Lissa in the Library

This week was about coloring in the lines. I was lucky enough to be able to help a room full of "mid-kids" learn how to use Ozobot robots.  If you'vve never seen one of these little dudes in action, you are missing out.  You draw a dark black marker line for a track, then add in some colorfull boxes for it to stumble upon and read with the "eye" under its body, and it's programming changes depending on the order of the colors that you gave it. It's an ingenous way to introduce kids to the basics of coding.  But watch out, or they'll be drwaing on the tables, carpets, and themselves to see just what they can convince theit Ozobot to do. Really, stay wtihin the llnes, Kids. Since that program was only an hour long, the reaminder of my time was spent working the the youth services desk on the second floor. The basic duties include scanning out books to families who don't want to use the self-checkout stations,  answering any and all questions that c...

Life, for me, is like a knitting loom. Generally, the yarn weaves along pleasantly, the tension is not too taut, and you end up with a pleasing creation. On occasion, however, you drop a stitch, and up with a hole, try to fix you error and end up with the whole thing unraveling. I find though when you are able to seek the advise of a knitter more experienced than yourself you're much better able to get back on track. This is my way of saying please accept my apologies for last week's post about my time machine knitting hats in the makers studio for being a bit tardy. Sometimes life unravels a bit. One of the amazing card-holder benefits at the Indian Prairie Public Library is their maker studio. They have 3D printers, sublimation machines, laser etchers, cricuts galore, embroidery machines, and the most fascinating knitting machines that I have ever seen. This week I assisted Kate for a community instructional class on these machines. We taught 10 patrons ranging in age from 10...

Week 3 of my Indian Prairie Public Library Practicum was Doggone wonderful..literally. I was back with the Programming and Outreach team for one of their fantastic evening offerings. “Read to a Pet” is geared towards emerging readers who are developing confidence in the skill. Reading to a friendly registered support dog in a judgment-free environment can be hugely supportive. I assisted Chrissy for this program. Chrissy often works with programming for “mid-kids,” meaning those from approximately grades 1 to 8. They're not little enough for the board books and guided storytime, but not ready to be fully unsupervised either.  Chrissy had an excellent system for keeping the kids, dogs, and parents organized, which is vital as this is a very popular program. The dogs (normally at least 3 are scheduled) arrive about 15 minutes early to sniff out each other, the meeting room and get settled. Then the kids begin to arrive in waves about 15 minutes apart. If they don't bring or selec...

Anyone who has ever had to come up with a username - which is everyone -  knows how difficult it can be. You want it to be fun, but not too fun, relevant, and understandable. We've all been through the cringe-inducing college aged usernames, the professional level first-initial-last-name usernames, and anything related to our favorite pop culture, but after I've finally myt recent week of working in the Technical Services Department of the Indian Prairie Library,  my new username is TacticalLibrarian. You probably want to know why it isn't TechnicalLibrarian. Tactical calls to mind a me wearing a bandolier of Demco supplies; book tape, spine glue, barcode labels, vistafoil, anything I would need to keep the operation running smoothly.  And isn't that what Technical Services is all about? TechnicalLibrarian makes it sound like “well technically she's a librarian…” which I'm actually not…at least for a few more months. Thank goodness usernames aren’t legally bindi...