Teen Services Today: A Practical Guide for Librarians

I have a new book out! It's a nonfiction book about teen services in public libraries that I co-wrote with Geri Swanzy, a friend and colleague, called Teen Services Today: A Practical Guide for Librarians.

Writing this book was a different experience from writing fiction. For one thing, my name was suggested to the editor by another library colleague. I knew writing nonfiction would be different and recruited my friend Geri, so we could share the work. The two of us wrote a proposal for the book and were pleasantly surprised when it was accepted by Rowman & Littlefield.

The biggest difference between my experiences writing fiction and my experience writing nonfiction was the actual process of writing. And I don't just mean having a collaborator. We wrote this book out of chapter order and sent the individual chapters to our editor as we completed them. With fiction, the entire book is written before I send it to my agent.

While we were writing this book, we faced a number of hurdles. Since we set our own deadline with the initial proposal, we foolishly gave ourselves about six months to get this all done. Little did we know that I would accept another job and move 1200 miles during that time. And that's not even factoring in vacations and conferences!

We wrote the book for new librarians or paraprofessionals to give them some background, history, resources, and programming ideas to help them serve the teens in their communities. Our goal was to make it chatty and easy to read.

I hope Teen Services Today proves helpful to those library staff members who need and use it.

My TLA Author Experience

In April I attended the Texas Library Association's annual conference as I have for the past sixteen years.

As the conference was in Austin this year, I went up early to visit a friend. I planned to leave directly from work, so my bags were packed and in the car.

Before I left work, I got a phone call from Terry, the marketing director at Holiday House. Would I be available to attend a dinner Wednesday night? I told her I would, and she said she would send me the guest list.

At a pit stop on the way to Austin, I checked my email and saw the guest list. I recognized a few of the librarians listed, but what surprised me even more was being listed as an author along with Roxie Munro and Michelle Lord.

Wait. I was coming to this dinner as an author?

Shaken and more than a little terrified at this prospect, I continued on my way. That's when it hit me.

I didn't have anything to wear to this dinner!

I'm a light packer and generally take only what I need. I had pop culture T-shirts for my weekend with my friend and library system polo shirts for TLA. I had sturdy walking shoes. Somehow, I didn't think it would be appropriate to show up at a dinner with Holiday House wearing a Big Lebowski shirt or a Brazoria County Library System polo.

Only one solution - shopping!

My friend and I popped over to Target where I bought a dressier shirt and Frozen flip-flops. I am a children's writer and a children's librarian, after all!

Once the conference exhibits opened, I stopped by the Holiday House booth and got another shock - a flier advertising After the Ashes. I picked it up and snagged the first librarian who walked by and said, "This is me!" Then I took a photo with a different librarian (I think she was from Lubbock).

I took that flier and showed it to everyone I knew.

Then came the dinner. Terry asked me to read a small excerpt from After the Ashes. Thankfully, I had the manuscript in my email. I chose a selection that would hopefully leave those in attendance wanting more.

Unfortunately, Michelle Lord was taken ill and could not attend the dinner, but Roxie Munro is amazing. She talked about how she developed her new book Market Maze.

Then it was my turn. It was at this point that I thanked my lucky stars I'm a children's librarian. Reading in front of a crowd is not a problem. I was also grateful for all the one-act play and prose training I got in high school for UIL.

I took a breath and read from my iPad.

Those in attendance seemed to enjoy it. They 'oohed' at the forbidding nature of the end of my selection.

The rest of the evening was spent in discussion about books, libraries and education. All in all, a terrific way to introduce myself as an author.

Off to Indiana

It's been a few weeks since I've updated here. We had the floors replaced in parts of the house, so between packing stuff and moving furniture, certain things - including this blog - got neglected.

Now I'm off to attend the Public Library Association Conference in Indianapolis. This will be the sixth PLA Conference I've been to. When I was in graduate school, a professor told her classroom that once we attended PLA, we would never want to go to another type of library conference again.

She was right.

PLA is strictly for public librarians, so all the sessions are useful. I don't have to figure out how to adapt information for school or academic librarians to a public library setting. Bliss!

I've had lots of fun at PLA Conferences in the past, and I fully intend to have a good time at this conference.

My biggest problem is that every one of these conferences I've attended has been up north in cold temperatures (it might even snow this time!). Can we move it somewhere warmer please?

How I Became a Librarian

Short answer? In my last year of college, my mother said I could go to graduate school, but it would have to be a public school. I had two options -- International Relations or Library Science. Like any good future librarian, I consulted the Peterson’s Guide to Graduate Programs and discovered that library school did not require a thesis. Ding, ding, ding! That’s why I chose library school.

Although the above answer is true, there is more to it than that.

When I graduated high school, I went to Texas Lutheran University (then it was still Texas Lutheran College; the name changed after my second year there). I was a communications major and hoped to eventually be a film critic. For my four years at college, I served as the arts and entertainment editor for the university newspaper, the Lone Star Lutheran.

But TLU changed the requirements for communications majors and overhauled the department. I thought the changes actually weakened the degree. Let me be clear, the newspaper advisor was excellent. Many of the things she taught me, I still use today (yay, library marketing!).

At the time of the overhaul, I was taking an American government class that I thoroughly enjoyed. I decided to double-major in communications and political science. That lasted about a year before I realized I wouldn’t be able to graduate in four years. I was attending a private university. Although I had several scholarships, I also had some pretty significant loans. I had to graduate in four years.

So I dropped communications. By that time I thought about joining the U.S. Foreign Service.

But I was also working in the school’s library at this time. It was fun work, and I adored seeing the new books. I also rediscovered my love of children’s literature through the library’s small collection of titles, mainly used by education majors.

When Mom said I could go to graduate school, I had a decision to make.

Foreign service or public library?

I chose librarianship, and one of the biggest determining factors was not having to write a thesis. But the fact that Texas has three American Library Association-accredited library schools helped. Of those three, I chose the University of Texas and earned a master's degree in library and information science.

Looking back at how U.S. foreign policy has morphed over the past fifteen years, I know I made the right decision.

Despite the fact that my path to library school was circuitous, some of the classes I took at TLU have proved useful in my professional career.

• Newspaper Writing -- I have to write, read and review press releases. I also have proofread signs, online ads and plenty of other written documentation.
• Public Administration -- I work for local government, so this is easy to understand. Most important thing I learned in this class? Never answer a question with “I don’t know.” Always say, “I’ll have to get back to you about that.”
• Statistics -- For those of you who don’t know, librarians actually love numbers (whether they love math is a different matter). We use statistics to justify adding programs, dropping programs, increasing budgets, our entire existence basically.

You never know what the future holds for you, and the things you learn along the way may prove useful in ways you never imagine.

Another Round of Queries

I've sent the young adult historical fiction query to more agents. Since I returned from vacation, I've been remiss in querying.

I have remedied that today!

Between writing and work at the library, I feel like I'm barely treading water. Fortunately, summer will soon be over, so I think I'll be able pull myself up. Ah, the life of a public librarian – busy in the summer, but getting some rest during the school year.

Remembering Linda

My first job in a library was in college. I worked in the back of the library preparing books for the shelves - laminating paperbacks, applying spine labels and stripping books. Stripping the books was the most fun. It means applying the thin strip of metal that causes the books to trip the alarm if they're not checked out. One of my co-workers said the process was like giving the books a lobotomy.

My supervisor at the library was Linda Clark. She was lots of fun. When I was accepted into the library school at the University of Texas, she was thrilled for me. She had gone there herself years earlier. I asked her if she knew the professor who had signed my acceptance letter, and her response was, "Is he still there?"

I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad one, but he was "still there."

Linda also clued me in to the fact that librarians don't really get a chance to read that much.

And she watched King of the Hill. My roommate, who worked in a different part of the library, and I always wanted to call Linda and leave a message on her office voice mail spoofing one of our favorite bits from the first season of that show.  "You don't know who I am, but I know where you work."  But we never did.

I learned yesterday that Linda Clark was killed in a car wreck on Monday. I hadn't really seen her since I graduated from college, but I still thought about her. I considered her a friend, and I will miss her.

My Dewey Number

I'm a librarian, so I'm interested in knowing where all things belong according that bizarre little man known as Melvil Dewey. So, I took a (very brief) quiz to learn my own personal Dewey Decimal Number, and here are the results.

S K Joiner's Dewey Decimal Section:

680 Manufacture for specific uses

S K Joiner = 91811059458 = 918+110+594+58 = 1680


Class:
600 Technology


Contains:
Health, agriculture, management, public relations, buildings.



What it says about you:
You are creative and inspired to make the world a better place. You can work hard on something when it catches your interest. Your friends have unique interests in common with you.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Fairly accurate. Neat!