Day Twelve

Today was a short day.  First I went to the departmental meeting for the Children's/Teen librarians of DPL.  I knew Detroit Public Library had a lot of different branches, but it was cool to see most all of them represented in the meeting! (Douglass doesn't have a children's or teen librarian, so nobody from that branch was there; there could have been a couple others that weren't represented, as well).  The meeting was run by the head of the Children's Department at Main Branch.  She talked about some of the things that have been going on the past month at DPL having to do with youth services, including an author talk that was held a couple of weeks ago.  Then we had a guest speaker come in to talk to us about her series of children's books that focuses on the relationship between fathers and their children.  It seemed like an interesting series of books.  She's only written three books in the series so far, but she plans on writing 24!

After the guest speaker was finished, summer reading program was discussed.  The t-shirts for the children's theme ("Dig Into Reading") and the teen theme (I can't remember what that one was called) were displayed, as well as promotional materials such as posters, lanyards, stickers, bookmarks and tattoos.  One of the t-shirts for the teen summer reading program, that I can't remember the name of, was really cool.  I kind of wished I worked at the library so that I could have a t-shirt of my own!  The meeting ended by all of us attempting to do a craft that the head of the Children's department thought would be fun to carry out in all of the branches.  Unfortunately, the craft was kind of difficult, as it involved weaving and crocheting, (the goal was to make a pot holder) and most all of the librarians agreed that it would be too time-consuming for younger children, but might be fun and easier for teens to do.  I personally struggled with it, however!

After the meeting, I took the time to meet with Carol, one of the children's librarians at the main branch, to discuss my craft for Friday, and to ask her if she had any popsicle sticks we could use for the craft to stick the puppets on.  She let me have a whole bag full of them!  After that, I went and printed off the template for the puppets.  So it looks like the craft is coming together and I should have everything I need!  Now I just need to practice reading the books for storytime!