Teen Services Mash Up

This was a pretty unique session.  Something like 16 librarians presented poster sessions.  You picked four to attend and sat at their table until the organizers said to switch. 

Of the four I sat through I found two particularly interesting.  The first was from a young public librarian in California who is the only Spanish speaker in her library.  The community she serves has a high Latino population, so she - and her Spanish speaking skills - are in high demand.  She developed a system of cards with attached QR Codes that would help guide the patrons to the resources they needed when she is not available.  For example, one card says embarazado (Spanish for pregnant) on the front and has a QR Code on the back.  If a patron scans the QR Code the link will go to the resources in the library for pregnancy.  Very clever, I think, but it doesn't end there.  She also downloaded an app that will map your library (I will be emailing her for the name of this) and this app will take the patron directly to (or at least pretty close to) the book.  This got me thinking about augmented reality.  Note - augmented reality is where you have something real, like the library shelves, integrated with something in the Internet world, like a video explaining what's in the 300 section of the library when you reach that area in the library.  I'm still brainstorming on this, but this maybe another use of the iPods. 

The other session I found particularly interesting was about a collaboration between a public library system and a school library system.  This was actually the second session that mentioned this.  Basically both initiatives were big and expensive, but very successful.  They involved adding the school libraries as an ILL (Inter Library Loan) site for the public library thus allowing students to request books from the public library and check them out at school.  I think this type of program has great benefits for both the school and public library.  It is a way of getting more books without spending more money (for the school) and a way to recruit new customers with little outreach (for the public library).  However, it is really expensive to do this to the extent discussed at the conference.  So, I was thinking about talking to the wonderful staff at the DeQuincy Public Library and seeing what we could work out.  Maybe allowing my students to place public library holds from school and then I would pick them up once a week?  If my students request permission for me to check things out on their cards this may be a way to go.  We'll see how this one plays out.  It's, honestly, not at the top of my list, but it is interesting.