Unprogramming and Blogging at the Missouri Library Association Conference

At the end of last week, I drove back down to Missouri for the 2014 Missouri Library Association Conference. I was slated to present twice on the last morning of the conference, each time with a former colleague.

My former branch colleague, Angie Soetebier-McDonnell, and I gave a presentation on our experiences with unprogramming within our branch. Angie still focuses primarily on teen services at the branch, and while I worked there I did lots of school-age programming in addition to other responsibilities. After Marge Loch-Wouters and I developed the concept of unprogramming (unpacked in a series of posts beginning here), Angie and I talked about it at length. It's a programming philosophy and strategy that minimizes library costs--staff planning time, purchasing supplies, etc.--while engaging youth participants at least as much, if not more than, traditional programs. That's what Angie and I presented: ways to use unprogramming in lots of youth and teen library contexts, as well as a number of program examples. Our slides are below.

Unprogramming for Kids & Teens: High-impact Programs, Low-impact Planning from Amy Koester

The second presentation was with Sarah Bean Thompson. We cheekily gave the presentation as the Green Bean Teen Queen (Sarah) and the Show Me Librarian (me), because those are our blog aliases--our presentation was all about getting started blogging. As Sarah and I crafted the presentation, we reflected on our own experiences with blogging and thought what a new blogger might need/want to know. The result is the "First-Time Blogging in 10 Steps" list that we discussed, step-by-step, in our session. The full slides are below, including lists of exemplar blogs on the final few slides. If you've got any questions about blogging--or about writing guest posts--please feel free to contact either Sarah or myself! It's an offer we extended to our program audience, and we're happy to extend it to you, too.

So You Want to Blog: The Hows, Whats, and Whys of Creating Your Own Space on the Internet from Amy Koester

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Thanks to the organizers of the 2014 Missouri Library Association Conference for your work and hospitality!