YS fever

I'm a woman in my late 20s, so people have started to talk to me about baby fever. I don't have that, but last week I did have a flare up of totally misguided desire to become a youth services librarian, which I'm going to call YS Fever.
 
One of the pleasures of working at Small Town Library, as I think I've mentioned before, is that we got a 3D printer this winter. It's just a toy so far, but it's a pretty great toy. I've jointly taken the lead on doing stuff with it along with another librarian because again, I have techno-joy rather than techno-fear.

I really wanted to use the 3D printer as a way to draw patrons in to a maker space program, about 1/2 because I was genuinely interested in maker spaces and 1/2 because then I could have maker space experience on my resume. Maker spaces are one of the latest bandwagon trends in public libraries: they're meant to make libraries a two-way street by making patrons into producers as well as consumers, to be the birthplace of world-improving ideas or at least low-budget small business incubators, and to foster/teach collaboration, creativity, problem-solving, and probably also some kind of employable technical skills. Low expectations, right?

Anyway, we had our first 'pop up maker space' program last week. It mainly drew kids ages 8-15 or so, about ten of them. I'm an adult services librarian mainly because I have no clue how to interact with kids in a group setting or to how to make them do what I want, so this was intimidating to me. So imagine my relief and excitement as I watched all the participants help each other selflessly and in a non-bossy fashion, basically exactly how a makerspace program is supposed to make people behave. One kid would speak up to get my help with something and in the 20 seconds it would take me to get there, another kid would already be there looking over the problem and providing guidance.

They chatted with each other and with me quite a bit, and it was a success. I wowed them by telling them it was the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter book being published and telling them about the early days of fandom. We compared some of our favorite maker-relevant YouTube channels. I like that you can say things to kids that it's socially unacceptable to say to adults even when they are true--somehow we got to talking about dogs, and I told them that I wanted to get a greyhound because they're lazy and I'm lazy, so I thought it would be a good fit. Not something you say to strange adults, but the kids didn't bat an eye.

Then I was on the desk next day, checking out books to a family of a mom and two young kids, the older of whom was playing Pokemon Go on his mom's phone. They had a big pile of picture books, so to chat while they waited I asked him if he was playing Pokemon. Two minutes later, I was assuring this boy that I would keep an eye on the Arbok his family had put in the gym outside the library--Go Team Mystic!

I may have to sit in on a storytime this week to cure myself. The high-pitched, constant voices and total lack of regard for personal space at Preschool Storytime should do it.