User Services and Programming Discussion #3: Children, Teens, and Students
12 February 2025
Do some research on your own then share a resource with the class about programming and services for children, teens, and/or students. You may post either a link or a reference citation.
Now share why you've chosen this resource and what the big takeaways are. How could you use what you've learned in the future?
At risk of seeming like my ears are plugged to the loudest megaphone in libraryland, my research for this discussion took shape in digging through the American Library Association's (ALA) stable of materials. In my defense, I'd say the website's recent redesign with an even more massive dashboard of article banners crowding out the two navbars doesn't do any favors for anyone seeking a "Resources" page from any given association. Not to mention ALA being an organization with membership fees gives the impression that your searches are bound to be walled by a "members only" page right when you find the exact sort of resource you're looking for.
Fortunately, in the majority of cases, the resources that you find on their respective pages are not member-paywalled, which includes the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC) resource page (n.d.). Although there's a clearly labeled Programming and Services for Youth section on the former, it's actually worth checking the entire contents for things of potential use. There's staples such as a portal to the countless booklists the organization has created over the years, documents about the importance of early literacy, a link to the ALSC blog that regularly provides advice for front-facing librarians, tons of guidance about equity, diversity, and inclusion, and more besides.
My favorite section, one that would probably still be even were we not in our current political crisis, would be for Intellectual Freedom. There's a sense to the urgency of intellectual freedom is more concerned with protecting what notions that are commonplace, which manifests in resources such as the Toolkit for Program Challenges (2023) and the ALA's Library Bill of Rights (2019); all things that are almost certainly going to see even more use in the coming years. What earns its approval from myself, though, are materials devoted to fostering intellectual freedom through critical thinking as well.
The Intellectual Freedom Programming Toolkit (2021), for example, provides examples of how to incorporate information literacy into programs that are already commonplace in library itineraries for all ages. Storytimes can encourage children to think about how messages change depending on the teller (p. 4), or given an opportunity for them to be in charge (p. 5). Book clubs can center their discussions on nonfiction books or fiction that have multiple perspectives on a single event (p. 7). STEAM programs can provide opportunities for children to ask simple investigative questions about current crises (p. 14) or the merits of art (p. 12); and so on and so forth. Many of the attacks on educational institutions and libraries that restrict books for children explicitly seek to shut down possibility of "woke" (read: nonnormative) views, so including programming that considers multiple perspectives and fosters thinking will serve as an important counterbalance. At the very least, these kinds of efforts can provide a level of agency children may not always have—and as emphasized in the title of one of the articles linked in this section, respect for minors is key to protecting intellectual freedom (Williams, 2017).
References
American Library Association. (2021). ALSC intellectual freedom programming toolkit. https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/alsc/content/ALSC Intellectual Freedom Programming Toolkit_0.pdf
American Library Association. (2019, January 29). Library bill of rights. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill
American Library Association. (2023). Toolkit for program challenges. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qRDl2r8r8cIVfwDfj3Gwq01BGGQk1nuQkxqzguzehQI/edit?usp=sharing
Association for Library Service to Children. (n.d.). Professional tools for librarians serving youth. Retrieved February 9, 2024, from: https://www.ala.org/alsc/publications-resources/professional-tools
Williams, M. (2017, July 13). Respect for minors key to protecting intellectual freedom. Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. https://cbldf.org/2017/07/respect-for-minors-key-to-protecting-intellectual-freedom/