This year (2021, in case you’re not sure) I’ve been invited by the Seattle Public Library to join them in presenting at the Washington Library Association Conference about an inter-library system service I partnered to help develop and lead. Your Next Job is a free one-on-one service where individuals can virtually meet with reference staff…
Library Digital Escape Rooms
As libraries diversify their online offerings as a result of COVID-19, here’s an awesome example of one of the directions that can take – digital escape rooms!
Libraries as Neutral Spaces
On March 2nd, Dr. Seuss Enterprises released the following statement: Today, on Dr. Seuss’s Birthday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises celebrates reading and also our mission of supporting all children and families with messages of hope, inspiration, inclusion, and friendship. We are committed to action. To that end, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, working with a panel of experts,…
All Good Things Come To An End…Or, At Least, Pause For A Bit!
It’s been over a year now that I’ve been in the role of an Adult Services Librarian at the Auburn Library in the King County Library System. I’ve had the chance to learn so much, do so much, and grow so much in this job. When I initially took this position in 2019, I was…
An Autumn Update
I can tell I’ve gotten busier – my blog has become neglected! I don’t think I could ever have guessed while typing my blog entries earlier this year that the library system would still only be offering online programming. What a strange and interesting time this has been for starting to build experience as a…
BLM: Why is it so hard for some libraries to say?
So, before we dive in to the meaty subject of this post – a COVID-19 update on the librarian front. I’ve filled my work-from-home time becoming a new publisher for the KCLS website (writing blog posts, creating content, etc.), volunteered as one of the judges for the adult entries in the Rhyme On! poetry contest…
Programming for a Pandemic?
Well I sure picked a weird year to start off my librarian career! I was off to a strong start – in February I offered a workshop on completing the low-income housing assistance application (which was open in King County for only ~3 weeks) and had 21 people show up (plus their partners/children/etc)! For the…
When the US National Archives start censoring historic photos…
To celebrate the 100th year of (white) women’s suffrage, the US National Archives created a special exhibition. At the entrance, a large color photograph of the Women’s March which took place the day after President Trump’s inauguration that, when viewed from another perspective, morphs into a different black and white photograph of women marching for…
It’s A Wonderful Life…for Mary!
source As a librarian named Mary, I can confirm THIS is a WONDERFUL LIFE for me 😉
MY FIRST LIBRARIAN JOB!!
There’s no way I thought, so soon after graduating earlier this year with my MLIS, that I would have news like this – BUT! – I have actually been hired for my first librarian job! It’s a full time, temporary position as an Adult Services Librarian for the Auburn Library in Auburn, Washington (yes, the…
9 Reasons I Love the Library (by Gemma Correll)
(all credit to the artist, Gemma Correll!)
Confrontations with history
There is an ongoing struggle in public discourse to tackle how to acknowledging the harm of the past without giving it power to cause harm in the present. This New York Times article focuses on an excellent example. From the article: In the debate over the 13 murals that make up “The Life of Washington,”…
simply imagiMARY 