Twitter for Parents and Caregivers of Young Children!

Twitter, the microblogging site that allows anyone and everyone to share their opinion on issues large and small, has been in the news quite a bit the past few years. From Kanye West’s clothing choices to news of revolution in the Middle East, Twitter can be many things to different people. As a librarian, I tend to use Twitter differently than my friends who are doctors or engineers. For example, I really enjoy following one of my favorite children’s book authors, Mo Willems (@The_Pigeon), who tweets hilariously as a character from his award-winning book Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! So too parents and caregivers of young children have formed something of a category of their own on Twitter. From craft ideas to tips for learning to read to general parenting advice, there is something for every kind of parent. Here are just a few of the organizations that I think are really helpful (and sometimes super funny) on Twitter:

@preschoolers
www.education.com's Twitter account focuses preschool. They tweet a “preschool activity of the day” involving a cheap or no - cost craft just for preschoolers.

@ParentHacks
From the editors of www.parenthacks.com - smart parents share forehead-smackingly clever tips, shortcuts, and product recommendations.

@ReadingRockets
Teaching kids to read, especially those who struggle. Research, classroom strategies, parent tips, books and authors, and much more, for educators and families. http://www.readingrockets.org

@ParentsMagazine
Tips and links to articles by the editors of Parents Magazine and www.parents.com

@DailyParentTip
From the editors of www.dailyparenttip.com - daily updates with helpful advice on a variety of topics


@pbsparents and @pbskids
Parenting tips, articles, games and ideas. http://www.pbsparents.org and http://www.pbskids.org

Don’t worry if you don’t want to sign up for Twitter. All of these Twitter feeds are attached to websites where you can go for the information. However, sometimes it’s nice when the information comes to you instead of you having to seek it out! This is just a short list—there are many more parent and pre-kindergarten focused Twitter feeds out there. Do you have a favorite that we missed? Share it in the comments!

Bound for the North Star - amazing and uplifting!

Each chapter in this amazing book is its own true story of a life. Some stories like Harriet Tubman's we've heard before - but in this book her journeys get fleshed out with full, rich details. (And I felt like I was on the journey by mail with Henry "Box" Brown.) Some stories - like the Oberlin riots, were totally new to me! Taking up two chapters towards the end of the book this is the story of how a whole town riots to save a former slave. Our runaway slave makes it to Oberlin, Ohio where he lives and works peacefully for several years until slave catchers track him down and find him. He and a friend are kidnapped and held in a hotel in a neighboring town. Well, when the townspeople of Oberlin find out their reaction is totally amazing. Professors cancel classes, storekeepers close up shop - the ENTIRE town of Oberlin marches to the hotel where the former slaves are being held and surround it! The slave catchers, fearing for their lives, escape and our heroes are freed again!

There are so many inspiring stories like the Oberlin Riot - most end happily, a few do not but they are all tributes to the capacity of the human spirit.

To sum up: Fascinating true stories told in an engaging and riveting manner with a bonus that many of the stories end right here in Philadelphia due to the hard work of a former slave and abolitionist William Still!

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda

Did you ever wish you could go to a friend for advice and they would always be right? Well in this case the main character goes to his friend's finger to get advice from an origami puppet! What? Sounds totally strange, right? But wait - this book is written like it's a notebook keeping track of all of the strange ways in which the puppet was right. Ask a girl to dance or don't ask? Origami Yoda knows! Put up with the bully or start a food fight? Origami Yoda knows! This is a totally fun book that deals with all kinds of stuff like popularity, friendship, angst and of course the "weird" kid with the great origami skills. Its a little bit like a cross between The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and Encyclopedia Brown - so if you liked either of those you should totally check this book out!

I love Google Alerts

I have two google alerts set up right now - one for myself (I know, totally vain) and one for my library. Any time my name pops up on the web I get an email. Granted its not as often as if I were say, Britney Spears but its still nice to feel like I'm not top of my own web presence. As for my library - well lets just say that with budgets and union contracts they way they are for all libraries these days we pop up alot in the local media. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I like it when my info comes to me instead of me having to search every local paper for it. Yay! Is it wrong to say that I'll use this to stalk my favorite authors and bands now?

De.licious

I'm glad I finally signed up for Delicious - the facebook of websites but frankly it could not have been more annoying. I hated having to create a yahoo email account to do this. I hated that it kept bouncing me out. I figure I'll learn to like it but right now, not so much.

So...

I've been thinking a lot about the role of libraries and technology. There seem to currently be two prevailing schools of thought in my library: Technology is new! We must get on the latest trends! No time to figure out what they mean! Get us a blog! Conversely: I hate it, its scary and I will delete unread any email that has an attachment!

I fall somewhere in the middle. I came of age with the changing technology and some things come easily to me, some things are still overwhelming. I love how twitter and facebook let me keep in touch with friends around the country and the world - and not the just the big conversations. I know who has a cold and who is thinking about making a fritata for dinner tonight. Its fantastic.

But how do I keep up with all of the information? There is so much out there that I can't barely keep on top of all of it unless I make it my full time job. And frankly if there is anything I'm trying to find more time for its not keeping up with journals and blogs - its going to be napping, reading and eating snacks.

I remember being at a conference where Joe Murphy from the Yale University libraries was presenting the idea of text reference service in libraries. I found his presentation really abrasive and overly confrontational but I will say that I did take one thing away from it that's really stuck with me: people don't want to come to the information, they want the information to come to them. And he's right. I love having the blogs I follow come into my Google Reader. I love having news headlines texted to my smart phone from Twitter. I don't always have time to read the full article but I can scan them and get the gist. Every Monday morning when the Publishers Weekly reviews are posted to Twitter they show up on my phone in time for my morning coffee. When I attended the Public Library Association conference this past March OF COURSE all of the sessions I wanted to go to were at the same time. Luckily School Library Journal was posting links on twitter to highlights and outlines of some of the sessions I couldn't make it to! Twitter and Google Reader definitely changed my life by allowing the information to come to me on my schedule.

I love having information come to me - I bet our patrons would love it if our information came to them. So what do we do since no libraries seem to be fully staffed or fully funded? Right now, this blog post is part of the American Library Association's Association for Library Service to Children's 21 Things online course. 8 weeks to do 21 web based things that all the cool kids are already doing. I think trainings like these are a great start to demystify the big bad internet. There is so much out there that could help us make not only our lives and our patrons lives easier - and this is just the kind of online course is just the kind of excuse I need to try them. Thanks ALSC!