It was wonderful getting to know everyone last week and really sharing our ideas and challenges. It was great being around people who know the struggles of a small library. In the few days we were together, I came back to my library full of ideas and ready to take on the challenges.
Bio:
From an early age, my mom worked in the children's department of my local library. I spent a lot of time growing up there and loving the programs. One thing I did not love, however, was reading. It concerned my mom, as an avid reader herself, so she came up with a challenge for me one summer. For every book I read, she would pay me a dollar. "Any book?!" I said, "even board books?" (I was 11 so any easy way to make a buck was right up my alley.) She said she didn't care what books I read. As long as I read them, I would get a dollar. Well, slowly but surely, I got tired of reading board books. So I moved up to chapter books and by the end of the summer I was reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It had just been released that year and I remember grabbing a book from the box in the library office before they had been processed. From that summer on, I was hooked. She then had to ground me from reading as a sufficient punishment. It was also this summer that I realised that I wanted to do for other people was my mom did for me. I wanted to give children a love of reading.
Today:
I have been working at the Cardington Public Library since before I finished my MLIS. I've been there for a little over 2 years and I still love going to work every day. One of the biggest challenges is having enough time and money to devote to all youth that come into my library, not just the early readers. Most of our programs, including summer reading, focus on them. It's hard to get older middle school students and teens into the library. I'm hoping that what we do here can give me a hand with that!