As part of our effort to make sure you know who the staff here at the Texas State Library are, we would like to periodically highlight staff members that you may at some point come in contact with! For our next staff highlight of 2021, I interviewed Christina Taylor, Library Development and Networking (LDN)’s new Youth Services Consultant on the Continuing Education and Consulting (CEC) team)!
Christina Taylor, Youth Services Consultant
What are your job responsibilities at TSLAC? As the Youth Services Consultant, I will work towards ensuring Texas libraries are knowledgeable about and have the resources to implement youth services that meet the needs of their communities. To that end, I will lead projects for internal, statewide, and national initiatives relating to youth services.
What projects are you excited to get started with? As a fervent advocate for comics and graphic novels, I am extremely excited to help Texas libraries enhance the robustness of those collections and leverage their impact on empowerment, learning, and lifelong joy as they serve their communities. Furthermore, I am eager to amplify libraries’ community engagement, advocacy, and outreach efforts via social media.
What was the last book you read/movie you watched/podcast or song you listened to that you enjoyed? This past year I’ve read so many books that were balm for my soul in the face of recent social unrest. My newest love is The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen. This graphic novel is an intensely gentle story of a mother and son who must navigate the shifting landscape of their relationship as they struggle with language barriers and a lack context for fully understanding each other. Outside of the luscious visuals and the backmatter expounding upon the writer’s craft, what I love most about this story is that it is rooted in a very personal tale of unconditional love that refuses to be unseated by anything. The mother’s love is and will always be a safe haven for her son even when she doesn’t have the words to express it or the ability to fully understand who he is. Every person deserves to be loved like that.
Some other gems that I’ve discovered are Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series and its copious spin-offs, Shanna Swendson’s Rebel series, and H.E. Edgmon’s The Witch King series. I’m finding that speculative fiction is a wonderful means of helping me contextualize topical concerns while providing just enough abstraction to mitigate being overwhelmed by them.
What is something about you that people don’t know? My passion for vintage glamour is a critical part of what defines me. It is rooted in beloved childhood memories of my grandmother, echoed in the person of my mother, and exhibited by so many fierce women that I’ve had the honor of knowing personally or admiring from afar. It is—without a doubt—a physical manifestation of my better self and who I continually strive to be!
What drew you to this position? I was drawn to this position because of the opportunities it affords me to promote learning and library work throughout the state and beyond. As a lifelong educator, I am thrilled that I can build upon my prior work and use it as a foundation for enhancing the service capacity of libraries and the library community.
Meet Bethany Dietrich! Bethany Dietrich is the Young Adult Librarian at Bastrop Public Library in Bastrop, Texas, where she wears many hats: adult and YA collections, teen programming, social media manager, and more. She contributes on NoveList and is a new blogger for Teens Services Underground. She loves spreadsheets and spends too much time reading according to others and the perfect amount according to herself.
How did you become a young adult librarian? Did you always know you wanted to be a young adult librarian?
I wanted to be a librarian when I was a fourth-grader, which was right before Y2K. I remember my dad saying, “No, don’t be a librarian. Technology and the internet are going to make libraries obsolete.” I was like, “Okay, you’re a smart guy. You know what you’re talking about.” So, I kind of abandoned that idea, and I went into teaching because I knew there would always be a need for teachers. I taught 10th grade English for three years, and then I went out to Washington state, and I ran a church camp for a year and a half. That’s where I honed my programming skills, which required me to think outside of the box, and design for what people want while working within parameters like safety, financial issues, and time constraints. When I lived at the camp, I didn’t have the internet at my house, so I would go into town and use the internet at the library. That experience gave me the opportunity to see what libraries in the 21st century look like and how they had changed and adapted. During that time, I saw a career therapist who helped me figure out what I needed to be fulfilled in a job. We narrowed down all the options with her help, and I decided I would go to graduate school to become a librarian. I went to the University of North Texas got my masters, and after that, I got a job in Bastrop as the Young Adult librarian.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, how did you develop your young adult programming? Were you responding to any community needs?
Pre-COVID, my program met weekly, and we still meet weekly during COVID. I’m a really big believer in giving people what they want, and not being shy about asking them what they want. I tried developing a teen advisory board, and that was a big bust. The teens who were semi-interested in being involved with the teen advisory board were typically volunteers and were not the teens coming to my weekly program. I’ve been cultivating and coaching regular teens on how to provide helpful programming recommendations to me. My teens generally walk over from the high school after school on Thursdays, and that would give us a little bit of an awkward time because some people are here, some people aren’t here yet, some people are here ready to get going.
In February, teens at the Bastrop Public Library created “Mug Meals” and learned how to feed themselves using just a few ingredients.
I had to figure out what to do to fill this awkward time. Often, we would watch YouTube videos, which helped inform me of what they’re watching on YouTube. I found that what they’re watching on YouTube is not what I’m watching on YouTube. I’m like, “Yay Vlogbrothers,” and they’re like, “yeah, check out this Minecraft dude.” After a while, they started to show me things like The Try Guys from BuzzFeed, and they would show me videos where they would ask each other trivia questions, and if they got it wrong, they would smash a disgusting balloon full of disgusting stuff. They started to ask if they could do similar activities in the library. I was like, “Well, I really liked this idea, but no, we can’t fill balloons with hot sauce, because that’s dangerous, but we could fill it with ketchup.” I started to coach my teens and helped them identify things that we could do safely, that was within our budget, and within our time constraints. In the beginning, they would show me YouTube videos, and then I would talk it through with them, and now I’ve coached them to email me the YouTube videos and their recommendations on how to adjust to fit our needs. Now during COVID, they have been sending me TikTok videos.
COVID has shifted how many of us work today, how has the pandemic impacted your work? What has been the most challenging thing that you have faced?
We switched over to Discord pretty early and have been meeting virtually since early April. It was slow going at first because my kids are not on social media. When I asked how they heard about our Discord server, they would say, “I heard from someone’s mom” or “I saw it on Facebook,” and then eventually, kids were texting their friends. That was how we were able to spread the word about Discord. We still don’t have a ton of people; I probably average four to six kids every week. Since school started and they’re allowed to go in-person, my participation numbers have continued to drop. In fact, I’ve had zero the past three weeks. They don’t want to hang online because they can (finally!) hang out with each other in-person, even if they can’t do it at the library in a library program. That said, there is still some asynchronous participation in the text channels. I’ll keep showing up at our regular time, and I’ll be ready for them when they’re ready to come back. We mostly play games and talk.
In January during Teen Thursdays at the Bastrop Public Library, teens created the hockey sticks using recycled cardboard to play Balloon Hockey.
Challenges are seeing my kids feeling the pinch to their mental health. I want to support mental health wellness, but I’m not a trained person in that regard. I have the Mental Health First Aid certification, but I’m by no means an expert. I’ve seen several therapists and feel more comfortable than many other people talking about it, but I don’t want to tell the kid the wrong thing. The legality of mental health work does make me cautious. I’ve been participating in a School Library Journal and University of Maryland iSchool co-design study, which is based on how teen librarians and libraries, in general, can help support public services and helping their communities. I’ve been toying around with how I can implement more of that into my virtual programming. However, because of the pull on my time from doing curbside, and all these other circulation duties that I don’t usually have, it’s been tough to find the time and the energy that I would like to spend on doing that.
Teens playing Balloon Hockey at the Bastrop Public Library using balloons as a hockey pucks and teen made recycled cardboard hockey sticks.
Were you using Discord before the pandemic and was there a steep learning curve?
Somebody posted about Discord in one of the Facebook groups that I’m on, and I knew my brother had been using Discord for years. I worked with him and let him know about all the security and privacy things that I needed, and he helped me set it up. It was because of that first person who posted it in one of my Facebook groups that helped me think that I could do it. I’m very careful about who I allow to join our server. I do post the invite links on our teen Instagram, but as I said, not many of our teens are on our Instagram. It’s mostly other teen librarians who follow us. I don’t put any hashtags and don’t use geotags. To get into the server, you have to be following us to see that post. I also posted it on Facebook a couple of times, but again, our community is small. I ask some screening questions and privately chat with the person if I haven’t directly invited them or talked to them about joining it. My first Teen Services Underground (TSU) article was how to set-up up a Discord server.
With so much uncertainty about the fall, how do you plan to approach your programming, and do you have any upcoming programs you would like to highlight?
I am just swamped with all my other responsibilities. We are a small library, and I wear many hats other than just teen programming and teen collection development. I do all the adult collection development and social media managing, as well as a few other things. I don’t have the capacity to really put together any sort of programming other than Jackbox games. I have trivia in my back pocket that I pull out when Jackbox goes down, which happened once. Since we did Jackbox games all summer, they’ve gotten pretty tired of it. Three weeks ago, one of my teens suggested the popular app Among Us, so we’ll play that the next time enough participants attend unless something else has caught their eye by then.
I would like to do more along the lines of what I’m learning in the School Library Journal and the University of Maryland iSchool study. I read an article that talked about some ways to support teens’ mental health and talked about using a gratitude wall. I did add a new text channel in our Discord and put a challenge out to everybody to tell one thing that they’re happy about, or that made them happy that day or grateful for, and then to continue posting something every day. Hopefully, even if it’s just that little bit of positivity, that will have a larger effect on them. My teens also asked for an Art Stuff channel, where they post what they’ve drawn/created. It is way more popular than the Happy Stuff channel, but we do get several posts a week in Happy Stuff. Whether they’re posting in Happy Stuff, Art Stuff, or the general chat channel, I love seeing them being supportive of one another.
Thank you, Bethany, for sharing your story and your work with us. Although this year might look a little different, libraries across Texas and the US are celebrating #TeenTober by highlighting their teen collection and programming. To learn more, visit YALSA’s TeenTober’s webpage at www.ala.org/yalsa/teentober. How is your library celebrating #TeenTober? Share in the comment sections.
We have received many questions regarding best practices when conducting virtual storytimes. While we cannot provide legal advice, we have curated a few virtual storytime resources for libraries’ ease of access.
Online StoryTime & Coronavirus (Programming Librarian): This post from the Programming Librarian was posted by ALA’s Public Program’s Office. This should not be taken as legal advice, but may offer one perspective.
Virtual Storytime Resources Guide (Association for LIbrary Services to Children): This guide was developed by the Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy (CLEL), the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), and others.
Program Statistics for the Texas Public Libraries Annual Report
Definition of Library Program: A program is any planned event which introduces the group attending to any of the activities or which directly provides information to participants. Programs may cover use of the library, library services, or library tours. Programs may also provide cultural, recreational, or educational information, often designed to meet a specific social need. Examples of these types of programs include film showings, lectures, story hours, literacy, English as a second language, citizenship classes, and book discussions.
Counting Programs and Attendance: Live virtual programming that meets the definition of programs can be reported in total number of library programs, number of children’s programs, number of young adult programs and number of adult programs; as well as related total. For attendance, report unique or peak views.
If you have other questions about how or what to report, contact State Data Coordinator Valicia Greenwood at accreditation@tsl.texas.gov.
In response to requests from libraries looking for resources and reading materials regarding racism, equity and inclusion, here are a few curated lists including resources for families and youth librarians to help get your library started.
2020 COVID-19 Anti-Asian Racism Resources (Sarah Park Dahlen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Master of Library and Information Science Program at St. Catherine University)
We know that with the current pandemic crisis, summer reading plans have been upended, altered, and in some cases canceled as a result of library closures. In response, we have created summer activity challenges that you can distribute to your communities and patrons. These challenges are meant to be completed by children and teens in their homes, with families and loved ones, to both combat summer slide and provide activity ideas for families.
The challenges are provided to you in both editable and PDF versions on a shared Google Drive. You can also access it on the Children and Youth Services page. We have assigned Creative Commons licenses to the challenges so that you can edit the resources to fit the needs of your library and community. To edit the editable version, open up the document you would like to edit, click on “File” and select “Make a Copy.” You can then edit your copy to better serve the needs of your community.
The activities included can be distributed digitally (on your website, via email or newsletters, or on social media). They can also be printed by your libraries and distributed in the mail, via community partners, or at your libraries (if you are physically open). If you do not have community partners with which you currently work, you may want to contact local grocery stores or even your local post office to see if they would be interested in assisting with distribution. Please note that these challenges were not designed to be used as Bingo games. Bingo is strictly regulated in Texas and requires obtaining a license from the Texas Lottery Commission. For information on the Bingo Enabling Act in Texas, please visit the Texas Lottery Commission‘s website at http://www.txbingo.org.
Educational research tells us time and time again that the students experience a “summer slide” in learning during the summer school break. Our School Program Coordinator, Liz Philippi, shares some tips on how to address summer slide this summer!
What is “summer slide”?
It is the
tendency for children to lose some of the achievement gains they made during
the previous school year. It is estimated that teachers spend between 4 to 6
weeks reteaching materials that students forget during the summer. While we
constantly battle to make sure that all students can read on grade level this
“reteaching” is a terrible waste!
What can we do to correct this?
Well, the
first suggestion is that we should make sure that children are reading during
the summer whether they are at their local library, in a school library that is
open during school summer breakfast and lunch times, or even accessing books
online they need to be exposed to books.
The other
things we need to do is to keep those young brains engaged with a variety of
activities that will challenge them and ignite their innate curiosity. There
are many simple things you can do, like reading product ingredients and
measuring produce with your child when grocery shopping. Use cooking with your
child as an opportunity to teach them about measuring and math skills. Take a
nature walk in your local park or your neighborhood to teach plant and fauna
information. Sometimes just looking around your house will help you come up
with ideas to get and keep your children engaged, and an engaged mind is
growing mind!
Below are
some tips to get you started and a bunch of links that you can share with your
patrons.
