Our Kids

Jacket cover–Our KidsDuring my travels last week, I whiled away quite a few hours in airports and airplanes reading Our Kids:  The American Dream in Crisis by Robert Putnam.  In it, he talks about the growing opportunity gap between economic...

ALA High Points

Tree of inspiration This year, I was extremely fortunate to be able to attend the American Library Association Annual Conference in San Francisco.  It was the first time in 10 years I’d been to this extravaganza of librarianship.  Apart from a few brief cases of...

All You Have to Do Is Ask

Kids in Prescott visit booths of local heroes to find out what they doMany thanks to Becky Arenivar, Programming Specialist in Prescott for this inspiring guest post:This year’s SLP theme, Every Hero Has a Story, has been a super enabler for collaboration at the...

SummerTeen Free Virtual Conference

Just what you need to keep you going this summer–a FREE conference that requires no travel.  School Library Journal is sponsoring a free virtual conference about serving teens, SummerTeen on August 13, starting at 10 am Central Standard Time.  It...

When In Doubt, Go to the Library

I had the opportunity to attend National History Day festivities in College Park, Maryland last week.  Wow, if you ever need some great inspiration about some amazingly dedicated, smart, interesting, and enthusiastic teens, this is a terrific place to get it....

Travel flannel board kits

Thanks to Valerie from Ladysmith for this great idea/guest post!For our Earth Day storytime, I wanted our craft to be something that we could make reusing materials we already had at the library. We have many DVD cases that can’t be used for circulation...