July 3rd

Children vs. Teen

How do you determine the age of a kid that comes up to the desk? One rough determination is to ask what grade they're in and then add 5. Kids start kindergarten when they're around 5 years old, so by first grade they're 6, second grade 7, and so on. When a kid finishes 5th grade they are considered a teen. So, children's services are birth to eleven and teen services are twelve to seventeen. It depends on the local school system really. Teens are middle school and high school so if middle school starts in sixth grade then they're a teen after 5th grade, and if middle school starts in 7th grade then they're a teen after 6th grade.

But really it's a fluid state. There's a lot of cross over between the children and teens collections and kids may read from both collections. Ultimately it's the kid that determines what reading level they're at.

You may be a children's librarian or a teen librarian but you are available to everyone, young and old. What distinguishes librarians is the programming that they organize (children vs. teen) and the collection that you maintain and specialize in.

Reference Search Tips
Example: Kitchen remodeling
If you don't know the subject heading in the catalog you can do two things. You can search for a title "Kitchen Remodeling" and then click on the subject heading within that title to find more like it. OR you can search for a subject by putting an * after the word. "Kitchen* Remodeling". Once you've found a list of titles, browse them to see if the titles are cataloged in multiple areas. For example, kitchens-remodeling is cataloged in the 643s and the 747s.

Sometimes it easiest to just find a general call number and go to the stacks to browse!

Behavior Problems
I didn't witness this one but a mother called to report that her son had been accosted by an old woman at the library. Her 12 yr old son was standing in the lobby and the woman said she was from the FBI and had seen him in the women's restroom groping someone. Apparently the woman in question had been banned from the library. She is schizophrenic and has had violent outbursts throughout Ballard. The boy was very upset and Pamela assured him that we believe he wouldn't do what the woman had accused him of. Fortunately the mother works with mentally ill people and was able to understand the woman's bizarre behavior.

Professional Awareness
How does a librarian stay up on all the new books that are published? Not to mention getting up to speed on the classics? You don't have to read every word of every book. You can read the beginning, middle and end. Just read every word of the books you really want to read. School Library Journal is a good way to stay up on titles.

Pamela explained how children's librarians used to select the books for their own library's collection. Now the selection is done centrally for all of the libraries. In the former model, librarians would review a stack of books and then share their reviews with the other children's librarians at group meetings. Then they would select their books. The reviews are still done, but it's just for professional awareness - not to select books. Pamela said the change was a very emotional decision for the children's librarians. It felt like they were losing their autonomy. Librarians make very few decisions about the collection now. Although there are ways that they do choose. (she explained but I forgot how...)

If I ever have a chance to hear Jim Trelease speak I need to see him.

Reader's Advisory
A young girl came up and said she loved the Warriors series but there weren't any on the shelf so could I recommend something to her? She said she liked stuff with Greek Gods in it. She was also looking for Gilda Joyce: Ladies of the Lake and Titans Curse. Pamela recommended the Tamara Pierce books and a book called Aria of the Sea. The girl found Cornelia Funke's Inkspell and Gregor the Overlander, and took those too.