Jacqui’s Friday Five - Issue #4

It has been a busy week for us – immersed in a library service in eastern Melbourne – but today is a ‘public holiday’ here in Victoria (celebrating a football parade!) so I am back home and have the chance to pull together my Friday Five.

My cover photo for this week comes courtesy of Everything Libraries – another great page to follow.  I don’t think I can actually put a number on how many libraries I have visited in my lifetime as our job takes us to so many every year, but I think our farthest library visit would probably be the Bibliotheca in Alexandria in Egypt. This amazing architectural space on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea opened in 2002 and was built in commemoration of the ancient Library of Alexandria. 

So here are my next Friday Five.

4.1. The best membership card you will own: Everything Libraries shared a post from Stratford Library Association in Connecticut of a library patron with their original library card … from over 50 years ago. Allen B proudly stood for a photo holding his card dated April 1971. While I may not have a card that old I am incredibly proud and grateful to hold membership at a number of library services across Australia. I loved the tag they had on the post – “One card … endless possibilities.” Click here for more

4.2. Sometimes we can be a little too literal: A little giggle from me when I watched the video created by the staff of Monroeville Library Children’s Room. I love the humour, and if this is an indication of the fun these library staff have then I think the children of Monroeville must be very lucky! Click here for more

4.3. School holiday programs: It is currently school holidays in Victoria and libraries are working above and beyond to provide free, engaging and fun activities for families to attend. We continue to face a cost of living crisis with rising costs forcing many families to tighten the purse strings and forgo activities that they may have once enjoyed with their children. Libraries provide amazing programs like Reptile Encounters, making paper flowers, Minecraft workshops, Escape rooms, board games and many, many more. I am not going to share a link to a particular library service but I do want to give a huge shout out to the Children’s teams, the programming staff and all those who are involved in making these events accessible.

4.4. YLab and Public Libraries Victoria: A collaboration between these two organisations caught my eye this week, having been shared on several library Facebook pages. It invites young people (13-25) to join a unique opportunity to participate in a workshop to help guide libraries to be more welcoming and inclusive for young people. As we all know in Library Land it can be difficult to bring this age demographic into the library, so who better to advise the library sector then the people themselves.  For example

4.5. A librarian to follow: I have been following Heather - The Contoured Librarian for some time now. Heather is an elementary school librarian from Texas in the United States. Her page is lighthearted, filled with fantastic ideas on how to engage young readers, ways to set up your children’s spaces, repair books and her own book recommendations. A recent post really resonated with me where Heather talked about why she calls certain books in her collection ‘Quick Fiction’. Using this term allows readers of all ages to feel comfortable in selecting books that may be deemed by others to be ‘below’ their age level. Click here for more