Youth Services Monthly Report

From: Joshua Carlson

Subject: May 2018

Date: June 6, 2018

Programs and Services

Trove Time finally began after so much time and planning! It was a huge success. Sessions were held on Tuesday

and Thursday mornings, and Thursday afternoons, throughout the month of May, as well as the first Trove Time

Caregiver Workshop on the topic of Parenting with Love & Limits. Trove Time had 229 children ages 2-4 in

attendance and 220 adults, with an additional 22 children and 20 adults at the workshop. Trove Time

will pick up again in September, switching to three mornings per week, and run through May. We

learned a lot during the month, and we saw an impact, as well. Kathlyn noted, for example, that in the

beginning of the month, she was spending more time engaging and playing with children, but as the

month progressed she saw the caregivers become more and more engaged. In addition, the new,

revamped and amazing Bag A Tales were released to coincide with the launch of Trove Time. They are

a huge hit, with the bags all being out and being checked back out almost immediately upon return.

Bobby notes that Mother Goose continues to be a huge draw with sessions run by both him and Raquel. The

program regularly exceeds capacity and has its share of regulars who bring their little ones to each and every

session. You know Mother Goose is in session when you see the massive parking lot of strollers outside Galaxy Hall!

Kathlyn and Bobby held their first meeting for the Edge’s Battle of the Books team. Bobby indicates that it was a

“fun pizza party that will hopefully set the tone for the teens’ experience throughout the competition.”

The Library hosted a performance by Tim Collins on the timely and important topic of bullying. Standing By,

Standing Up is a powerful one-man show that delves into the lives of various characters connected to an individual

suffering from bullying at school. The program was well attended with many concerned adults from the community

alongside teens, including members of local youth councils and the White Plains Police Department’s Explorers

group. The performance was moving, however the conversation following was almost heartbreaking as teens

admitted that they didn’t trust the adults in their lives to intervene or help if they asked for it in a bullying situation.

When Tim asked the teens in the audience if they had experienced bullying themselves or seen bullying take place in

their school, every hand rose up.

During her last month before retirement, Bonnie ran Stories & Stuff with Donnie to help him get used to running the

program. Donnie said that the program was riveting, and allowed him to get acclimated to reading to kids while also

studying Bonnie’s storytelling techniques. He stated, “I’m glad to have had Bonnie as someone to learn from, and I

look forward to starting the program again in July.”

Family Storytimes on Wednesday nights were well attended. Tata read Cowboys Can Be Kind by Tim Knapman and

talked about how can we do acts of kindness to each other on a regular basis and the difference between kindness

and bullying. Bilingual Family Night was well attended and with a picnic theme, the families made their own "picnic

basket."

Donnie has indicated that there is continued successful attendance in Chess Club on Monday evenings with a

consistent 13-15 group of kids participate in Chess Club, roughly around the ages 5 - 12 & 13. He is looking at ways

to revamp the program to also attract more teens and adults

In two of Austin’s Tech Tuesdays in the Trove programs, kids learned about Video Game Design and Robotics. In the

Video Game Design program, the class used “Alice 3D” software to create animations and games. In the process,

they learned core concepts of object-oriented programming and tapped into their imaginations to make unique, fun

worlds. Robotics for Kids was back by popular request and this month's session was a resounding success. Children

who attended the event were able to use a variety of robot-related hardware and experience the thrill of giving

machines commands to follow. Computer programming was involved, where participants could use an iPad

application to wirelessly transmit block-based code to "Sphero" robots, based on a desired outcome.

White Plains High School student, Louis Melendez, started teaching SAT Prep classes that he put together on

Wednesday evenings in the Edge. He has a group of high school students coming in to work with him each week.

Meetings, Visits, Outreach, Professional Development & Other Items

Congratulations to Erik for completing the Advanced Certificate in Public Library Administration program through

the Palmer School of Library and Information Science at LIU. The certificate involved five courses and 2.5 years of

study. Erik is very grateful for the support from the Library Board of Directors for the opportunity to be part of this

program.

Much preparation was done in May for the Trove’s upcoming summer reading program. Raquel met with school

library media specialists and finalized orders for needed summer reading titles. Collection Management staff did a

fantastic job getting those titles processed in a super-speedy manner. Donnie worked diligently on getting our

online summer reading program up and running through the Beanstack service and we are looking forward to seeing

how it runs throughout the summer. The new online program will allow participants to earn points for logging

reading and attending Library programs throughout the summer. With those points, participants will earn digital

badges, prizes, and chances to enter raffle drawings for grand prizes at the end of the summer.

Donnie and Bobby attended the Youth Bureau’s White Plains Comic Fest to hand out giveaways and materials about

the Library and our programs. An estimated 15000 attended the convention.

Kathlyn and Kelly attended the Loucks track and field event, and despite the rainy weather, shared information

about Edge programs and services to many Westchester teens.

Kathlyn visited the National Honor Society Club at White Plains High School. She spoke to about 75 teens about our

summer volunteering opportunities, including Reading Buddies, the Do Gooders and the Build a Better Book

minicamp.

Donnie took the online early literacy course, Foundations of Early Literacy, taught by national early literacy expert

Saroj Ghoting. He notes that the course was very insightful, providing a multitude of methodologies for storytime

programs and one-on-one sessions for children ages Toddler - 5 years old. The most valuable tool he received from

this course was an Early Literacy Component rubric - a template providing steps, procedures, and recommendations

that can improve a typical storytelling presentation. Along with shared documents and enlightening online

discussions with fellow librarians, this class delivered great clarity to the power of storytelling and program

activities.

Kathlyn ran the second coaches meeting of the year for WLS’s Battle of the Books. There are currently 18 teen

teams and 16 childrens teams taking part.

There were several great displays created in the Trove in May: Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Asian Pacific American

Heritage Month, Wordless books, and Reading is FUN-damental, and a LGBTQ display for Pride Month in June.

Tata’s Ramadan display featured books in Arabic to higlight the Trove’s language collections and her Juneteeth

display advertised the upcoming celebration on the Library Plaza and featured books about the celebration itself, as

well as about children's resourcefulness getting out of bondage.

Josh attended Book Expo America at the Javits Center on May 30 and 31. He found out

about some great works coming out over the next year and he made some connections

with publishers and creators, including two possible comic book creators for How Did I Get

Here? career panels in the Edge in the fall. One of these creators, Sebastian Girner, is the

author of the excellent all ages fantasy comic book series, Scales & Scoundrels. Girner grew

up in White Plains and was a regular White Plains Library user until he moved to Brooklyn.

Of the several sessions Josh attended, one was a particular standout. Diversity and

inclusion was one of the hottest topics in a variety of presentations throughout BEA, and in

Opportunity Cost: Why Diversity is Financially Critical for the Publishing Industry, a literary

agent, an editor from Random House, and Jason Low, co-owner of Lee & Low Books,

critically and honestly discussed the many problems in the publishing industry.

The panel noted that Cooperative Children’s Book Center data indicates that in the past 20 years, only 10% of

published children’s books are diverse, but it has spiked over the past three with 31% last year. However the writers

are still not actually diverse and the industry itself is not diverse, which leads to problems of representation and

authenticity. They discussed how the “gatekeepers” in publishing are very much white, and a specific certain kind of

white, who are paying lip service to the need for inclusion and diversity but really primarily want to publish works

that reflect their experiences and lives, not those of diverse populations. Editors spend too much time saying “I

can’t connect with this” and rejecting submissions rather than considering there are many people out there who can

or will connect with a work that represents them. Publishers need to look at diversity as a growth

market, as a financial move, and realize it is a serious

market - especially considering how badly the

publishing industry overall is doing in terms of

revenue. Jason Low said that hiring more diverse

and inclusive staff within the industry, choosing

more diverse and inclusive creators, and publishing

more diverse and inclusive works, is “not a silver

bullet, but a growth opportunity that the industry

can’t afford to ignore.” Moving beyond the financial imperative for the industry, Chris Jackson said, “diversity and

inclusion should not be about solving someone’s problem, but generative. It should be non-resistive - not locked

into a binary relationship with a problem, but instead creative and working towards something new.”

And, finally, Edge staff were able to help two high school students complete a 3D printing project of Mount

Rushmore.