Safety and Security in Your Library

Do you work alone at your library?
Do you work at night? 
Do you work with the public?

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then there are times you are at risk when you are at work. 

But luckily there are steps you can take to make you and your workplace safer.

If you are a solo librarian, find a buddy in town that you can call when you need back up. Make it someone who can be there in seconds and put them on speed dial or listed 1st in your contacts.

If you work at night, always work with someone else. Close together, lock up together and leave the building together. Make sure your outdoor lighting is bright.

Keeping safe while working with the public is on a case by case basis. However, there are some good resources for you:

Albrecht, Steve. (2015) Library security : better communication, safer facilities. American Library Association. 9780838913307

Graham, Warren Davis. (2012) The black belt librarian : real-world safety & security. American Library Association. 9780838911372.

Khan, Miriam. (2008) The library security and safety guide to prevention, planning, and response. ALA Editions. 9780838909492

Mallery, Mary. (2015) Technology disaster response and recovery planning : a LITE guide. ALA
TechSource. 9780838913154.

Writing Club Basics

 "You can make anything by writing." --C.S. Lewis

Right next to book clubs, writing clubs hit right at the core of what we love.  Having a future author in our midst is something we can all hope for. While writing clubs work for any age group, my focus for this article will be on teen writing clubs, but the elements in this can be easily applied to any age.

Chapter 1

The Groundwork

This is where you need to decide the absolute basics of your club. This needs to focus on when you will meet, how often, your age range, and your meeting length.

Chapter 2

The Meeting

What do you want your meetings to look like? Is the focus sharing their creations they bring with them or writing practice within the meeting itself? Perhaps some combination of both?

Chapter 3

The Sharing

During the sharing, it is important to make your teens comfortable to not only share but critique too. It is also a good time to decide if you will also be reading their work or do you just have teens critique one another.

Chapter 4

The Practicing

I personally love giving teens the opportunity to practice their writing. Writing prompts are a great source of inspiration and can get them thinking outside the box and help teach them how to overcome writer's block. Prompts can be anything: sample dialogue or plot, photos, music, etc.

Chapter 5

The Extras

Other things to consider:

• Food. Goodness gracious you must feed them!
• Icebreakers. We dread them, but they do help. Just make sure they aren't lame.
• Bribery. Consider rewarding those who share their work. Candy is always a pretty solid motivator.

Recycled Book Art

National Library Week is almost here and one of my favorite activities is cutting books apart.

Don't fret-these aren't just any books. They are usually books that are featured in our "Why We Weed" segments and so they really, really need to go (really!).

And then--craft time begins!