Why do kids need library cards?

Recently I posed a simple question to friends, colleagues, and co-workers: Why do first grade students need library cards?

You see, we're developing publicity materials for the Pima County Public Library's campaign to get every first grade child in our county a library card. Last year we gave out 5,600 cards, which was about 50%. This year we want to do better, thus the new publicity.

Anyway, the responses were immediate and WONDERFUL. I figured I'd share them here...

From Facebook friends:

Because opening wide the door of your imagination and curiosity is always more fun when you have your Very Own Key. --Eileen Tuuri

They feel special and important to have a library card. --Patti O'Brien

Get 'em hooked young. --Gene Spesard

It establishes al relationship between the child and the library. --Mary Monkoski

To teach responsibility and to initiate a love of reading and learning. --Leticia Lozano Garcia

Because some homes don't have or can't afford to buy books.... and to encourage reading for pleasure rather than always "for school." --Trish Drasnin

They can go to the library and check out books. Heaven! --Sherrie Baltes

So the kids make their parents take them to the library. "Mommy mommy take me to the library please!!!!!!" --Clarisa Barcelo

As soon as my kids could print their names (about age 4) I let them get a library card. It became a rite of passage for the younger ones, who saw the older ones with their very own cards - and didn't have to use mom's to check out books. --Malena Acosta

So the parents don't get assessed a late fee when we forget to return the child's book on time. :-) --Gina Anstey

Because too many of them don't have [school] libraries and library time in school any more! --Christine Dykgraaf

From Twitter:

[Having a card gives children] an early understanding of how we work and their role in borrowing books --@MegCanada

Having a library card - with their name/signature on it!! - makes 1st graders feel important and grown up. --@bphuettner

Because it is their "passport to the wonderful and quite unpredictable world of books!" - Mr. Dewey, The Pagemaster --@bel_hobbs

There is no better way than a library card to instill love of reading and sense of community responsibility/sharing. --@AZpress

Library card = access to entertainment & information of their choice. How often do kids have control over their world like that? --@sangofairy

Responses from PCPL children’s librarians

The library card is FREE.

Having a card reinforces a first grade child's pride in their new reading skills.

The library has free books, music, and movies for every interest.

Reading makes your brain bigger!

The library card is good at 27 libraries all over Pima County, plus the Bookmobile.

The whole family is welcome at the library.

Free computers (children's card provides higher security access to internet).

Online access to live homework help, and high quality information for children's school projects.

You can find out how to protect yourself from zombies.

Good readers do better in school.

Books are friends forever.

You'll be as cool as your friends or family who already have one.

You'll have something to put in your wallet.

To be like big brother/sister.

To learn about cool things.

A library card gives you access to books when the school library is closed (evenings, holidays and summer vacation time).

From teachers (I saved the best for last!):

I encourage parents to take their children to the public library because they enjoy choosing their own books, and it sparks their interest in learning to read. --Teacher from Drachman Elementary School

If a parent were to ask me why their child should get a library card I would have to tell them because the love and passion for reading happens at a very young age. As a child I remember that my first joys of reading came from picture books. If we can get children excited about books at an early age they are more likely to continue reading as adults for enjoyment...this will make them much smarter individuals and help them become more efficient learners in higher grades. Individuals that read have a larger vocabulary and can articulate much better than those who do not. Being an efficient reader will ensure that your child will excel in other areas of school because reading bridges all those subjects together. --Teacher from Oyama Elementary School

I tell parents many things but the first thing I say is that a library card allows a child to have access to books at their reading level at any given time during their development. They don't have to wait to become fluent readers to enjoy great books, the library has a great selection for any reading level. This will encourage their child to enjoy reading as they progress in their development. Another reason is that the library gives a child control over their book choices. They don't just have to read what I assign or books their parents buy. They choose, they control their adventures! --Teacher from Maldonado Elementary School

To have a larger variety of books to choose from more than [the school] library selection. --Teacher at Tucson Hebrew Academy

One of the best reasons for a child to have their own library card is, in my opinion, to give them the excitement and sense of ownership over their own reading. All teachers know that if you can get a child excited about reading the skills follow almost effortlessly but, let's face it, reading is hard when you first start learning! Getting their own library card and being able to choose books from so many available gets the kids excited about trying it out.

When the reading is their own idea, no one has to remind them to practice. The value of excitement in reading will follow them all the way through their education, giving them innate knowledge of facts, grammar, spelling, and a zillion concepts and ideas. It's almost too good to be free! --Teacher at Agua Caliente School

* so that their parents can check out books
* so that they can come and play on the computers
* so they can look at BIG pictures
--Principal of Tucson Academy of Leadership & Arts

Rock Band Tournament pictures

We've posted the photos from the countywide Rock Band Tournament on our Flickr account, and it looks like it was huge fun!

First Place: Holistic Bumblebee (Nanini branch)
Second Place: The Delusions (Flowing Wells branch)
Third Place: Three Dudes and a Chick (Wheeler Taft Abbett, Sr. branch)

You must watch this (Story Town performance)

Waking Beauty Performance at Story Town 2008

Some more of the best of libraries!

I just watched this video of PCPL staff dramatizing the picture book Waking Beauty by Leah Wilcox from last weekend's Story Town, and I'm still chuckling!

The Waking Beauty Players:
Sleeping Beauty: Deanna (South Tucson Library)
Prince Charming: Aaron (El Pueblo Library)
Fairies: Thania (Valencia Library), Maya (Santa Rosa Library), and Fabiana
Narrator: Lupita (Mission Library)
Filmed by Steve Shull

Please do yourself a favor and watch this. You will have a good feeling inside all day.

P.S. The wind noise dies down fairly quickly.

Library Afterschool Program Recognized by White House

This morning at the White House, Pima County Public Library's afterschool program called Word Journeys was recognized as one of the top 15 programs in the nation, awarding the us the prestigious Coming Up Taller award. Program Director Marge Pellegrino and one of the program's teen volunteers from Amphi High School attended the awards ceremony and received the award from First Lady Laura Bush.

Marge and I have known about this since July and it has been a little bubble of joy for both of us -- and very hard to keep secret!

Word Journeys hires teens from Amphi High School to mentor elementary school children afterschool during the school year. Each week the high school students help plan a workshop based on a picture book story that includes, writing, art, and oral interpretation, and includes explorations of the library and its treasures.

For the last two years children and teens from Tucson's Somali Bantu refugee families have been included in the program, children who were born in the refugee camps and had known nothing else. Their English skills have improved so dramatically that fourth-grader Hawa told me she bravely defended Obama's tax policies when her school teacher told the class that Obama would raise everyone's taxes. She was very proud to have voted in the library's recent "Kids Vote" election.

Local coverage:

• Tucson Citizen
• Arizona Daily Star
• PCPL News

Other coverage

• Mrs. Bush's speech at the ceremony
  
• CEP News
  
• Coverage of the ceremony and the other finalists

Coming Up Taller is an initiative of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, along with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to showcase cultural excellence and enhance the availability of out-of-school arts and humanities programs to children.

Update: Marge just called, and they were interviewed after the ceremony by the local affiliate for Fox News! So cool. A representative of one of our recent funders was also there, someone from the Arizona Commission on the Arts.

And here (above) is the first ceremony photograph!

More to come, I'm sure.

Voting coolness

Our library had a contest where anyone under 17 could make a 3-minute video encouraging people to vote. The deadline was election day, and we got nine entries. Three of them are amazing. Take a look! "Why Vote" Video Contest.

Word Journeys, an afterschool program

One of the things I get to do in my new job is to help with the special programming that my library is involved with. Many of these programs are targeted to specific populations, and so are not always visible to the community. Word Journeys is one of those programs.

Word Journeys is an arts and humanities afterschool program taught by the inimitable Marge Pellegrino, and run in conjunction with the Amphitheater School District. Every Thursday this school year, Marge helped teens from Amphi High School put on a multidisciplinary program for children from two area elementary schools. Three of the teen mentors and half of the younger children are recent immigrants to Tucson: Bantu refugees from Somalia.

The teens plan and setup the weekly workshops, encourage the younger students, model listening and participatory behaviors, journal, and reflect upon the week's experience. Each workshop includes a story, a writing springboard, and time for sharing, as well as time for mentors and mentees to explore the library via books and targeted activities. The photo on the left is from this year's big celebration for which the children created displays of their writing and artwork, and took turns reading from their favorite project. I have more photos on my library's Flickr account.

Much of the intensity of Word Journeys comes from the long-term relationships that this program fosters, along with projects designed to elicit heartfelt responses to the eternal questions of humanity: How do I have compassion for others? Who am I in the world?, and How can I make the world a better place?

I love my job.

Homage to Marge

One of the inspirational people I work with is Marge Pellegrino, the author of My Grandma's the Mayor, and several other books for children. Marge is the founder and director of our Word Journeys program, an ambitious after school workshop where high school students mentor elementary school students in writing, art, and speaking skills.

Marge's Word Journeys projects are deep ones. They're designed to elicit heartfelt responses to the eternal questions of humanity: How do I have compassion for others? Who am I in the world?, and How can I make the world a better place?

The format of the workshops includes a reading, listening, and writing exercise, a paper craft or sculptural activity related to that exercise, a treasure hunt for relevant and meaningful items in the library, and finally a time sharing the work. After the younger students leave, the teen mentors write and share their thoughts, impressions, and feelings.

For example, after listening to the book For Every Child, mentors and children discussed how each of the basic human rights of children made them feel. The students were asked to translate those into a cause and effect with similes, for example: "When you keep me safe, I feel warm like a barn fire on a cold night." Each student created a collaged quilt square; when they were through, their square was tied to every other child's in the group to make the "quilt."

Another workshop used the book On the Day You Were Born by Debra Frasier to set up an activity that asked the students to create a story and image about the day they were born.

This year Marge suggested that we try something new. She proposed that half the teens and half the younger children be from Tucson's growing Somali Bantu refugee population. By doing this she hoped not only to include the children, but also to build bridges in the schools between "mainstream" children and the Somali kids, who often feel isolated in the classroom and on the playgrounds.

Why an homage to Marge today? Tomorrow we celebrate the end of the seventh year of Word Journeys at a party at the Woods Branch Library. The children will do presentations to everyone about one of their projects, and I will present Marge (shhhh!) with a plaque that commemorates our selection as a semifinalist for the White House's 2007 Coming Up Taller Award.

Another reason for this homage is her recent Op Ed for the Tucson Citizen entitled "At age 40, Woods Library defines 'home'" that perfectly describes what is so exciting about today's public libraries. Here is an excerpt:

Over the past 40 years, Woods has come to look a lot different, inside and out. The programming and offerings have kept up with the ever-changing technology and the diverse population that flocks to this fourth-busiest branch in the county.

People from 39 countries, from every continent except Antarctica, call Woods their branch.

Inside, high school mentors work with elementary students in literacy activities. Homework Help invites children to find help they might not be able to get at home.

Moms network and learn from each other and experts. Neighborhood groups hold meetings.

Anyone can come in and spend time on a computer, or browse the collection, the magazines, check out a movie.

It's a place for lifelong learning, a place from which parents sometimes need to drag their children because they don't want to leave.

[...]

From the fresh flowers on the desk to the library associates who can call neighborhood kids by name, Woods is a bright spot in the neighborhood.

Come celebrate Woods' 40th anniversary from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 19.

We meet Mem Fox!

On March 5, 2008 our library put on a day-long event named "Creating a Community of Readers, Starting at Birth," where we engaged the parents, teachers, business people and politicians of Pima County in a conversation about what we can do to improve the literacy rate here. Mem Fox was our keynote speaker, having traveled all the way from Australia! She was wonderfully funny and insightful and a real kick in the pants. I am on the left, then my boss Gina, children's librarian Julie and seated, the inimitable Mem.

For my part, I co-taught a shortened version of our "Ready to Read" class so that the attendees could see some of the programming the library is doing out in the community. Ready to Read is a two-day S*cceeds-certified class on literacy and early brain development that we offer to daycare and homecare centers.

Our Motheread program at the Jail

I have been co-teaching Motheread with Frederica Torres at the Pima County Adult Detention Center for nearly 6 months now and I love this program the more I do it.

A typical class starts with a get-to-know-you period. We encourage the women (and men, we do Fatheread classes too at the Jail) to come to all 8 sessions, but often there are new faces as the prisoner's situations are pretty fluid. So we start by asking everyone to tell the group their name and their kids' names. Most of the women are moms, but some are also aunts, sisters and grandmothers. Sometimes this is an emotional time as the women remember the children they are separated from. Some of the women have college degrees, but most never finished high school.

Then we pass the week's storybook out. Even though we're working with adults, Motheread uses children's picture books -- and it really works well. Then we read together. Everyone who wants to read aloud takes turn reading a page, until we're done. When we're through, we discuss our impressions of the story and its illustrations. Often the women will notice things I didn't observe, even after careful reading. Did you notice that the troll under the bridge in Paul Galdone's Three Billy Goats Gruff was chained to the bridge? The Troll didn't choose to be there, under the bridge threatening passersby, he was chained there.

The books are chosen carefully to be ones that work on many different levels and have messages of family, community, compassion and decision-making. Some of the titles we've used are The Runaway Bunny, Cherries and Cherry Pits, A Chair for My Mother, Grandfather's Journey, In My Family, The Tale of Rabbit and Coyote, and Abiyoyo.

The middle part of the class focuses on how the women can use the book with their children. We share storytelling tips and information about early literacy and child brain development, with an emphasis on the six skills of early literacy.

The last part of the class is a writing project of some sort. For example, the week we read from Carmen Lomas Garza's book In My Family, we wrote about a food memory. When we read Sandra Cisneros' Hairs/Pellitos, everyone drew a self-portrait and wrote a descriptive paragraph about their hair. When I get back to the library I type their stories up, decorate them, and print them in color.

After the class is finished the women have a short crafts time. Typically we will bring die-cuts and colored paper, and the women will make stationary for their kids, cards, or write letters. We are prepared with large envelopes, and the book we read in class, the die-cut crafts and the writing assignment from the week before that I have decorated. These envelopes are checked for content and mailed to their children.

The last class is very special. We bring a digital recorder and record the women reading aloud to their children, and we send that on a CD in the last packet.

For the women (and the fathers in Fatheread), the classes are an escape of sorts and a chance for positive contact with their children. For Frederica, Ella, Dawn and I, we hope we've weakened the cycle of illiteracy and crime just a little bit. It feels very good.

There is more information on Motheread at the official website. Our program is funded by the Pima County Public Library and the Pima County Child Abuse Prevention Council.

Powerpoint and audio of our "Library 2.0" Presentation

The PowerPoint slides, audio and handouts from our presentation "What is 'Library 2.0' and how practical is it for real-life libraries?" at the Arizona Library Association conference are now available on the web.

The talk is basically a snapshot of were we are as a Emerging Technologies committee, along with great advice on communication and planning from Jen Maney and Missy Martinez.

I'm really happy with the quality of the audio; it was brand-new equipment and it worked very well. We were a little worried that we didn't really have a lot of projects launched that would could talk about (not as many as we thought we would), but the talk was well-attended and the folks I spoke with thought it was useful.

Speaking of our Potter party...

Thania and Steve sent their photos to me and so now I have a complete set of photos from this year's Harry Potter party. Gosh, it was fun! If you spot a Molly Weasley (wearing an apron) in the photos, that's me.

This made my day -- heck, it made my month!

This letter the editor from one of my library's patrons appeared in the 10/3 Tucson Citizen.

Librarians spellbind as superprofessionals

I'm old enough to remember 15 years ago, when the Tucson library system was so antiquated, you couldn't even get a printout of what you had checked out until the items were overdue!

Boy, have times changed. I now get more bang for my library tax bucks than for any other service this community provides.

Whether I walk into the Columbus branch to research a car purchase or order the latest sci-fi book for my children, I'm surrounded by state-of-the-art technology and quirky professionals whose prime directive is to get their customers the info and entertainment they're looking for, free of hassle or charge.

The job of the librarian has changed so much over the years that "multitasking" is putting it lightly.

One minute they're throwing Harry Potter parties for the kids; the next, helping patrons with Internet access and researching questions from the most esoteric to the mundane.

Libraries that used to be half-empty now teem with users, and the librarians do an incredible job of making everyone feel welcome.

The other day, my 9-year-old told me she wants to grow up to be a librarian. I can't think of a better job for contributing to society.

I just hope those extra tax dollars are going to pay these superprofessionals the salaries they deserve. Every penny toward that end will be well spent.

Our library's website has been launched!

Check it out: Tucson-Pima Public Library.

Jen and Natalie have spent months doing the conversion from the old site. I hope you can get some rest now!

Lisa's Lip-tickling Library Chili

Wish me luck! I am going to a chili cook-off today, representing my library branch at a 29th St. Neighborhood festival. I made a killer pot o' red last night that I have named "Lisa's Lip-tickling Library Chili." Chunks of beef, bacon, onion, garlic, 3 kinds of chiles, 3 kinds of beans, and 2 secret ingredients. This is good stuff.
Later edit: No prize, but we had fun anyway. Cheyenne's family all went back for seconds and thirds and proclaimed my chili the best in the room!

Managing change

I have been thinking of writing people blogging about web 2.0 and Library 2.0 and asking how they recommend that a library system manage technological change. I don't just mean buy-in by library staff and administration, I mean -- How do you decide what is worth focusing time and attention on? How do you do that and not get distracted by everything new? But how do you focus attention and still remain open to other new ideas that may be even better? You see, I'm suffering a bit from what Pete Cashmore calls 'startup fatigue,' but is just plain information overload.