Afterschool program providers make great partners

I had the great pleasure of attending and presenting last week at the South Carolina Afterschool Allaince Conference here in Columbia.  The South Carolina Afterschool Alliance is a non-profit group dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of quality after school programs, serving as an advocate for providers, children, and families, assisting providers in developing best practices, and collaborating with organizations and groups to link services and develop partnerships.

I know from the discussions I had at the conference that many of our state’s libraries have forged a strong working relationship with after school programs and providers in their communities, but there’s room for growth.  I admit to being a little embarrassed by my lack of knowledge about the variety of program types in our state.  I met providers from day cares, faith-based programs, K-12 sponsored programs, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and so many more.  They were all great people and have passion for serving the children in their communities.  In that way, we have lots in common.

If your library hasn’t already reached out to the after school program providers in your community, I hope you will.  They have access to the children, and we have cool programs and collections to share.  More importantly, they are interested in the same things we are…providing support and development for our next generations.  There is so much we can offer one another!

To find a listing of programs in your community, visit the SC Afterschool Alliance Directory.

 

More Books Sell When Cover is “Face Out”

Shelf Awareness Blog reports that retail stores and libraries realize that the more books are “face out” on the shelf, the more books circulate/sell.  With more books “face out” there will be less room for less sold/borrowed materials.  The original Wall Street Journal article (subscription needed)  says at a typical Borders superstore, the reduction of inventory will be between 4,675 and 9,350 titles out of about 93,500. Borders said customers at its new concept store had the impression that more books were available.

So it is not really about the total number of books you have, but how the books are displayed and having lots and lots of high demand items.  To read the article go here.

 

Carver’s Bay Branch Library Reports on Successful Digital Arts Experience

The staff of the Georgetown County Library has every reason to be proud of the success of their current project — the Digital Arts Experience or DAE.  The program is a fast-paced 12-week course designed to expose middle school students to the basic concepts and skills required to complete digitally oriented audiovisual projects. The students are encouraged to think for themselves as they work together in teams to concept, storyboard, shoot and edit their own video productions.

Not only did they get promotion from WebJunction, there was a front page article about the project in the Myrtle Beach Sun.

Go here and here for more information. Congratulations to the Georgetown County Library Staff!!

 

The Mildly Attractive Men of SLIS…

Still looking for that perfect gift for hard-to-buy-for librarian in your life?  Want something neat to hang on your office wall?  How about the Mildly Attractive Men of SLIS at the University of South Carolina 2008 Calendar?

The calendar features a “different guybrarian each month.  One for every taste!”  All the photos are of male graduate students in the School of Library and Information Science at USC.  Proceeds of the calendar will be used to send students to the World Library and Information Congress in Quebec, August 2008. 

Calendars are $12.00 + $1.00 shipping, and can be purchased on the LISSA website or on Ebay.  I ordered mine today!

 

The Netflix Model for Borrowing Books

Kathy Sheppard showed me this new service called Paperspine. By joining Paperspine you can borrow books for a monthly fee. There are no overdue fines, you keep the books as long as you need to. Monthly subscription rates run from $9.95 and up and they have 150,000 titles. The library community should watch and see if Paperspine catches on with the general public.

The local ABC affiliate in Phoenix has an online video story about Paperspine here. Seattle blogger John Cook has a posting about Paperspine here.