ALSC Mentor Program

Ideas from ALSC's new mentoring program. Also good for managers to mentor their employees!

Suggested Mentoring Activities

ALSC Competencies for Librarians Serving Children in Public Libraries  

• In advance of your meeting, each come up with 3-5 questions for the other to answer. Make sure to forward to the other person a few days before your meeting to give that person time to come up with appropriate answers. 
• Discuss the qualities that make an effective manager/director. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of managers you’ve both encountered in your previous jobs. 
• Do a resume/CV review. Share/critique job experiences and skills.
• Perform a mock interview. Take turns asking each other difficult interview questions (i.e. “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”). Afterwards give written feedback. 
• Create a shared document/spreadsheet of program ideas. Encourage others to enter their own ideas/suggestions.
• Create a book list of titles that you both enjoy. Discuss the benefits/drawbacks of your favorites. 
• Discuss your experiences with mock Newbery/Caldecott elections. What has worked for you? What hasn’t?
• Create a wish-list for your library. What sort of technology would you like to have? What resources would you buy?
• Visit ALSC’s Great Websites for Kids. Discuss which of the featured sites you’ve used and which you would like to try. Suggest a site. 
• Read and discuss an article from Children & Libraries magazine. What did you like? What didn’t you like? 
• Co-author an ALSC Blog guest post. Submit your idea for a blog post.  
• Read an article about mentoring (i.e. resources). Discuss how it applies to your match. 
• Participate in a free ALSC Student Session and discuss how the materials apply to you. 
• Discuss your experiences with El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/Book Day) programs. Have you hosted an event? What has worked? 
• Explore the Every Child Ready to Read Ning site. Discuss what resources would work for you and how you might be able to add to the site.

From ALSC

Fresh Paint ideas

Great series of articles from a new library and teen center. Program and outreach ideas, language for advocating for teens, etc. So many ideas and phrases to remember!

Meeting with school librarians: "we talked about sharing materials, providing space for student-to-student tutoring, in-school visits by librarians, field trips to the library, and getting library cards into the hands of students...I advised the librarians to work with teachers to get the list to us as soon as it’s finalized, so come August, we’ll have the books that their kids need. We also discussed an idea to reduce the physical stress on students: lending textbooks to the library to shelve in our reference collection or in our teen center so that kids won’t have to lug those heavy tomes home every night."

Programming from scratch: "It was important for me to establish a calendar that set a standard, but left plenty of room to grow. I was inclined to host dozens of programs during the first few months in order to show the community everything we were capable of doing, but heeded the advice from the director who advised me to leave enough room in the schedule to add, but never to take away, programs. Adding programs as we get to know the community’s interests is a step forward; cancelling a program because of overbooking or realizing there’s no interest in it is a step backwards. While we may not have as many programs planned as other libraries, we have plenty of wiggle room in the schedule as well as preapproval for last-minute additions, if need be."


SLJ column

Read, Play, Grow!

Program ideas to help teach parents how to play with infants/toddlers. Brooklyn PL sets up stations with home objects (cereal boxes, board books, shredded paper) after storytimes and at playdates.

SLJ July 2013