Part 1: Pro-active Customer Service Training in Libraries – Joan Giannone

Today I attended the first day of a training session on Pro-active Service and Roving led by Joan Giannone of MentorGroup Training Inc. I feel really fortunate to have the opportunity to attend this training session since I am part-time contract staff.

The workshop taught me a new way to look at people coming into libraries – they are our customers! I like this approach in many ways as it creates a more balanced view of people coming into the library unlike the term “patron” which seems to create a sense of imbalance and hierarchy. Joan taught us a framework for customer interactions and though many of the steps were pretty basic, it was great to have a refresher on customer service skills and I really liked Joan’s idea of being proactive. Also, Joan helped with teambuilding by stimulating discussion so that awareness was created of the roles we all play in the library. I believe that when library staff are proactive they form a fundamental part of grassroots advocacy for libraries.

Review of Boy O’Boy by Brian Doyle

I received a copy of Brian Doyle’s book Boy O’Boy at the OLA Super Conference from LongPen. If you have never seen the LongPen before it’s definitely something you should check out – it was invented by Margaret Atwood so that she and other authors could sign their books without the need of travelling. You can find out more information at LongPen.com

Below is a review of the book Boy O’Boy. I just had an epiphany… I read so much that I tend to forget or mix up books I have read. To solve this problem I am going to attempt to use my blog to keep track of books I read.

Martin O’Boy has many issues to contend with while growing up in Ottawa during the Second World War. His beloved grandmother just past away, his parents are constantly fighting about money and his twin brother is incapacitated. Sometimes when Martin sees other families, he thinks they are perfect and wishes he could switch places. Despite this life isn’t all bad as Martin has his best friend Billy Batson to play Marvel comics games with, his cat Cheap and a friend Buz who is fighting in the war.

Martin and Billy joined the church choir to make money over the summer and met the organist Mr. George who becomes terribly fond of Martin and Billy, in a way that readers recognize to be very inappropriate. Together Martin and Billy deliver justice to Mr. George and in the process become stronger people.

Brian Doyle tackles sensitive issues in this book, yet keeps it appropriate and interesting for children to read through his use of humor. This book is for children aged 7-12 to read. It deals with sensitive issues and it would be a good idea to hold a discussion about this book for the child after s/he reads it. This book was awarded the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award for Children and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award.

Review of Boy O’Boy by Brian Doyle

I received a copy of Brian Doyle’s book Boy O’Boy at the OLA Super Conference from LongPen. If you have never seen the LongPen before it’s definitely something you should check out – it was invented by Margaret Atwood so that she and other authors could sign their books without the need of travelling. You can find out more information at LongPen.com

Below is a review of the book Boy O’Boy. I just had an epiphany… I read so much that I tend to forget or mix up books I have read. To solve this problem I am going to attempt to use my blog to keep track of books I read.

Martin O’Boy has many issues to contend with while growing up in Ottawa during the Second World War. His beloved grandmother just past away, his parents are constantly fighting about money and his twin brother is incapacitated. Sometimes when Martin sees other families, he thinks they are perfect and wishes he could switch places. Despite this life isn’t all bad as Martin has his best friend Billy Batson to play Marvel comics games with, his cat Cheap and a friend Buz who is fighting in the war.

Martin and Billy joined the church choir to make money over the summer and met the organist Mr. George who becomes terribly fond of Martin and Billy, in a way that readers recognize to be very inappropriate. Together Martin and Billy deliver justice to Mr. George and in the process become stronger people.

Brian Doyle tackles sensitive issues in this book, yet keeps it appropriate and interesting for children to read through his use of humor. This book is for children aged 7-12 to read. It deals with sensitive issues and it would be a good idea to hold a discussion about this book for the child after s/he reads it. This book was awarded the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award for Children and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award.

Books for every child

I took a detour last week to avoid the rain and found myself in the Atrium at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, right in front of a children’s library that I didn’t know existed! I was amazed to see that at 9am on a weekday it was buzzing with activity and youth of all ages were inside the library enjoying what it had to offer. I toured the library and spoke with the librarian and was and still am quite impressed. Apparently the library has been around for some time, approximately 10 years. It was created through a partnership with the school board, the hospital and TPL. I think its a wonderful gift to any child who needs to spend time in a hospital. Books were always an escape for me as a kid. Hospitals should be encouraged to develop spaces for children and teens like this. I wonder if there are any statistics or research done to support the benefits of libraries in hospitals? This is something I’d like to explore further.

Open Source: the Public Knowledge Project

I just heard about a new and exciting project happening on the west coast. It is an advocacy project dedicated to improving the scholarly and public quality of research. The project is a partnership between UBC, SFU and the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing that brings together faculty, librarians, and graduate students. It is going to be really interesting to see how this group comes together to find a way to make academic knowledge more publicly accessible. I really hope as a future public librarian to see positive results from this project. Check it out at: http://pkp.sfu.ca/about

OLA Super Conference

The OLA Conference was really amazing. To be in the same place as so many librarians, library staff, authors, teachers, principals and people who care about literacy was really an incredible experience for me. I volunteered giving conference delegates directions, stuffing conference bags and helping out with registration. When I got time off I attended some of the sessions and the ones I attended were well worth it. I attended a session on the Orillia Public Library’s Lifescapes program about helping people to write their memoirs. I found that talk really inspiring as I have written down memoirs for a few individuals as part of a summer company I ran last year. Also, another talk that stands out was one about reading graphic novels. I had no idea that there was such a breadth of material covered in graphic novels and that there were just so many genres. I really am going to have to try reading them. I talked to a kid the other day and she said she has trouble reading novels that are words only and prefers the graphic novels. She really urged me to try reading them, so this summer my goal is to read at least 2! Definitely, I am writing it into my calendar to attend OLA 2008!