CONGRATULATIONS to Arlen Kimmelman!
Our congrats to Arlen
Kimmelman,
Clearview
Regional High School Library Media Specialist, Mullica Hill, for achieving her National
Board Certification in Early Childhood through Young Adulthood/Library Media.
Way to go Arlen! :-)
Here is the plan:
The NJ State Library will compile a book with the collective wisdom of people sharing advice with another human being. Words of wisdom for a child, friend, politician, parent, teenager, adult, parent … The catch is, you have to text your advice and it can only be 140 characters or less. The text messages will be collected until there are 50,000 words of wisdom. The name of the book will be, H2H (Human to Human) wisdom in 140 characters- unless someone texts us a better title! NJSL will even publish it online so you can share it with your friends and families.
Three ways to submit your H2H words of wisdom:
Text “H2H” to 51684, hit “space” and type your advice. Standard message charges apply. You’ll receive a message to let you know your submission has been accepted. NJSL will keep you updated about the book but we won’t send more than 1 message per week and you can stop the messages anytime you want by replying “Stop”.
Tweet to: @h2hbook
Write online: Follow this link
We will include your initials or first name to your quote if you include it. All entries must be submitted no later than November 30.
Guidelines:
No profanity
No personal references
While we would love to use all quotes that are submitted, we will be editing the final product and reserve the right to reject submissions.
Questions? Send to Nancy Dowd: ndowd[at]njstatelib.org
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BUILDING ON THE
SUCCESS OF SNAPSHOT DAY...
Session One: The Art of Telling a
Compelling Strategic Story to gain support for your library
Session Two: Creating a digital story with
still photographs
Session Three: Cheer and Share. Sharing stories and next
steps
3.5 CEU credits will be awarded for each session
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Melissa: I’ll watch your back
if you watch mine. I’m still sort of in
a sleep-induced coma.
The Initial Idea
Justin: My Teen Advisory Board kept on talking about how they wanted to spend the night in the library. I thought they were sort of crazy at first, but the longer I thought about it the more it seemed like a really great idea. And I had this feeling that the teens would freak out and love the program. I did some research on how these types of events were structured. I must say that without the guidance of the teen librarians at both the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library and the Willingboro Public Library I wouldn’t have ever got our Library Lock-In off the ground. I borrowed bits and pieces from their lock-in programs and created an outline and a permission slip. With these two things in hand, I had something to give my directors.
Justin: Once I got the OK from my directors to have the lock-in, I knew that I had to assemble a REALLY good team of librarians and library associates to help run the event. I sort of felt like I was putting together “The A-Team” of Library Lock In staff members. I knew I had to have the right blend of people who the teens could identify with and not feel intimidated by. I ended up with 7 (counting myself) chaperones for the thirty teens that had signed up. That’s roughly 4 teens to every chaperone, which is something I thought was manageable.
Making it all work
Melissa: As an example of one of our planned activities, I will highlight the obstacle course, which like the scavenger hunt, was created to promote fun activities that would also reflect library usage. For instance in the obstacle course, all participants were told to carry a book on their head, paperback of course, and then proceed to the next activity. Teens had to carry a book on their head, walk with the book while wearing box shoes, crab walk with a book on their stomach, jump down an aisle while still carrying the book and find works written by a variety of author(s), and finally dig though a box filled with scrap paper in order to locate a library card that had a Teen sticker on it. All participants worked in teams and were timed. For the winners, we planned an award ceremony that was similar to the Olympics, complete with medals for first, second, and third place.
The Focus
Justin: Call me a hippy, but I’m all about good and positive vibrations. I always wanted to make sure that both the chaperones and the teens all respected each other and created a positive community.
Melissa: We also wanted to stress to teens the importance of good behavior, and how exceptional actions would be acknowledged and rewarded. We implemented a Good Behavior Chart. Teens were awarded stickers that they could post next to their name in order to win an array of prizes at the end of the night. I have to admit at first we were not sure if this idea would work, or if teens would see the idea as somewhat immature and childish. However, like teens have a tendency of doing, at least for me, they proved to be an exceptional group of young adults. They really went above and beyond to help out the librarians and each other. There was definitely on ongoing competition among the teens, but it was never malicious. They were all super positive and a lot of fun to hang out with.
The Actual Event
Justin: I got into work the day of the event at 4:30 and made sure all the loose ends were tied up by the time we started at 7pm. The first few hours were a bit hectic in getting all the teens together and in one place. Once that was done, we started off on the scheduled events. Some teens didn’t want to join in, so that was a bit difficult in explaining to them that they had to be there and once these things were done they’d have a bit more freedom.
Melissa: Once we were finished with the scheduled events, the Teens were allowed to be in either one of three rooms. They were great about telling us where they were going and we didn’t experience any problems with them disappearing. Most of teens just meandered between games, movies, crafts, and lots and lots of conversations.
The Aftermath
Justin: The alternate title for this section is “This is what we’ll do differently the next time around.”
We had one incident at the lock in that sounded the
alarms. During a game of hide and
seek/manhunt, two teens collided with each other. One had glasses on, so the other teen got
quite a big gash on their head. It was
big enough that stitches were needed. We
had to call their parents at 1am and let them know what happened. They came to the library and we had to go to
the Emergency Room. I accompanied the
teen and the parent there, and 20 minutes later, the teen was all stitched up
and ready to go. The parent let the teen
come back to the library. I feel like I
lucked out on this one. Incident reports
had to be filled out and the overall mood of the lock-in really changed after
that.
Melissa: The overall of theme of the entire Lock-In was camaraderie. It was evident from the beginning that there was a relatively wide range of ages and maturity levels, as well as groups and interests. However, throughout the night, it became extremely evident that all the teens were just interested in hanging out with each other in an array of activities. The entire Teen Lock-In produced a fantastic sense of community atmosphere. In all, this event was A LOT OF FUN WITH A GREAT FLOW AND POSITIVE INTERACTION. It was a fantastic opportunity to librarians to get to the teens and vice versa. We have received a great response from teens, parents, and administration. We will definitely plan more Teen Lock-Ins for the future, using the knowledge and lessons we have learned from our initial experiences with this program.
P.S. For those wondering where the title comes from…The most common response to “We’re having an all night sleepover at the library with 30 teens ages 12-18 was “ARE YOU CRAZY?”
P.P.S For even more images from the Lock-In, please visit our Flickr album.
Justin Hoenke is the Teen Librarian for the Cape May County
Library. You can follow him on Twitter
at http://twitter.com/justinlibrarian.
Melissa Brisbin is the Media Librarian for the Cape May County Library. You can follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/melissabrisbin.
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Seaview Resort COST: FREE! |
Network - A pattern of human
interaction characterized by a process of information exchange usually leading
to other human interactions and/or material, service, information, monetary or
spiritual exchanges. - Richard Haight
Librarians have always been about networking and never more so than
in times of economic trouble. Nationally recognized speaker Pat Wagner will lead
us through "The Networking Game", a powerful, practical, and fun experience that
will help give us insight into these topics:
The Networking Game is the art of discovering patterns in the world and making useful connections for ourselves and for others. It is about weaving new options into our safety nets.
About our Speaker
Pat
Wagner has worked with Pattern Research, Inc. and its predecessor the Office for
Open Network since 1977. She is an educator, trainer, writer and consultant,
focusing on personnel, management, leadership, marketing, career and strategic
planning issues. She has special interests in conflict management, project
management, community outreach and future studies.
AGENDA
Noon - 1:00: Optional Lunch at Seaview* 2:00 - 3:45: Program with Pat Wagner 1:00 - 1:30: Registration, Coffee & Dessert 3:45 - 4:00: Wrap up 1:30 - 2:00: Brief SJRLC Business Meeting
*Optional Lunch at
Seaview
Seaview offers a
buffet for $22.00 (dining room)
or sandwiches/salads for $10-15
(Golf Grill).
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