• Home
  • FAQ
  • Library Programs
    • Passive Programs
    • Kids Programs
    • Stats Workbook Download
  • Library Articles
    • Ransomware in Public Libraries
    • Ethics of Data Exhaust
    • Virtual Book Displays
  • World Reads

decaf Jess

When you cannot safely interact in person with your patrons, how do you stay relevant? 

I am the head of youth services at my small suburban library, which has been closed to the public since the middle of March. I’ll leave the issue of whether or not to reopen in the hands of public health professionals and instead focus on what we can do in the time we are closed. 

Around May 2020 when it became apparent that we were in this for the long haul, I began experimenting with online programming. Videos would get a few dozen views, which slowly trickled to less than ten. Our adult programmer has been posting recipe and craft videos, some of which get 500 views, and some of which get less than five. We are seemingly at the capricious whims of Facebook algorithms. 

Let’s be honest: our patrons are burnt out on the internet, especially parents whose kids are e-learning, and it costs a lot of staff time and energy to film and edit these videos, not to mention the hassle of navigating copyright concerns of storytime. Can we acknowledge that there is already a vast pool of educational children’s videos and readalouds available at a higher quality than I can make with my inexpensive setup? Can I acknowledge that I have been going through the motions, doing what I think I should be doing, even though it is clearly not what our patrons want? Can I confess that these Sisyphean tasks are mainly to try and prove my relevance to my boss and peers, even though it’s clearly not vibing with my community?

I am officially calling it: I am giving up trying to do regular online children’s and teen’s programming for the time being, because it is failing and I’m tired of getting to the end of the month and counting my stats on one hand.

So, we try something else. 

Some things have been working: mainly, the online book & movie displays I’ve been making on Google sites and linking to on our website and social media, like this one on horror movies I posted in October. People have been ordering these books and they have been getting clicks.

Also, the Facebook album of our new releases has been driving new release circulation. 

Interlibrary cooperation has been working. Our library and a few others nearby have gotten together the last few years to offer a once-monthly STEAM activity for area homeschool families, with each library taking a month in the school year to host them. This year, since most of our families are sort of homeschooling with e-learning, we’re posting these activities online on a shared Google site and promoting it to all families. We’re only on our second month but people seem interested. This cooperation conserves staff time, reduces burnout as each library only has to focus on one great program instead of several, and promotes networking and sharing among libraries. I’m interested in seeing what other kinds of shared programming we can do.
 
I tried doing craft and book giveaways in the late spring but no one was interested, possibly because we were still very worried at that time about the spread of COVID from touching items. Now that we know that is much lower risk than originally thought, I may try it again. Who knows, I may even start making some videos again in a month or two. I’ve already made a November Story Room, so I’ll monitor those stats this month, but we may take a break from that in December. Maybe I’ll see if I can get my husband to help me with some filmed storytimes to see if the addition of a new face changes things. Who knows what I’ll do. 

In sum, let’s be brave enough to admit we’re failing, fail quickly, and try something else. Repeat as necessary.

After years of trial and error with both paper calendars and Excel, I've found a library programming stats system that works for me. I'm going to share with you all a downloadable copy of my programming stats workbook to help you keep your data together.

It has a sheet for each month, with a final total sheet at the end that aggregates all of the monthly data into one sheet that will help in particularly if you are an Illinois librarian filling out our annual report, the IPLAR. If you are not an Illinois librarian, it should still be useful in tallying your monthly info for your own records.

There is a readme sheet in the workbook with more info on how it works and how best to use it.

Reach out if you have any questions. :)

Monthly Layout
Monthly Sheet Layout

Final Tally Sheet
Final Tally Sheet Layout, Optimized for the Illinois IPLAR (but usable for other states!)


Click here to see my shareable Google Sheet. To get your own copy, make sure you are logged into a Google Account, click File, and Make a Copy.





I'd love to offer more intensive online storytimes during these closures but I'm hesitant to encourage little ones to spend a lot of time on the phone/tablet/computer. It is not developmentally positive. How can we limit screentime for little ones while doing storytime?

I've found a good middle ground by posting short 5-8 minute videos of me reading 2-3 books from my house. These are posted with a suggested DIY Storytime for the caregiver and child to do together, featuring links to 3 free e-books via BookFlix and songs and activities they can do together. I'm posting the story videos on Facebook for 4 weeks at a time in the interests of fair use boundaries.

I've thrown together a handful so far, and please feel free to use them and share them freely and please make your own with the resources your community offers. 



I'd love to offer more intensive online storytimes during these closures but I'm hesitant to encourage little ones to spend a lot of time on the phone/tablet/computer. It is not developmentally positive. How can we limit screentime for little ones while doing storytime?

I've found a good middle ground by posting short 5-8 minute videos of me reading 2-3 books from my house. These are posted with a suggested DIY Storytime for the caregiver and child to do together, featuring links to 3 free e-books via BookFlix and songs and activities they can do together. I'm posting the story videos on Facebook for 4 weeks at a time in the interests of fair use boundaries.

I've thrown together a handful so far, and please feel free to use them and share them freely and please make your own with the resources your community offers. 




COVID-19 has closed libraries, and it looks like we won't be doing much programming for a while when we reopen. Whether you are using a program like Beanstack or just social media to facilitate your library's online presence, here is a growing list of ideas for ways to keep exploration going.

Language Challenges

Create mini-challenges for learning how to say things in different languages. A simple idea is to encourage kids to learn how to count to ten in another language, or learn how to introduce themselves. 

Rocket Languages has some cool resources for learning to count to ten.

Experiencing New Music from Around the World

Smithsonian Folkways has tons of music online, and offers some full videos or 30 second previews of different styles of music. Here's a list of options we're putting our Beanstack page:

Listen to 30 seconds of traditional Indian music featuring the sitar.
India's Great Shamim Ahmed: Three Ragas

Listen to 30 seconds of traditional music from the country Turkey.
Songs and Dances of Turkey

Check out this group of musicians from Ghana. They are truck drivers who play music using truck parts to draw interest to the importance of truck drivers. How creative!
Por Por: Honk Horn Music of Ghana

Listen to 30 seconds of traditional American bluegrass music featuring the banjo.
Bluegrass Breakdown

Check out this video of son jarocho music from Veracruz in Mexico.
José Gutiérrez and Los Hermanos Ochoa

Listen to 30 seconds of this music group from Western Samoa.
Lau lupe Youth Group from Saleufi, Apia

Encourage engagement with the outdoors.

Many of us live our whole lives unaware of what species of birds or trees are around us. Look up local guides to the birds and trees in your area and encourage patrons to journey outside and see which ones they can identify.

Here's one such example for the Chicago area.

Other ideas:

The Smithsonian Institute has this landing page of tons of kids/teen activities.

BedtimeMath.org has a daily math word problem with difficulty settings from toddler to high school.

Learning inspiration: https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2012/03/pre-columbian.html

There's not a lot of easily-found scholarly information online about pre-columbian art in the Americas, particularly when it comes to stamps. However, we do know that they used rolling stamps to decorate household goods and the human body.

It could be a good opportunity to discuss life in pre-Hispanic central America.

SUPPLIES NEEDED:
- sturdy cylinders. We had a ton of these U-Line Kraft Tubes leftover from something else, but short lengths of PVC pipe would be inexpensive and easy to use, too.
- sticky-back foam paper. I used these.
- scissors
- paint - I used acrylic.
- paintbrushes of any size -- you're just using them to cover the stamp.
- heavy paper. Construction paper will do.

INSTRUCTIONS:
Cut shapes out of the sticky foam paper and stick it on the tube.

Cover the foam with paint and roll it across your paper.

Cost per child: about a dollar.
Older Posts

Search This Blog

Book Reviews

adult fiction adult nonfiction cookbooks graphic novels kids kids board books kids chapter books kids graphic novels kids nonfiction kids picture books kids program kids STEAM sci-fi fantasy world reads ya young adult

library inspo

Downloads family program kids program passive program

Created with by BeautyTemplates | Distributed by blogger templates