Notes from PLA

Notes from PLA - Joe Ann Stenstrom

The bookends of the 2008 PLA Conference were the opening General Session featuring John Wood and the Closing Session featuring Paula Poundstone. Mr. Wood, founder and CEO of Room to Read, gave an inspirational talk on bringing education and reading to children in developing countries. He left a corporate career after learning of the lack of books and schools for the children of Nepal. Founded in 2000 the organizaiton has opened 440 schoos with libraries; 250 more are scheduled for 2008. By working with the local population who donated hours of labor, they have reduced the cost and given the people pride and ownership in the projects. Their goal is 20,000 libraries for 10 million children by 2020.

The last session brought to a satisfying close a week of examining closely the various aspects of public librarianship. Ms. Poundstone brought light-hearted humor to a look at our profession, poking good-natured fun at all our "sacred cow" - DDC and why we became librarians, etc., sending us on our way, proud to be public librarians.

In between the bookends, my focus was on teen service, readers' advisory and reference.

Teen concerns:

Teen programs dealt with volunteers, space, YA service and teens themselves. In recruiting teen volunteers, the need to know characteristics of teens was emphasized - (ie, long term can mean a couple of weeks to them; though multi-taskers, they often cannot accomplish more than one task at a time; they need clear and explicit explanations since they often do not understand expectations. The need to be flexible and play to their individual strengths was also emphasized. We were reminded that teen volunteers should be viewed as co-servers and must be given appropriate, meaningful work and training, giving them a sense of ownership in the job. Benefits to the teens include job skill training, learning to meet expectations and maintain time schedules, interpersonal relationships, learning respectful behavior. A well-planned program can provide opportunities for career ladders and social development. One teen leadership program grew into a successful internship program in partnership with Simmons College with a work/study which has led to career training and opportunities for participants.

Teens gave recruiting tips including word of mouth, personal contact, outreach to places teens are located. In addition, they gave tips for retaining volulnteers -- forgetting stereotypes, celebrating success, showing respect and giving meaningful activities. It was noted that librarians are not merely supervisors to teens, but mentors and role models.

In serving teens, we were encouraged to differentiate between disruptive and dangerous behavior, disruptive being normal and annoying and dangerous being abnormal, harmful to themselves and others and illegal. Disruptive behavior was described as being the result of ignorance (no one told them how to act in the library); developmental issues (attention seeking, competitive, opinionated and needing socialization); lack of sleep which makes them cranky, lacking in energy and prone to poor judgement; brain development - the teen brain is still "under construction" leading to poor impulse control, short term memory, risk taking, lack of moral control, excitability and, thus, loudness. Boundaries are needed with clearly stated consequences. Suggestions for combating behavior problems were: move around the library, build personal relationships, give teens space of their own, have lots of programs with meaningful participation and positive ways to expend energy. The admonition was given to remember that the behavior is nto personal and encouragement to learn to RAP - Remember what it was like to be a teen, Accept them for who they are and Project (they are our future and job security).

Teen service includes space. Three scenarios presented varying means of constructing space for teens. One made a study of teen bedrooms where everything is on display, personal, and always changing which could influence how we use space and display materials. The speakers advocating asking teens to help with displays using whimsy and playfulness with vibrant colors and strong forms. Moveable furniture was suggested with varying seating options to accomoodate the still growing bodies. While making space comfortable and inviting, definable parameters are still needed.

Readers' Advisory:
Tools for RA were discussed in several workshps highlighting ideas for different kinds of displays using connections between parts of the collection, not forgetting the older titles, "readers' maps", read-a-likes. To keep current on new materials, though not particularly new nor novel, the following ideas were presented: use of websites and blogs, library award announcements, and, of course, reviews. Beyond these obvious means, librarians were encouraged to really know their collections, making connections between old and new. In one workshop devoted to memoirs, a variety of subject areas were discussed from childhood and travel to sense of place, food and profession. Two intriguing ideas for display were "Lost in the 800's" and "Explore the 600's" for disease memoirs. How to access was deemed more important than how to catalogue since some fit multiple categories.

Genre studies for staff were conducted at individual libraries, for entire systems and in cooperation between three systems. These were as simple as a staff reading and discussing books from particular genres on a scheduled basis to entire systems conducting workshops with certification credits over periods of three to five years.

A lighthearted look at librarians in literature was presented by Michael Gannon, PG Co. Along with the look at "Superheroes to Serial Killers", a number of titles to use for RA were introduced.
Two luncheons and one workshop highlighted particular parts of RA. Luncheon speaker Pat Mora, children's author of TOMAS AND THE LIBRARY LADY and DONA FLORA, discussed her work in terms of the optimism of spending our energy on the next generation. She spoke of the comfort of language, noting that 1 in 5 children in the US speaks a language other than English at home. She admonished us to acknowledge this with bilingual offerings. Raul Colon, illustrator for DONA FLORA, also spoke to this topic.

Luncheon speaker Nancy Pearl explained her path to becoming book reviewer for NPR and the books in which she has compiled suggestions from recommendations of children and teens, not from adults listing what children should read. She advocated validating what children read and being genuinely interested in order to raise kids who love to read. She thinks lists are artificial but serve the purpose of giving a reason to come to the library. Her comic recounting of the "perils of a life of reading" included never knowing the correct pronunciation of words and confusing the memory of events in one's life with those about which one has read. This was a delightful presentation that would send anyone to the book shelf and to NPR to hear her "Pearls of Wisdom" on reading.

Minnesota teen authors discussed writing for adults but being read by teens and vice versa with adults perhaps wanting to read the works before their teens. They spoke of the YA category as being artificially created and the nature of the teen market being gone before the book is out. All said that rather than writing for an age group, they strive to tell a good story. Some spoke of writing with a partner taking various forms, and said that absolute trust is essential whether alternating chapters and characters or any other pattern. One author spoke of sex in teen Science Fiction being not as acceptable as in realistic fiction. A Science Fiction and Fantasy author noted that these genres tend to have a socio-political meaning. A graphic novel writer said that to write these, the author must understand the comic book. Several titles in various genres for teens were discussed.

Reference:
The H. W. Wilson Co. presented new features of the website which include "1 click" searching giving more precise results from the more than 1,000 items entered each year. The following data bases were visually presented:
Art Image Gallery with 150,000 downloadables from art galleries and museums, including fine art, photos, architectural drawings, modern art, historical posters and political cartoons
Biography Reference Bank giving citations
Biography Reference Bank Select with full text only; 50 most recent citations on 236,000 individuals; includes chapter from Facts about Presidents and speeches of the presidents
Children's Catalog - graphic novels added to the core collection; can search by grade level and sub-genre; starred reviews and "best" lists; updated almost daily
Current Issues Reference Shelf Plus - useful for debate topics and explanations of issues
Current Issues in Health with full text and icons for searching
Nonbook materials added to the core collection - 2,000+ - audio, periodical, electronic, video, sound recordings
Readers Guide Retrospective 1890-1982
Readers Guide Full Text
Sears List of Subject Headings, 19th ed., on the web this year and can link; now in Spanish

In "What Does It Take to Be Good at Reference in the Age of Google?", the argument was presented that librarians can do what Google cannot yet do - namely, save the patron time and money. Google is not good at gathering nor selecting and evaluating information, yet. Google can search for the specific, orient the search, give breadth and it is free. Often patrons think that is "good enough". In conducting a good reference interview and knowing when to use Google and when not, we can help patrons find information more quickly and efficiently. We fit in by being reference librarians, conducting a good interview (done only half the time, according to the presenter), knowing the tricks of using Google and special features of the web, articulating our strength, letting people know what we can do and then building the tools to help people find information, such as pathfinders, easily understood names for services and tools, making it easy to find links. We need to position ourselves as time savers and be available where the patrons are, both physically and virtually and focus on what we can uniquely do in terms of quality, depth, instruction, tool building, literary knowledge, using all resources at hand. Instead of lamenting the constant use of the computer, we were admonished to be glad people are coming to the library for this service when it could just as easily be placed in any other public location like the Post Office, for instance. We were reminded to remember that ours is a profession first among equals, "keepers of the human record" and to make the library central to information needs for the lives of our communities.