Author: Deborah

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Stream Safari – a video series for self-guided exploration from UNH Cooperative Extension’s STEM Docent Program

This Stream Safari video series will walk you through all you need to know to safely and comfortably get out to your nearby stream, river, lake, or pond and explore the water quality. Based on the Stream Safari curriculum from UNH Cooperative Extension’s STEM Docent Program, your guides, Sarah and Megan, will define terms & concepts, discuss how to choose a stream site, safety considerations when bringing youth to the stream, collection tools and techniques, and so much more!

See the videos HERE

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The Great Baldini – free Imagine Your Story video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKoxMCge1aI&feature=youtu.be

My name is Thomas Holmes AKA The Great Baldini a RI magician.  I just completed an hour long Imagine Your Story video.  It was created for children but will make everyone smile and feel happy.  It is unlisted on my YouTube channel and can only be accessed by the above link.  I would like to share it with all your Libraries for free.  My goal is to bring smiles to the whole family.  Please view my video and if you enjoy it, share and spread the smiles.

Have a magical day!

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2020 KBA & Summer Learning Grants Awarded

During normal times, this year’s Kids, Books and the Arts grants and thSummer Learning grants would have gone out in April. Due to the pandemic shutdown, these grants were delayed and the applications closed at the end of May. We had funding for about half of the applicants, and as the KBA application stated, preference was given to those with little to no summer program funding. Summer Learning grants were issued to those that we viewed as viable during this current time of social distancing and limited in-person programs. 

This is the last year for the KBA grants and only our improved grant system–the Summer Learning grant will be available next year. If you applied and did not receive a Summer Learning grant this year, we hope you try again next when hopefully we will be operating under more normal circumstances. 

Following are the KBA and Summer Learning grant recipients for 2020.

Funding for northern KBA grants supplied by the Saul O Sidore Memorial Foundation. Other KBA grants are funded by the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation, Cogswell Benevolent Trust, and is supported in part by a grant from the NH State Council on the Arts & the National Endowment for the Arts. Summer Learning grants were funded this year by the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation and the Cogswell Benevolent Trust. 

Northern KBA:

Berlin Public Library

Colebrook Public Library

Gorham Public Library 

Jefferson Public Library

Moosilauke Public Library-N. Woodstock

Stratford Public Library

KBA:

Silsby Free Library-Charlestown

Chesterfield Public Library

Epsom Public Library

Goodwin Library-Farmington

G H Bixby Memorial Library-Francestown

Chamberlin Free Public Library-Greenville

Kensington Public Library

Aaron Cutler Memorial Library-Litchfield

Milton Free Public Library-Milton Mills

Orford Social/Orford Free Library-Orford

Pembroke Public Library

Pease Public Library-Plymouth

Dudley-Tucker Public Library-Raymond

Salisbury Public Library

Sandown Public Library

Davis Public Library-Stoddard

Shedd Free Library-Washington

Summer Learning Grants:

Allenstown Public Library for STEM kit purchases

Shedd-Porter Library in Alstead for Crafternoon supply purchases

Belmont Public Library for Code with a Librarian 

Baker Free Library in Bow for Tinker Tuesday STEM supply purchases

Effingham Public Library for STEM take home kit purchases

Gay-Kimball Library in Troy to revamp early literacy backpacks

Wilton Public & Gregg Free in Wilton for Kinda Cooked Creations

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Student Wellness Book Club

Below is an invite to all NH youth/teen librarians to join a summer student wellness book club. They would also like any suggestions for kids and one companion reads for teens per book. Suggestions may be sent directly to Ellen or to me. What a great opportunity to collaborate with other folks in NH with the best interest of our youth in mind. Together we are better and we can provide stronger support. 

Best,Deborah DutcherYouth and Adult Services ConsultantNH State Library

I hope all is well with you and the youth/teen librarians and am hoping that you have had plenty of time to read yourself during the stay-at-home order! 

I’m looking to enlist you and your colleagues in an exciting summer project. Our team has decided to host a summer student wellness book club for adults via Zoom. First, I’d like to invite your team to join us—we would love to have some library folks represented! The registration link is here. 

Second, we would like to publish a list of one companion read for kids and one companion read for teens per book about the same theme(s) discussed in our book club sessions. I’ve listed the titles below and would love some input! Thank you! ·        

 Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems (Alice Walker)·      

   “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (Peggy McIntosh)·      

   Wait, What? And Life’s Other Essential Questions (James E. Ryan)·         

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (Marya Hornbacher)·       

  Honor (Elif Shafak)·       

  Homegoing (Yaa Gyasi)·         

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race (Beverly Tatum)·       

  Maybe You Should Talk To Someone (Lori Gottlieb)·        

 This Is How It Always Is: A Novel (Laurie Frankel)  

Ellen C. Desmondshe/her/hers

Special Projects CoordinatorOffice of Social & Emotional WellnessBureau of Student Wellnessellen.c.desmond@doe.nh.gov | 603.271.3213

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New Date: Balancing Library Management with Day-to-Day Responsibilities

Dear New Hampshire Librarians,

We’ve rescheduled the free webinar Balancing Library Management with Day-to-Day Responsibilities: A Guide for the Rural Librarywith Gwin Grimes for Monday, June 29th at 1pm Eastern.

In this workshop, rural library management expert Gwin Grimes will show you how. You’ll learn how the principals of time management and prioritization apply uniquely to the environment of the small, rural library. You’ll learn where to micromanage, where to delegate and how to make sense of it all.Gwin Grimes was hired in July 2016 as director of the Jeff Davis County Library in Fort Davis after a long career in 070.4 and a subsequent foray into 374/641.7. Her other experience working in a library was in the early 2000s as a graduate assistant in Information Commons at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth while she pursued a master’s degree in liberal arts and later was hired to work full time in the library’s circulation department. When she is not working as the only full-time employee of JDCL, she studies for her master of library science degree as part of the Transforming Libraries into Community Anchors in Rural Texas cohort at Texas Woman’s University.Learning objectives/practical takeaways:

  • How to prioritize tasks in a constantly changing environment, a.k.a. the juggling act
  • To make lists or not to make lists — what was the question again?
  • Delegation for people with control issues (that’s us)
  • It’s more than just training
  • What to do when you are the team

    You can register for the event on ALA’s Webex Site (Direct Link: https://bit.ly/2UCrpLM). This event is free to any library employee in New Hampshire.  This series of free webinars were made possible to NH Libraries with funding from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. 

    If you have any questions, please contact ALA at elsmarketing@ala.org.

    Thanks for your interest,

    Deborah Dutcher, Youth and Adult Services Consultant, NH State Library
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A Book and a Hug for Tweens

Here’s one idea for promoting reading for your middle school level students.


Have them visit abookandahug.com  (it’s all free and it’s all the hard work of children’s librarians) and take the Reader Personality Assessment.  


Advanced version:  https://abookandahug.com/test/reader-type-advanced/
Your student answers ten questions and then gets a “read out” of what type of reader he/she/they is/are.


Middle schoolers love to learn more about themselves.   They can compare with their friends, etc.  We’ve even had reports from librarians that kids who were not friends before were able to bond over their shared reader preference!


Then they can search abookandahug.comby reader type.  


They can also review books if they have an account (which requires an email address).  Many educators create a “class” email address – call it Mrs. Grants’ class – and then all of their students can review under that address.


It’s a great way to gather the kids around books and it’s a safe place for them to search.  We have books for 0-16 year olds.  Over 15,000 titles right now on the site to choose from.

No data is mined or saved.  We just want to help kids find a book to love.

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Providing Library Senior Services in a COVID-19 World (from National Network of Libraries of Medicine)

How to provide library service to seniors, the most vulnerable population affected during COVID-19, has been the question raised by outreach librarians across the United States. According to the Central for Disease Control (CDC), 8 out of 10 deaths related to COVID-19 are individuals aged 65 years and older. While we might not be able to visit our seniors or facilities in-person for the foreseeable future, libraries can reach this population while we shelter in place. During this webinar, please find tips and tricks that David J. Kelsey of the St. Charles (IL) Public Library District (SCPLD) and Glenna Godinsky of the Gail Borden (IL) Public Library District recommend in serving the senior demographic during COVID-19.

Presenters

David J. Kelsey has been the Outreach Services Librarian at the St. Charles Public Library in St. Charles, IL since 2015, where he coordinates the department’s services and programs. David is the President-Elect for the National Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services and has spearheaded outreach interest networking groups for the Reaching Across Illinois Library System, System-Wide Automated Network, and Library Integrated Network Consortium. He was a 2017 ALA Emerging Leader and is the recipient of the Illinois Library Association’s 2018 Alexander J. Skrzypek Award. His team is the recipient of the national 2018 ASGCLA Exceptional Service Award, administered by the Association of Specialized, Government, and Cooperative Library Agencies, a division of ALA. For his contributions to the outreach field, David received the 2019 John Philip Excellence in Outreach Award from the Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services, an affiliate of ALA. David has been published in the March/April 2017 and July/August 2018 editions of Public Libraries magazine and was featured in the March/April 2018 edition of American Libraries magazine. David received his Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies and is the recipient of the 2019 Alumni of the Year Award.

Glenna Godinsky Life Enrichment Liaison at Gail Borden Public Library District in Elgin, IL and a 2020 Library Journal Mover and Shaker – Community Builder, is a certified dementia practitioner with a background in special education, having run a non-profit organization for at-risk students for over a decade. With her team of 12 volunteers, Glenna designs and implements monthly programming for 24 senior/developmental care communities. A co-founder of the Elgin Memory Cafe’ and bilingual Cafe’ de los Recuerdos, Glenna also led her city to earn the national recognition of Dementia Friendly Elgin, joined the Metropolitan Mayors’ Caucus: Age-friendly Communities Committee and TRIAD, a first-responder group for seniors and community organizations.

For more information and to register:https://nnlm.gov/class/providing-library-senior-services-covid-19-world/25401

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Ideas and Research to Help with a Different Kind of Summer by Meredith Scott-CLiF

Right now, it feels difficult to even try to plan beyond the end of the week, but ahead lies 10 weeks of summer. As we as parents, educators, librarians, program leaders, and caregivers try to envision ways to make summer feel like summer for our kids, while processing COVID-19 and effects of systemic racism, CLiF will continue to offer ideas for using literacy as a bridge to learning, understanding, and enjoying.

Step-by-step guide to virtual summer camp

Vermont Afterschool’s Summer Activity Guide

Forest Preschool ideas available until June 21, 2020

Can we mobilize our community members as tutors for vulnerable learners?

Conversation starters to improve virtual visits

Why we should all keep a journal now

Jason Reynolds on boosting kids’ imaginations

Reading science fiction to boost resilience

OK You’ve Got This resources

Incorporating movement and meaning and storytelling with hip hop pedagogy