Where I Was: April

Well, everyone saw this coming. The busier I get, the less likely I am to keep up with any kind of blogging, since I don't blog from home.* As a result, I'm changing this weekly feature into a monthly one. We'll see how it goes...

The first full week of April I spent almost entirely in the board room of NCLS. We had a professional staff meeting, a departmental meeting, a Central Libraries Advisory Committee meeting, a System Services Committee meeting, and the remainder of the week was spent working on our five year plan of service. All in the board room. (You can see the board room for yourself here via the miracle of 360 degree photography!)

After that, it was a mix of board meetings, battle meetings (our regional Battle of the Books is coming up in a few weeks) and other small assorted meetings.

Most noteworthy was my trip to Schenectady for an all day training in Early Learning Spaces, as part of the Ready to Read at New York Libraries initiative. This is a five-part staff development program which focuses on best practices in early literacy for public libraries. So far, my fearless training partner Rebecca Donnelly and I have offered two of the five components and are offering the third later this month. However, I will say the Early Learning Spaces training has been my favorite so far, and I'm really looking forward to offering the class to member libraries later this year.

When I was in the trenches, I didn't give much thought to mindfully creating an early learning space in the children's department.** As long as things were child-scaled and mildly cheerful, I figured I was covered. But if I had it to do over again, I'd pay much more attention to encouraging play and making the most of the space. 

*If I have to blog at work, I only allow myself so much time and then it's done. If I blog from home, I agonize over Did I Get It Just Right? But Is It Perfect, Though? and suddenly it's 11pm and I haven't moved in four hours. Not optimal.

**I knew to make sure our tables had rounded corners, sure. You learn that one quick.