Babytime

Filling in a babytime and here's what I presented:

O: Storytime's Beginning

O: Hello, my friends hello (Tune: Famer in the Dell)

Hello, my friends hello; Hello my friends hello.
Let's read and sing today; Hello my friends hello.

Let's clap and say hello; Let's clap and say hello.
With our friends at storytime; Let's clap and say hello.

...Let's tap and say hello...Let's hug and say hello...Let's kiss and say hello...

Sparks Visit The Library

A local troop of Sparks are visiting tonight and I was able to give them "The Grand Tour".  They are so littls (ages 5-6) and utterly adorable in their pink t-shirts. One girl even had this really neat hairband with baubles and creatures on it.

They opened the session with their circle song and then I was able to show them what they can find in our picture book room. We walked out and saw the DVDs and graphic novels as well as meet the Inquiry Desk librarian. A visit upstairs to the Reference Department soon led the girls downstairs into our basement where I shared some of our Columbian newspapers from 1840.

Running of the Bulls

So it seems that Thursday is the day for teens to play tag in the library. We had about 4-6 of them come in look at something and then suddenly sprint all over the place.

It's not only other people who are bystanders who can get hurt (we have a lot of small children and seniors), but if they ran into our shelves or fall (our floors are carpeted cement), well in a way it would be poetic justice, but no fun for anyone.

Sadly, no one knows their name so we can't call for parents and certainly with younger, impressionable kids watching this, I wish there was a way to nip it in the bud. Yes, we also have a few grade 4s and 5s who like to dart about too and I've had to ask them to leave after three requests to walk, don't run in the library.

Green things - Family storytime

Tonight's my family storytime night and we will be giving a nod to St. Patrick's Day with some green things.

It's tricky to create something that works for toddlers and we have few St. Patrick's Day approripate materials, so I'm going with green things - frogs, rainbows and green monsters. Although my program is geared towards 4-8, I get more kids that fall closer to the 3-6 gap.


Program

Opener: Storytime's beginning (Tune: Christmas Time's a Coming by Raffi) / Bread and butter (chant)

Storytime's beginning, storytime's beginning,
Storytime's beginning and it's time to gather 'round.

Storytime's beginning, storytime's beginning
Storytime's beginning and it's time to have some fun.


Bread and butter, marmalade and jam,
Let's say hello as fast as we can.

With this chant, we go through: fast/slow, high/low, quiet/loud, silly/normal.


Action: Elevator (Tune: Do your ears hang low)

Oh the city is great, oh the city is grand,
There's a lot of tall buildings, on a tiny piece of land.

Well we live way up on the 22nd floor.
And this is what we do when we run out the door.

We take the elevator up, we take the elevator down (x3)
Then we turn around.

End of an era - Encyclopedia Britannica

It's virtual reference day and it's one of the fun tasks I can do. When you're able to help someone, like walking a patron through the ebook download process and they have the light bulb moment, you feel like a hero.

Of course, you can also spend a lot of time with a patron and it can take a long time to find the information they want and naturally, you feel pretty disappointed when the person thinks you're a zero.

When power goes down

This morning the Lower Mainland was treated to a windstorm, which sadly cause a power outage at City Hall. Computers were down and we were unable to access the catalogue or do research on the internet.

Several questions came up during my short shift whose answers were hampered by the outage:

1) Do you have any horror books/scary stories for 8-10 year olds? I was able to remember that we had some in the 398s (Folk & Fairytale section) - yay!, although I couldn't recall Darren Shan - darn.

2) Line dancing CDs in the kids department. This was very tricky as there we don't have a specific line dance music area, unlike the holiday, classic, and world music sections. This was a bust and very uncomfortable when the patron asked why didn't I know - was I a new librarian?

3) A new Wayne Dyer book. As Horizon was down, I couldn't see any titles by him and I wasn't able to navigate the net to check and note the title. This led into a discussion about why we had power in the library when we were unable to use our computers.

Show and Tell

The last interview I went through was a trying experience. When you are tasked with showing off your best self and feeling less than 100%, it takes more out of you than you think.

That said, I was able to learn a lot about myself as I went about collecting potential interview questions, studying what's going on in my profession, and finding examples for highlighting my best self.

The great thing is that I'm a gosh darn great librarian and I can work towards building a better portfolio to share should any new opportunities come my way.

And without further adieu...