Simplified Dungeons & Dragons
Tweet Over the past few years I have spoken to a number of D&D and gaming fans that work in Libraries, without exception they have stated that they would love to set up gaming sessions in...
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Nintendo 3DS & Libraries
Tweet On Friday the always amazing Carl Cross of Derbyshire Libraries sent an e-mail to the Lib Gaming UK mailing list. You can join the list here – go on you know you want to! It was a great post and...
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Library of the Living Dead
Tweet This is brilliant! Staff at McPherson College’s Miller Library in Kansas, USA, have produced a library guide in graphic novel format, Library of the Living Dead. Intrepid bearded librarians...
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Tips on Working with Teens: Props are Important
Tweet Props can be broken down into three categories: Active, Passive and Inbetween/Interactive props Active Props Active props are those that you can use to initiate conversation with a teen or group...
View ArticleTips on Working With Teens: Be to Them Who You Needed When You Were a Teenager
Tweet One of the first things you should do when working with teenagers is think back to your years as a teen. Remember what you went through, the unfairness of being young and perfect and not being...
View ArticleTips on Working With Teens: Do not try to be cool! You are not cool – and...
Tweet If you were cool you may never have become a librarian, we are never cool but we ARE completely awesome in many other ways! Cool is by nature exclusionary – and the library is used largely (but...
View ArticleTips on Working with Teens: Do NOT Touch the Librarian
Tweet This one is known as Mr Imrie’s first rule, and I put it in place for two reasons – firstly I am over 6’ tall and fairly bulky, the last thing I want is to have someone scream “Oh my God! That...
View ArticleOrganising Author Skype Visits
Tweet Hosting a virtual author Skype visit is a lot easier than you may think, all you need (apart from a willing author at the other end of the Internet) is an Internet-enabled computer, the Skype...
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Tips on Working with Teens: Bribery & Corruption are OK!
Tweet There is an old(ish) saying that goes “You get nothing for nothing!” That can be adapted for attracting teens into your library or teen activity/reading group. As librarians we know the...
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YALSA: Teen Space Guidelines
Tweet These guidelines were created in 2011 -2012 by a task force of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) with feedback from the library community achieved through a public comment...
View ArticleTeen Librarian Challenge
Tweet Local government will again be the biggest loser on Wednesday as the chancellor, George Osborne, unveils £11.5bn of overall spending cuts in 2015-16, an end to automatic pay progression, and a...
View ArticleTeen Rights in the Public Library
Tweet As of now the staff of Ontario Public Libraries are my heroes! “Why Matt why?” I hear you cry, “Why are those crazy Canucks your heroes?” Let me tell you why! Have a read of this: GOALS FOR...
View ArticleTips on Working with Teens: Failure is Always an Option
Tweet Today we live in a very risk averse society – it has been this way for a while now, I can still remember when I suggested starting up a teen reading group soon after I started work in the UK, I...
View ArticleSetting up a Dungeons & Dragons group in my Library
At the end of the last school year I was approached by a group of students who asked me in a very roundabout way if I knew about Dungeons and dragons and if I had ever played the game and would I maybe...
View ArticlePlagiarism
An introduction to the scourge of plagiarism using the current disagreement between Shia LaBoeuf and Daniel Clowes as an opener and going on to look at what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.
View ArticleHow to Raise a Reader
From the moment you’re expecting your first child, you are bombarded with messages about the importance of reading. For good reason: The benefits of reading at every stage of a child’s development are...
View ArticleUse the Damn Library!
Dear Teachers Now that the summer holidays are fading into a dim and distant memory and you are facing a school year full of students, teaching, marking and meetings. You probably feel a faint dread...
View ArticleLibrary Freeconomics
This post is an adaptation of a training workshop I gave last year for the SLG based on my experiences of working with low to no budgets forcing me to improvise and find alternate ways to gain skills,...
View ArticleSelf-care Reading List
Librarians & library workers need to practice self-care as we focus on adapting the work we do around stay at home orders and mandatory closures for the coronavirus. It is a stressful time for...
View ArticleA Parent’s Guide to Black Lives Matter
Yoopies UK the childcare platform, has put together a family-friendly resource guide for parents about the Black Lives Matter movement from a British perspective; with contributions from both white...
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