Youth Services District Meeting Minutes 

Youth Services District Meeting

April 18, 2008

Lauri Ann West

In attendance: Kristin McGuire, Judy Errico, Sharon Rivers, Susan Herald, Reilly Dunn, Eva Mays, Megan Goode, Debra Conn, Patte Kelley, Jen Pickle, Carolyn Rosenquest, Kristin Burniston, Adaena Tray, Gina Leone, Lynn Hahn, Charlie Quinn, Rita Crawford, Susan Wilson and Mary Morgan Smith

• SRC
  • Volunteers for SRC 2009 – be creative (the arts!) We already have reps from the South, West and CLP
    • Please email me if you’re interested in participation on this committee!
  • SRC window clings (handout)
    • ACLA in partnership with Beaver County Libraries is purchasing a ton of window clings that read: ‘we (heart) summer reading at our library’ and those will be made available to your libraries as soon as they’re printed (late May) for car windows or anywhere!
  • Pirates Tales – Applebees Coupons, Pirates tickets
    • CLP is offering libraries participation in the Pirates Tales again this summer.  Each participating child reads a designated number of books and can then be entered into a raffle for a storytime with the Pirate Parrot and tickets to a game.  Each library will be able to send 6 children/winners to the storytime and game. 
    • CLP is also giving each library 2 Pirates tickets to raffle off as an SRC prize this summer. 
    • CLP is also providing Applebees coupons as SRC incentives – those will be distributed to libraries in May
  • SRC Online Registration
    • It’s not too late to get on board with Evanced software – online registration for both summer reading and any other bookclub your library runs.  Please email me for more information!
• Gaming Trunks
  • ACLA has created 2 gaming trunks to circulate through the county.  Signing up for the trunks will work like other registration (One Book trunks and the SRC Educational Kits) on a gaming wiki.  Once the trunks are assembled and ready, I’ll send out an email and libraries can begin requesting them.  Included in the trunks are:
    • Games while you wait
      • Quiddler
      • Apples to Apples
      • Cranium Family Fun
    • Wii gaming system with 4 controllers
    • Wii gaming case
    • Wii games
      • Cooking Mama Cookoff
      • Mario Party 8
      • Carnival Games
      • Cranium Kabooki
      • Winter Sports
      • Mario Kart
• How is One Book Every Young Child going? 
  • It seems the One Book trunks delivery is going well.  Any concerns, please let me know.
  • The One Book author visits have been very successful.  Whole Foods provided pretzels and fruit rollups along with a gift basket to raffle to each hosting library.  If you’re interested in approaching Whole Foods (who is very generous!) about donations or programming, please contact Kim Wynnyckyj at Kim.Wynnyckyj@wholefoods.com Some guidelines to keep in mind:
    • All requests must be submitted to Kim in writing (email) at least 6 weeks prior to the event date. 
    • Though a library may submit a donation within the 6 weeks, there are no guarantees that the request will be granted.  Kim always does her best to accommodate requests however, with her limited budget; she does have to limit the number of requests she can honor.
• Chess Tournament
  • Chess tournaments went well this year however, as last year, ACYS will be looking at ways to make the process even more efficient in 2009
• The New wiki
  • The new Youth Services wiki requires all contributors to create an account.  You should have received an email from me to do so, if you haven’t, or are having trouble editing some portion of the wiki or cannot sign up for a trunk or kit, please email me and I’ll help you out.
• Podcasts with Jonny H from 100.7 – volunteers?
  • Ing Kalchthaler and I are doing a series of podcasts with Jonny Hartwell from 100.7.  They will be available on the ACLA website as well as on our blog and wiki.  If anyone is interested in participating in a podcast with us, please let me know!  They’re super fun and we talk about all kinds of issues involving libraries!
• Upcoming Events
  • Children’s Book Week
  • Connecting Boys with Books in Cranberry
  • Children’s Lit Conference in Greensburg
  • Next Meeting: June 16 @ Castle Shannon
  • Mother Goose on the Loose workshops
• Ideas for CE classes – thinking of joint teen and youth services meeting to address tweens in the fall – will keep you posted
• Fall ’08: Children’s Museum Visits
  • Each month ACLA goes to the Children’s Museum and presents a parenting session on a topic like phonemic awareness, rhyming books, introducing fairy tales and folklore to your children.  We create a booklist, give away free books and allow children to do a small craft.  The work is minimal and we have a great time – if you’re interested and willing, please let me know – we’re picking back up with these in the fall. 

• Susan Wilson and Opera Trunks
  • Susan presented a description of how she uses the Pittsburgh Opera Trunks which ACLA gets for libraries to use during the summer months at no charge.  Susan has great success in creating vibrant and engaging programs for very young children to some of her older teens.  If you’d like more information from Susan on how you might use these trunks at your library, email her at wilson2@einetwork.net 

• Judy Errico and Vacation Kits
  • Judy talked about all the various materials she includes in her vacation kits for parents (snacks, games, sunglasses, DVDs, puzzles, coloring pages with colored pencils, etc.)  Judy provides very creative items for families and during the conversation, we decided that any library that creates vacation kits would be welcome to send me the ‘theme’ and inventory of the kit which I’ll post on a wiki page as a county-wide resource.  The ACLA interns and I will also work on creating some ‘kits’ ourselves of some popular themes.  More information on this to come!  Please email Judy at erricoj@einetwork.net for more information about how she approaches Vacation kits. 

• Brad Fish from Scholastic
  • Brad demo-ed the Bookflix, a Scholastic literary resource for new readers.  Each library should have access to this online tool and you can download a logo to use on your websites for your patrons.  Please email Brad if you have any questions at BFish@Scholastic.com