Sharing Our Good Work and lots of Bright Spots

Congratulations to lots of staff members who are sharing Kenosha's great ideas and projects with the library community at-large! Here are a few mentions from the YFS team that Heather included in her March board report:

"Congratulations to Youth Librarians Amy Rae Weaver, Jessica Hodges, and Megan Nigh who recently had presentation proposals accepted for the Wisconsin Association for Public Libraries (WAPL) Conference in May! Megan Nigh will also be presenting at the ALA Annual Conference in San Diego, CA in June. Early Literacy Specialist Shawn Wolf will be presenting at UW-Whitewater’s Early Childhood Education Conference in April. Youth Librarians Tessa Fox-Pawlaczyk and Heather Thompson will be presenting at the Public Library Association’s Virtual Conference in April. Teen Services Specialist Elliott Walcroft received a scholarship to attend the Public Library Association Conference in person in Columbus, OH. We are so proud of our team!"

Shannon will be presenting at the October "Back in Circulation" conference in Madison on how we've rearranged our collections for better use. Here's her program description.

"Over the past decade, Kenosha Public Library envisioned space renovation and improved collection development. Despite facing the challenges of the pandemic, civil unrest, and the loss of our administration office building in 2020, we persevered, earning recognition as the Wisconsin Library Association’s Library of the Year in 2020 and an IMLS National Medal Finalist in 2021. In 2022, an unexpected opportunity allowed us to launch a design plan that propelled us three years ahead of our strategic plan, integrating innovative collection development goals. We genrefied our fiction collection, started the transition away from the Dewey Decimal System in non-fiction, and established a hybrid Pop Asia collection. Join us to dive into the details of our transformation, discover our process for deciding difficult taxonomy, explore the methods used for reshaping our collections, and learn about the significant outcomes observed a year later."

It's so great to see our staff sharing our successes (and failures, too!) with library staff across the country. We've made a huge effort to test new ways to engage the public with the value of their libraries and information sharing like this helps all libraries everywhere.

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This week's Bright Spot nominations:

From Shannon: "Last week I was helping a patron who told me, several times, "those tall fellas at the desk are really great." Those tall fellas, Alex and DJ, have also gotten several compliments from staff who close with them on Tuesday nights. Thank you both for your stand-out performance with patrons and staff, it is deeply appreciated."

From Hillary S:
"I would like to recognize Dan Sommerfeld for Bright Spot Recognition. Dan works as one of our OPE Bookmobile drivers and balances OPE school and community stops. Dan is hardworking, reliable and punctual. Dan is always smiling and quick to offer a passing hello. Dan goes above and beyond by taking initiative to do tasks that are much needed, but often fall by the wayside; such as tackling the missing list and cleaning, vacuuming and washing the Bookmobile and Book Truck. I really appreciate Dan's help on Fridays during our busy stop at St. Joseph. While I am often tied up with checking out students' books, Dan can be found milling around groups of students. Dan fields questions, locates materials, makes reading recommendations and places a number of items on hold. Dan makes sure we always have enough Dogman and Taylor Swift books to go around! We appreciate you, Dan! "

Have a great week, everyone!