Hi, Savannah! Right off the bat I want to say that I love the sentence “Let’s talk about the mess.” Your writing style in this post does a great job juxtaposing the concepts that you and many of the readings for this week rightfully point out to be something “uncomfortable” and therefore difficult to hurdle and have productive conversations about. I think that feeling is what drives a lot of change in my own library – looking at something and thinking, “I know this isn’t working, I know this isn’t right, but I’m not sure what I can do to fix it yet.” A lot of the time, answering that question is as simple as asking my students or fellow staff members, “Hey, what do you think of this?” and using their feedback to help experiment with change. In libraries, we can’t be afraid to do things differently whether or not the discomfort is there – sometimes a change made is solely for the sake of slaking creative thirst and addressing the niggling “What if?”! Otherwise, we risk stagnation, when it’s becoming clear that in the twenty-first century information should be (and perhaps always has been) fluid.

I too went from education to librarianship. Like you, I find the two very relatable. I have been teaching at Fresno State for years as an adjunct professor. I first started working at a library to augment my income, but found that I enjoyed my library days more than my teaching days, so I have gone full time at the library and no longer teach. I have used my teaching experience for programs at the library, so in no way do I feel that the time spent in the classroom was wasted.

I love your ideas of playing to learn and hope you can incorporate them into your school library.

@savannahpolizzi So good! and ✔✔✔ ❤️.

I so appreciate the picture you paint of the library as a story telling space in every possible way that that could take place: storytime, the human library, and anything else in between.

@savannahpolizzi I enjoyed reading this post and I think you did a good job of categorizing and unpacking what is happening in libraries. Also, I don’t know if I’ve said this in a previous comment, but I love the little checkmarks you’re putting by the readings that you’ve used. Yay. ✔️📚

What a great idea! It reminds me of the agent/editor speed dating rounds at author conferences.

@savannahpolizzi thank you for this. So good to be reminded of everything Pew has done centered on libraries. I really found the typology good to revisit and I think it holds up pretty well. I am wondering how we might serve all of those different folks from the people that love the library to those that might have things that prevent them from visiting the library.

@savannahpolizzi I am all about the use of ✔! So cool.

Thanks for this thoughtful post about supporting the needs of our users. The Greenwood article is a favorite.