Youth Services Advisory Committee Meeting, November 6, 2012

Page authors: Main.pfinnerty KathrynRiedener

Attendees:

Facilitators: Kathryn Riedener, Betsy Morris

Committee Members: Mary Ferris (CAN), Sarah Matthews (WADS) ; via teleconference: Deb Dennis (PHE), Diana Thorn (BRI) ; unable to attend: Sheila Koeberle (PAL)

Agenda Topics & Outcomes

• Program ideas
  • Common core & public libraries
    • http://engageny.org/common-core/
      • http://engageny.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Shifts-for-Students-and-Parents.pdf

Our discussion focused on what our libraries need to know about Common Core and what would be the best way to support teachers, parents, and students. The committee believed that library youth staff would greatly benefit from having a workshop led by someone knowledgable about Common Core. Betsy will be networking with youth people at NYLA. She and Kathryn will find an appropriate speaker to address this issue and coordinate a workshop. The committee thought a panel would be best since different perspectives could be represented.

• • Crafts on the cheap
    • We discussed this topic since the only time we normally show crafts is during the Summer Reading Workshop -- and these are mostly theme-related. Since almost every library does crafts throughout the year, we thought it would be a good idea to get together to showcase our talents and crafty ideas. Mary suggested the theme "Let's Get Crafty." The idea is that each participant will bring at least one completed craft to be displayed and explained, along with a copy of the instructions to make it. There was discussion on the benefits of using Pinterest as an excellent resource for craft ideas. Since community involvement is of importance to libraries, Deb thought a good way to get people involved was to set up a physical "Pinterest" bulletin board where people could submit and pin up their craft suggestions. The focus of this workshop will be two-fold -- how to make crafts and how to increase community involvement/support at your library. Kathryn will coordinate the workshop details.
  • Discovery center discussion
    • Visits
      • Rokos email RE__Discovery_centers
      • Strong Museum of Play
      • Rochester Museum & Science Center
      • Other
    • Books Plus Kits as mini, rotating discovery centers
      • Kathryn displayed 3 different mini discovery centers that were assembled using the single Books Plus Kit "Fun With Science 2." Each center was coordinated around a different theme: Motion, magnets & more; Life cycle; and Observation. Books as well as other materials, binoculars, magnifying lens, magnets, etc., were included in each display. The idea is that libraries can borrow these kits to create their own discovery centers without incurring any additional cost. This will be demonstrated at the next Youth Yak where, at Deb's suggestion, teams will compete to see how many of these centers can be created using the available Books Plus Kits during a portion of the meeting.
      • Betsy suggested we arrange a tour/visit to area museums and other libraries to view how they set up their discovery centers. Mary thought looking at these through the eye of the person who creates them would be interesting and useful.
• NYLA
  • Betsy asked if anyone was going to NYLA. She promised to network with youth people and bring back information.
• Youth Yak
  • Next meeting Friday, Nov. 16 following system meeting
    • The focus will be sharing youth ideas/information gathered at NYLA and the mini discovery centers using Books Plus Kits.
  • Continue quarterly meetings? Same time/format?
    • Everyone agreed that quarterly Youth Yaks worked well and keeping them immediately following a System Meeting also was preferred.
• Next YSAC meeting in January to plan Summer Reading Workshop
  • This meeting will be on Friday, January 18 following the System Meeting.
• Other
  • Discussion about school librarians and teachers requesting multiple copies of a single title and topics for use in their classrooms was prompted by Sarah. The new school librarian in Geneseo has commented that she needs to find an alternate way of securing these items because of the slow delivery time through GVBOCES. Sarah asked how many ILLs GVBOCES has requested from us. Nancy Herzig, Outreach Assistant, will be able to provide this information. Betsy explained that by sidestepping the established ILL-through-BOCEs request process, the school districts are unaware that additional funds may be needed to provde for their students.