical tips from experienced sponsors and participants, followed by suggestions on customizing book clubs to fit the students' needs and how to add "sparkle" to the club with field trips, readers theatre, guest speakers, and mystery games. The book offers a wide variety of reading activities, ensuring a dynamic, lively reading group. Numerous forms, booklists, booktalks, reading lists, and resource websites offer additional help for educators and library staff. Especially unique and valuable is the reading activities chapter that includes reproducible reading games, a readers theatre script, a folktale "rap," and various booktalks and contests.

Features
• Bibliographic lists of works cited after each chapter
• An index of authors, titles, and reading activities by age
• Figures are included with selected activities and reading games

Highlights
• Provides strategies for addressing the issue of waning enthusiasm for reading activities in older students
• Stresses the importance of giving students freedom to choose their reading materials and encouraging them to share their reading with others
• Offers assistance for starting book clubs with young people in hospitals, community centers, public libraries, bookstores as well as school libraries

Text Complexity: Raising Rigor in Reading

Fisher, Douglas, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp. Text Complexity: Raising Rigor in Reading. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-87207-478-1

Publisher's Description

Selecting appropriate reading material for students is hard. For decades, teachers have known that quality instruction requires a careful matching of materials to students. The goal is to select materials that are neither too difficult nor too easy for students--a phenomenon sometimes called the Goldilocks Rule. To ensure that students learn to read increasingly complex texts, teachers have to understand what makes a text hard. The introduction of the Common Core State Standards has also placed a spotlight on text complexity. This book focuses on the quantitative and qualitative factors of text complexity as well as the ways in which readers can be matched with texts and tasks. It also examines how close readings of complex texts scaffold students understanding and allow them to develop the skills necessary to read like a detective.

Social Readers: Promoting Reading in the 21st Century (book)

Preddy, L.B. (2010). Social Readers: Promoting Reading in the 21st Century. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. 978-1-59158-869-6.

Social Readers: Promoting Reading in the 21st Century is about making reading meaningful to the Web 2.0 generation through active engagement and socially interactive projects. Organized into four broad categories—entertainment, active participation, control and choice, and technology—the book offers more than 50 specific project ideas for promoting reading in the classroom, school, library media center, or public library.

Each project includes a description, cost estimate, planning time needed, suggested supplies, and instructions for running the project successfully. Topics such as sharing, involvement, book promotions, social networking, and developing informed readers are also covered. A preface and introduction provide an overview of the needs and preferences of the current generation of students, a discussion of the necessity for socializing reading, and insights into how to use the book effectively. Bottom line: Social Readers will help librarians and educators change their practices to accommodate the ever-evolving needs of today's students. (Book Description)

Solving the Reading Riddle (book)

Soltan, Rita. (2010).  Solving the Reading Riddle: The Librarian's Guide to Reading Instruction. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. 978-1-59158-844-3

As a children's librarian, you are increasingly being called upon to support schools and parents in teaching children to read—from early literacy initiatives and read-alouds to parent workshops and collection development endeavors. Yet, if you're like most public librarians, you probably have no clue as to what reading strategies other educators use. Understanding reading instruction theory and practice can help you function better in these roles and communicate more effectively with other educators and parents.

Solving the Reading Riddle: The Librarian's Guide to Reading Instruction explains the theories and shows you how to effectively integrate reading instruction theory into your roles as reading advocate, family reading coach, partner with educators, and keeper of the books. Designed for public librarians, this book is also beneficial reading for LIS students in children's librarianship courses, and for teacher-librarians needing more information on this topic. (Book Description)

Celebrating Cuentos (book)

Naidoo, J.C. (2011). Celebrating Cuentos: Promoting Latino Children's Literature and Literacy in Classrooms and Libraries. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. 978-1-59158-904-4.

Latinos are the fastest growing and largest ethnic minority in the United States. The number of Latino children is at a historic high. As a result, librarians and teachers in the United States must know how to meet the informational, cultural, and traditional literacy needs of this student demographic group. An ideal way to overcome this challenge is by providing culturally accurate and authentic children's literature that represents the diversity of the Latino cultures.

Much more than simply a topical bibliography, this book details both historical and current practices in educating Latino children; explains why having quality Latino children's literature in classrooms and libraries is necessary for the ethnic identity development of Latino children; and offers a historical overview of Latino children's literature in America. Web resources of interest to educators working with Latino children are also included.