Library Hound

Teen Programs - Fall starts

2009-12-14T16:37:00.006-05:00

Teens are hard to create programs for. You never know what's going to appeal to them or what will be a bust. This past Autumn was the first time the library I work at had teen programming. There were three programs: Mosaics (Craft); Teen Open Mic (Community); and Beading (Craft). I didn't pick these titles nor did I have a clear idea on what I'll be doing. After some searching through websites and craft books I settled on making picture frame mosaics and hardware jewelery.

I really did not know what kind of response I would get for the programs. So I went out gathered up my supplies and sent out for my advertising.

Two things I learned quickly were: get your supplies earlier than you need to so there's no last minute hurrying and get your advertising out earlier than ever and hit as many places as you can to reach as many people as you can.

Sadly, the Picture Frame Mosaics program cost the most money and was a complete bust with no one showing up. :-( Thankfully, I was able to return some items to put toward my other programs.

After much debate over what the rules and guidelines for the Teen Open Mic will be, that also turned out into a bust with no one showing up. In fact, it was a very slow night at the branch with only five people in the building for pretty much the whole night. This is another one of those "too little advertising" things.

So my final program comes up, I'm all bummed out expecting no one to show, and guess what? I get teens! Two at first, a boy and girl both on the older teen side of the spectrum and then two more girls on the younger side and then two more girls also on the younger side of the teen spectrum. So in total I had six teens! So what was my beading program? It was hardware jewelery. I got this idea out of AlternaCrafts by Jessica Vitkus. Here's a picture from the book:
In simple terms: using macramé knots and hardware nuts and washers to make bracelets and necklaces. The older teens loved the idea! The younger teens, not so much. But luckily I had some stashed beaded bracelet kits that they liked and each of them put two or three together. This was one of the cheapest and easiest programs to recreate:

The hardware was pretty cheap. In Wally-World I found stainless steel packages of various sizes of nuts and washers. About $5-6 per package. The amount in the package varies on the size of the hardware. There were also zinc coated nuts and washers for cheaper.
The instructions in the book called for waxed cord. I had a little trouble finding that but decided to substitute hemp instead. Knowing that hemp won't appeal to everyone, I also found some cotton cord (not waxed) in Wally-World in different colors. There was four different colors to a pack and about 30 yards of each color. I remember there was enough of each color to make 4 bracelets. That was about $2 per package.
The beading kits that were hanging around forever and a day probably came out of Oriental Trading or S&S Worldwide. It's good to stock up on these while they are on sale. They're great to keep stashed away and they have plenty of seasonal themes, too.
I photocopied the instructions for how to do the macramé knot from the book so that there were readily copies available for each teen.
Candy was available for munching, and the teens had fun just chatting about school and life in general.

What I need for next time is a camera to document my awesome crafty teens!

My winter programs don't start until January. This time around there's a little more variety with a computer program, a craft program and a movie.

A New Job and A New View

2009-12-12T15:32:00.003-05:00

I kinda forgot about this blog these past few months. I finally got as close to a dream job as I can get: being a librarian that works with teens. It's as close to being a fully fledged YA Librarian as I can be. :-) So I'm so happy, but it's also terrifying! I decided to document the ups and downs of being a new librarian who is also instigating new YA programming in a branch that typically passes teens by. All while everybody is strapped for cash! In this blog, I'll put my programming, ideas and book reviews, plus whatever else happens teen related! I'm hoping that this blog shows my progress and maybe inspire others to do something different and daring!

Financial Times

2009-07-15T17:44:00.003-04:00

With the recession bringing money and wealth to the front of everyone's minds, myself included, I thought it was time to discover what the web has to offer for money management. As I combed through the many resources out there, I knew it was important to find information that was:

A) Reliable
B) Easy to Understand
C) Free or at least very cheap.

What I found is an assortment of websites that offer easy to resources, tools, articles and calculators. Two of these websites are web-based money management solutions to those looking for budget management. And for kids: a interactive way to learn about money and savings.

1. CNN Money: http://www.cnnmoney.com/: Information about finances plus helpful tools such as retirement calculators and tutorials.

2. Annual Credit Report: http://www.annualcreditreport.com/: The only FTC-authorized site to obtain a free credit report from the 3 major credit reporting agencies.

3. My Fico: http://www.myfico.com/: Where you can buy a credit report and credit score from Experian or Trans Union credit agencies. Credit card education and FICO score education. Includes forums for credit-related talk.

4. Federal Trade Commission: http://www.ftc.gov/: Find information on finances and consumer related products. File consumer complaints and register for the Do Not Call list.

5. Financial Life: http://www.filife.com/: Partnered with the Wall Street Journal, information for all things related to personal finance. Includes bank reviews and banking information and banking guides to compare various bank products. Also, forums on several subjects from banks to jobs. Integrated with Facebook.

6. Smart Money Magazine: http://www.smartmoney.com/: Web-version of a popular Money magazine that offers videos, personal finance tools/worksheets and portfolio support. It is partnered with the Wall Street Journal digital network, which includes Market Watch, All Things Digital, Barron’s and WSJ.com.

7. Bank Rate: http://www.bankrate.com/: Free comparison of bank rates including mortgages, savings accounts and auto loans. Also includes calculators and advice articles.

8. Mint.com: http://www.mint.com/: Free web-based money-management and budgeting program that complies your accounts and responsibilities into an easy to use and easy to understand format.

9. Planet Orange: http://www.orangekids.com/: Sponsored by ING Direct, this is an interactive website geared toward kids, grades 1-6, to learn about financial literacy and money matters. Links for teachers and parents.

10. Young Money: http://www.youngmoney.com/: Web-version of a popular magazine Young Money. Focuses on money management for 18-24 year olds.

11. moneyStrands: http://money.strands.com/: Free web-based money management and budgeting software. Similar to mint.com, it automatically gathers information from a person’s account holdings.

Things to Consider for the New Year

2009-03-21T16:13:00.006-04:00

So, I decided to become a little more dedicated to learning and exploring the library as well as bringing more information into one space to share with others. We are already 3 months into the new year. Instead of stating what to do right off the bat, I like to give the new year time to settle in and see what it decides to do. The big themes this year are: going green, creating change and impacting lives on the small scale.

Making a world of difference: Book Style!

So you want to buy a book. You really, really want to buy a book. Maybe because your local library doesn't have it or you love it so much you want it for your own book shelf. So what do you do? Here's a few websites that allow you to get books and build up some good karma in the process:

Better World Books: New and Used books for bargain prices! They have a good selection of books to purchase all with free shipping in the US or $3.97 worldwide. Some of their prices may not beat amazon.com but the free shipping alone makes it worthwhile if you plan on just buying one or two books or not meeting amazon's free-shipping requirements. Plus, they use carbonfund.org to create a carbon neutral business. What else do they do? Well, you can sell them your used books and make a buck or donate your books to them to help contribute towards literacy goals. They give back to the community through contributions to several literacy organizations. And if that isn't enough, they create a community effort by focusing on book drives and partnering with libraries to collect unwanted and discarded books that are then donated to literacy organizations. Really this is the prototype for a new business model, not just meeting your customers wants but also create a way to fill the needs of a larger society.

Bookcrossing: Go hunting for books! A take off of Where's George?, this site is designed for someone to track books that they "released into the wild". It's interesting to see how far books travel from their original homes and who reads them. The downside is that if this isn't popular in your area, you really can't go hunting for books. On the upside, there's forums that allow members to create reading rings, rays and boxes: basically a controlled list of who'll get a certain book next and who they need to send it on to when they finished reading it.

BookMooch: Make available books that you don't want and trade for books that you do! It works off a point system. To do this you add books to the site that you want to get rid of. Each book is worth so many points. When you have enough points you can request books from other users. The more books you add to the site and send off, the more points you get. Each request for a book you make subtracts points from you total. All in all, you are still getting books for the amount of shipping them to their new destination. You can build wishlists and have alerts sent to you as books you want become available. It seems a lot of people use this site in conjunction with Bookcrossing. First you add it to Bookcrossing and get its BCID; then you "release" it to Bookmooch. It helps save you from buying books and costs as much as shipping the book to its new home.

Paperback Swap: Another site that allows you too trade books and get books for nothing more than postage. This site also has links to its sister-sites of DVD swap and CD swap. I personally haven't used it, but the site seems intriguing and a good way for individuals to get books they want.

The main downside to some of these websites is that when you ship your book out or have a book shipped to you, you are relying on it getting where it belongs without any mishaps. A lot of these websites work on the honor system, and have safeguards in place should users abuse the site. But it is still a "buyer beware" mentality. Nothing is perfect and you have to be willing to accept the risks inherent with using the internet. However, many of these sites are driven by individuals who love books and reading and want to spread that love to others.