It's Been Awhile

Readers, it has been awhile.  I last posted to this blog way back in late February.  That's a little over five months ago.  Oops. 

I've been plenty busy during that time.  Namely, I went and had a baby.  She is, in my humble opinion, the greatest baby on the planet.  But she does keep me plenty busy, thus the lack of blog posts.  I have only returned to work full-time this week and I'm not going to lie:  Coming back to work has been very, very difficult.  It's a good thing I love my job or I'd be in some real trouble.

Lots of fun things have been happening around the library since my last post.  The Summer Library Program just drew to a close, and even though I was only a part-time librarian during this time I still have lots of fantastic stories to tell about our very successful program.  I'm optimistically hoping to have the time and the energy to go back and blog about a few of them, so watch this space for new posts soon.  In the meantime, please send me happy vibes and I balance to joys of motherhood with the joys of being an awesome librarian.

New Design

Hello everyone,

If you're reading this, than I'm sure that you've noticed that I have changed the design of this blog a bit.  The layout is more or less the same for now, but the design and color scheme is quite different.  I'm hoping that this design is a little easier on the eyes.

I'm hoping to make a few other minor tweaks soon to this blog in terms of the layout and design.  We'll see if that plan actually comes to fruition, because this librarian has a lot of other projects on her plate at the moment.

Thanks again for reading!

Mom

Today as the toddlers were leaving storytime I said goodbye to one of the boys, calling him by name.  He replied with a smile and a wave and said, "Bye, Mom!"

The boy's actually mother and I both cracked up.

Actually, I'm amazed that it's taken this long for a kid at the library to call me "Mom."  I've been working in libraries for almost seven years now, and this is the first time (at least that I can remember) that it's happened.



This story makes me think of another announcement that I should probably make on this blog, though I'm sure that most of my regular readers have already heard the news.  This librarian is having a baby!  She should be arriving sometime at the end of May.  I'm blaming pregnancy on at least part of the reason why my reading has slowed down and blog posts have been a bit slower to come out.  Excitement abounds.

Related Posts

Just a quick announcement:

Look at the bottom of this post. Do you see those lovely thumbnails? These links will appear at the bottom of each and every post and will direct you to a few other posts on this blog that might be related to the one you are reading. These related posts are generated automatically based on the tags/labels that I give each post. Therefore a post labeled "reviews" might list other posts that have the "reviews" label.

Hopefully this will help readers - especially those who just stumble upon this blog via a Google search - find other interesting things to peruse on this blog. Enjoy!

New Job!

Hello, denizens of the Internet!

I have a bit of exciting news to share (well, exciting for me anyway). I've recently accepted a new job! I'm so excited about the prospect. This is still a youth services position, but I'll be working in a slightly larger library with a small youth services staff. I'm so anxious to be working in a department with other people who care passionately about working with young people.

The new job, of course, means that I'm probably going to be moving sometime in the near future. I'm not planning to disappear completely from this blog during the transition, but if things seem slightly sporadic then that is probably why.

Wish me luck!

Reactions

I generally pride myself on being up to date on online goodies. But last night I discovered something awesome: Blogger's "Stats" tab. It had been right under my nose for ages, yet I'd never given it much thought until now. I had no idea that Blogger kept such detailed statistics! I get very few comments on my individual blog posts, but all things considering this little thing gets a respectable amount of traffic. For example, did you know that my lovely little corner of the web has 126 total page views in Slovenia? And that 54 of these views are from this month alone? And that my most popular post was my review last summer of the awesome book, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda with 197 views? Yes, I know that this kind of traffic isn't amazing in the grand scheme of things, but it's still a lot more than I had imagined.

Despite the traffic, this blog gets very few comments. Ah well. Not everyone wants to put themselves out there on someone else's blog. And composing a comment does require a certain amount of effort. I totally get that; I do quite a bit of lurking myself. But a girl likes to have feedback, so I've added a little something to this blog: Reactions. This feature has been around Blogger for ages but I've never bothered with it until now. But at the bottom of each post you'll be able to click an appropriate response to whatever it was you were reading. Painless and anonymous for readers, gratifying for me. Everybody wins!

Another new feature can also be found at the bottom of each blog post. If you are so compelled to share something I've written here with a friend/colleagues/everyone you know, you can share a post on Twitter, Facebook, via e-mail and more with the click of a button .

To all of my readers, whether or not I know who you are: Thanks for stopping in.

Subscribe!

Did you know that you can subscribe to my blog and be notified every time a new post is published? It's pretty easy. At the bottom of the sidebar you will see that I have set up both an RSS feed and e-mail notifications. Pick your poison and never miss one of my awesome library-themed ramblings.

New Blog Design!

I decided that this blog needed a bit of a face lift. Sort of a "new job, new color scheme" sort of thing. After all, the design templates on Blogger have grown to include a lot more designs and customization is easier than ever. What do you think?

I'd also like this opportunity to ask my readers (small in number though you may be) if there's anything in particular you'd like me to post about - a book, a particular library or literacy issue - whatever you're interested in along this general theme. Suggestions might keep me a bit more active during the coming weeks of madness.

Exciting Announcement!

It's been nearly two weeks since my last post and things are likely to be just as sporadic over the next month or so. Why? I got a new job! I've now officially graduated from Overqualified-Library-Assistant-Who-Nonetheless-Mostly-Loves-Her-Job to Full-Fledged Youth Services Librarian. Huzzah! I'm really excited about the new job. It seems like it will be a great opportunity and I'm totally excited to plan programs and order books for the kids and teens in my charming new community. While I don't start the new job until the end of August I am a bit distracted with trying to pack up my life and move to this new town, so my reading and blogging time may be cut short. But I'll do my best to keep you all entertained.

Meanwhile, Summer Reading Program is in full swing. I've talked to a couple hundred kids this summer about all of the books they've been working on. My favorite conversation thus far was with an eight-year-old boy who's been working his way through a series of biographies about all of the presidents. Wow! Here are just a few other books that I've seen pop up this summer:



















































What else have you all been reading this summer?