Welcome to the end of another week and March has come in like a lion. But it's friday Library Advocacy Day has passed--send those thank you notes. Now it's time to dig out from the storm.

Events:

Libraries Rock: Kick off the Summer Reading Program Workshop

Friday April 6th.

Part 1: 9:30-Noon Workshop--More Info Coming Soon

Part 2: 12:30-2ish Performers and Events Showcase--More Info Coming Soon

Vermont Museum: There will be live animals and hopefully a geology focused program

Jody Fitz: I travel reading the book & planting pizza gardens with the children. The children receive a watering chart & shopping list that matches and goes along with the story itself to take home with with them as they foster the growth of their own pizza garden.

SMILE Community of Practice Coding and Computer Science Regional Learning Day - register now!

SMILE (STEAM & Making in Informal Learning Environments) Community of Practice is excited to announce that, due to the sold out success of 2 pilot learning days in Central NY, the week of March 5th SMILE cop will be in all 4 regions of the State of NY bringing you a FREE day of learning to an area near you!

Space is limited; register now!

*Coding & Computer Science Regional Day of Learning*

Coding and computer science are a national educational priority, and are important skills for 21st century life for individuals of all ages. Come learn more about the critical role informal learning environments are posed to play with this newly mandated area of literacy. Participants will gain ideas, tools, strategies and inspiration for coding and computer science programs that are easy to replicate at their libraries or organizations. Gain the skills and confidence needed to support this core area of 21st learning at your institution- no prior experience necessary!

Tuesday, 3/6/18 from 10am-3:30pm:

Where: Crandall Public Library, Glens Falls, NY

Teen Tech Week

Save the Date April 26th

More Information coming soon...

In Case You Missed It.

Playing in the Past: A History of Games, Toys, and Puzzles in North American Libraries

By Nicholson, Scott. Library Quarterly. Oct2013, Vol. 83 Issue 4, p341-361. 21p.

After reading "The Grand Old Tradition of Gaming in the Library" I came across the citation to Playing in the past. It was a very excellent read and I've supplied you with a few highligts

Moral Betterment

In the mid-nineteenth century... During this time, gambling and gaming were commonplace social leisure activities for adult males, and, in response, social reformists created spaces like “ Henry Solly’s Working Men ’ s Social Clubs ” to combine recreation with education in a controlled setting. Along these lines, libraries created game rooms and billiard parlors as a service designed to lure people out of the public houses and into a more “ appropriate ” location for these games.

All libraries have not always been willing to support chess. One heavily reported case of such resistance was at a public library in New Rochelle, New York, in 1992, where the library had a patron arrested for playing chess at a reference table. The patron had been playing with another patron when the librarian informed him of the library ’ s policy against games. The patron stopped playing but kept the board out to follow along with a chess book. The patron was arrested and later convicted for trespassing.

Toys

Inspired by noting the need for children to have access to toys and games, a dime-store manager in Los Angeles started the first toy library. Children were stealing toys from his store, and after learning that the children were good children just seeking recreation, the manager worked with a school principal to get funding for the first toy library. The idea behind the toy library was that children could check out the toys, and if they returned them in good shape, they were given a “good mark." Upon receiving twenty good marks,the child would get a reward of a title and a gift to keep. The goal was to teach positive character traits like responsibility and integrity. This library got funding through the federal Works Projects Association, but it was closed in 1942 when the WPA lost its funding.

Some might beg to differ with this next quote.

One of the more popular uses of games in libraries is in summer reading programs, where games and mechanisms such as points and prizes are used to encourage reading. The use of a reading incentive game to encourage children to read books during the summer is common and effective.

In 1988, librarian Patricia Manning wrote a piece for School Library Journal about the problem with the basic summer reading game that awards the person who reads the most books. She points out that this system rewards a few students who are already strong readers, and she proposes a new game structure that uses random drawings for prizes instead of awarding the children who read the most.

Cheers enjoy the weekend,