GreenBeanTeenQueen

Life as a public librarian means no two days are ever the same. It's one of the reasons I love my job-I never know what to expect each day and each day brings something new. Here's a peek into a day last week:  8:20-Arrive at work,  turn on computers, clean off keyboards, get department open and ready to go. 8:40-Meet with new staff member to go over training for the day. This morning I'm taking our new teen associate out and about to meet our school librarians for our partner schools. We're taking the librarians bookmarks of the state book awards to help promote the lists. 8:40-9:05-Drive and visit first area middle school and talk about ideas of what we could do to partner with them. 9:05-9:40-Drive to second middle school and meet librarian. Brainstorm more ideas for partnerships and talk about some book club possibilities. 9:40-10:10-Drive and visit third middle school. The librarian tells us about how they're integrating technology in the sch...

Let's call today's day in the life post, Day in the Life of a Youth Services Manager. As a manager, I'm always attending meetings. It just so happens that one day out of the month, several of my meetings all fall on the same day and it makes for a very long and exhausting day! Here's what my meeting day looked like last Thursday: 7:50 AM-Leave for work earlier than usual since I need to be driving out to a county branch for my first meeting. 8:20 AM-Arrive at county branch for meeting. Before meeting check out book the branch had set aside for me for tomorrows storytime (my copy got checked out by a young patron and luckily this branch had another copy!), deliver a box of ARCs for our teen review board, and bring in a stash of big books to exchange with other branches. 8:30 AM-Meeting starts! This is our monthly youth services meeting for all of our youth services managers, full time youth services staff, and young adult librarians. We spent our meeting talking ab...

 Here's a look into what it's like to be a librarian! 8:00-Arrive at work to get storytime stickers for outreach visit, drive to first Chat & Chew group at local middle school. 8:15-8:45-First Chat & Chew book group with 5th and 6th grade. We're discussing Drizzle this month. We have four students for our discussion. 8:45-9:00-Drive to next outreach visit. 9:00-9:45-Two outreach storytimes for local elementary school Wonderyears (preschool) classes. The outreach storytimes include books and songs and since I go to the same classroom every month, I always get greeted as the library lady! 9:45-10:00-Drive to next outreach visit. 10:00-11:15-Outreach storytime visit to local daycare-visit five classrooms ranging in age from 2-5. More books and songs and greetings of "it's the library lady!" 11:15-11:50-Lunch 11:50-12:00-Drive to next outreach visit. 12:00-Arrive at Chat & Chew for 4th grade at local elementary school. ...

I haven't posted a Day in the Life post in awhile and I thought I would share what my schedule has been like as a Youth Services Manager. (In other words-very busy!!) Day in the Life of a Librarian was started by Abby the Librarian (at least, that's where I saw it first!) This was my day yesterday: 9:30 AM-Drive to library (different branch from where I work) to attend YA meeting for YA staff. 10:30 AM-Meeting over. Call to check in with staff since I have sick employees and only one person at the desk. They're doing OK and I'll come in at my scheduled time at 12:30. 12:00 PM-12:45-Arrive at Library a bit early since we're short staffed. Check in with staff, organize my desk, check mail and unload all the crazy Printz boxes, check schedule for the afternoon, get book and questions for afternoon book club, get Wal-Mart card to go shopping for Halloween candy, find Halloween buckets to distribute to the departments for Wednesday's trick-or-treating parade. ...

The month of May is a very busy one for me in the library world because I'm spending all of time promoting the summer reading program and visiting schools. I found out today that I will be getting to talk to all the students at one of our local middle schools. This is super exciting because I've never been able to get into this school before, and this could really give a big push to our teen summer reading programs! Yay!:) I spent Monday morning talking to 7th graders at another middle school and they were lots of fun. I booktalked The ABC's of Kissing Boys by Tina Ferraro and that was the biggest hit out of all the books I took with me. Great title for booktalking, Tina! I had to laugh because the boys kept asking me where their kissing book was and I told them they would just have to read the book too! I've had several students from my visit on Monday already in the library, which is really cool. Alright, I'll be back to reviewing soon-I hope to post my review of...

I was helping one of my regular teens with a project on video games today and was able to help him find two book sources that he needed. He then came and asked me if I had any headphones he could borrow to use for the computer and I said that I did. He responded: "You're awesome! You're like my new best friend...aside from my mom!" That quote totally made my day! :)

So today I had a middle school visit to do research on their reports on famous Americans. School visits to the library mean that I show they how to use the catalog, tour the library and then the students spend the next 2 1/2-3 hours reseaching (I think the teachers enjoy being out of school just as much as the students!) Here are some of the gems from my morning: Me: When you are looking for biographical information, don't forget about children's biographies. They can be a good source of information and sometimes provide you with a list of other sources to check. So are you going to be a book snob and not look at children's books today? Students: Yes! Me: Right, let's try this one again... Student: Wasn't that Mandela guy that one guy? Student: I want to find information on Orville Redenbacher. Me: That sounds like a fun project. What made you pick him? Student: So I could bring popcorn to class. Student: I'm going to do that peanut guy because I like peanut but...