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Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Resolve to Rock 2015: Final Checkup

At the beginning of the year, Storytime Underground was encouraging youth services librarians to share their professional goals for the new year. I reflected a little on my progress in this post, but wanted to provide an end of the year update for the ones I hadn't fully accomplished as of that point. Now that the year is over, I'm able to see exactly what I've managed to accomplish in the past 365 days.


Goals for 2015:
  • Offer more night and weekend programming. In 2015 I definitely will be trying more to accommodate working families by including more programs that work with their schedule. 
    • This is one I feel like am starting to make pretty good progress on. In 2015 I managed to include evening programs during storytime breaks (such as our Frozen Party), and a few very successful Saturday programs (like our Baby Sensory Time). In what I have scheduled of 2016 so far I've managed to increase my evening and weekend programming even more.
  • Expand our graphic novel collection. This is a popular format, and I am determined to find a way to overcome limited shelf space and make it more prominent.
    • Space constraints have continued to make this a difficult goal to accomplish. Definitely going to keep doing my best to expand this collection.
  • I want to try new preschool/toddler programming this year, such as a parachute play program and a dance party. I am going to try to combine this with my first goal by scheduling these as evening programs during storytime breaks.
    • I think I succeeded in trying some new and fun preschool/toddler programming in 2015. A parachute play program will likely require purchase of a larger parachute than my library currently owns.
  • Do more outreach to local preschools. I feel like I am developing a closer relationship with local elementary schools, but need to expand my efforts to younger kids as well.
    • In 2015 I managed several preschool tours throughout the year. I recently made a valuable connection with a local childcare center that I hope to explore further.
  • Make changes to our summer reading program. I have been debating how I want to go about this, but haven't come to any firm decisions. For sure I want to make changes to how I do reading logs for the youngest participants. A greater variety of non-reading literacy activities will definitely be included.
    • The changes I made to our reading logs were a great success. Participation in the program has continued to increase. 

Overall I think I accomplished the majority of my goals for 2015. I truly feel like I've continued to grow as a librarian, in large part due to being a part of a wonderful online community of other children's librarians. I truly appreciate the support, friendship and ideas shared. Wishing you all the best in 2016!

3 comments:

  1. Wow, great work! Have you gotten a chance to share what your reading logs look like? I'd love more options or successful updates to share with our local libraries.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Bryce! I guess I didn't end up blogging my reading logs this year. Formatting is screwy on my home computer, but I'll make sure to get you a link when I work on Monday :)

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    2. Hi Bryce!
      Here are my logs:
      For babies, toddlers and preschoolers I did a book bingo log: http://bit.ly/1O0hUvk
      For the school age kids I did a simple gameboard: http://bit.ly/22GQGkW.
      Let me know if you have any questions about them.

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