In the Works: Reader's Advisory for Children/YA/Teen/Juvenile Librarians

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This morning Jeff Ridgeway and I met to talk about the possibility of coordinating efforts in order to schedule a day-long staff development event for the region centered around reader's advisory for children's/teen/YA/juvenile literature and below are the notes and ideas I gleaned from our discussion. Please chime in with feedback and ideas!

Format: We're looking at following a modified format of BCPL's Great Books events they once held back in the day where it might look something like this:

10am-11am - Keynote speaker (author or RA guru)

11am-11:30am - Q&A with keynote speaker

11:30am-12:30pm - lunch and time to catch up w/colleagues

12:30pm-1:30pm - Breakout Session: Hands-on RA activities

1:45pm-2:45pm - Breakout Session: Colleague show-n-tell

2:50pm-3pm - Evaluations / CEUs (up to 3 CEUs)

If there's interest among the library staff and the public school teachers in each of the three western counties and if I'm feeling especially ambitious, I can foresee a plan where we hold this event three days in a row - once in Washington county, once in Allegany county, and once in Garrett county. But this absolutely depends on interest and # of attendees because of course the cost would go up regardless of the keynote speaker and we definitely want to make sure ROI is high for something like this.

Content: I like the idea of using films to predict popular titles among youngins and if we can identify 3 top trends in this genre then we could identify either one author from one of those genres or one RA specialist to be our keynote. These top trends would then set the stage/framework for the hands-on breakout session at 12:30pm and the show-n-tell session at 1:45pm. Some current trends that we identified: fairy tales, distopian fiction, supernatural but not vampires. Which trends do you see on the horizon? It might also be to our benefit to invite local authors/RA specialists who fit the bill rather than looking nationally. Thoughts on this?

WENTK: (Who Else Needs to Know?) I'm currently working to pick the brains of my colleagues at the Eastern Shore Regional Library who recently hosted a public event featuring Jack Gantos.

 

But if you know of other libraries near or far who have done something similar, please let me know. This type of thing - content wise - finds me bit out of my element so, I'm happy to learn from those who have more experience! 

In addition, I have been in contact with Jamie Watson at BCPL to get more information about their Great Books events - they haven't had one of these in a couple of years but it's still good to have a contact to give me some perspective! These events were on a much grander scale than what I'm envisioning is possible for the west but it seems scalable enough.

As far as who else I might be roping in with me ... well, I definitely want to involve anyone from the MLA Reader's Advisory Interest Group - especially those who work in Allegany, Garrett, and Washington counties; any and all library staff from the western region who work closely with the youngins in our libraries; and possibly the public school teachers from those counties, as I know this group is near and dear to Jeff's heart since he works with them (at least the ones in Washington county) quite frequently. 

Did you know? There's a Children's Literature Centre at Frostburg State University? This just happens to be almost right in the middle of the western region! They often host literature festivals and author institutes. These would count toward certification so, if you're interested be sure to bookmark the site and talk with your staff development coordinator.

Stay tuned ...