It will almost be a month since I started my position as a Children's Librarian. While this doesn't seem like a lot of time, within this one month, I have learned a lot about my career choice.
Due to unfortunate circumstances, my boss has been absent and I have had to take over projects and programs for the department. It's given me a great perspective of my job responsibilities and has thrown me head first into the life as a children's librarian.
One of the things I've taken on is our field trips and outreach. Our library tries to fit visits from school and daycare groups into our schedule, as well as outreach in which we go and visit local groups for storytimes and informational sessions. To get as much experience as possible, I have become a major "yes" person and have accepted a lot of these field trips/visits.
To many I seem like an eager beaver, always volunteering myself and many credit that to the fact that I am new and I'm told one day that I'll be drained and too cynical to say "yes" to all these projects. I find that a pretty negative view to tell someone that is getting work done and does that work with a positive attitude. However, I've heard that this happens all the time, but I don't want that to stop me from getting my experience.
Just this week alone I've led two storytimes (on my own!), supervised a movie showing (best way to put off work for the first hour and half of your work day), and co-led a Dr. Seuss program. People assume that once you start working in the children's department that every single child will love you and listen to you. That is not true. Often times during storytime you have to gain the child's trust - usually by being silly and admitting to mistakes - and then after that, you will have their attention. I will try to post my storytimes as they happen so that they can be resources to other librarians or teachers or daycare providers. This is a learning process for me and I love feedback and the Internet is a great resource for finding storytime ideas.
I hope you all are celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday month! Go eat some green eggs and ham.
*The Teeny Librarian
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