Bryce Pc
Marie Ota
It is an honor, though a little weird, that after all this time library staff still use my blog for field trips/tours and school outreach ideas here! I'm glad to help a little, and I intend to post more "here's something that might be useful" stuff that I'm no longer using. I know especially right now we are in an interesting spot where if you became a youth services librar* in the past three years, you may be facing a learning curve. While I hope you're able to innovate passed what I could 10 years ago, I know having some sort of starting point can mean the difference between an idea getting off the ground or staying in your head.
One thing that has happened, though, is that Google Drive updated their security settings. This means that if you ever accessed my files before around 2020, you can still access them no problem. If you click through links on my older posts for the first time now, though, it requires me to give you permission. I try to give permission ASAP, but have also been thinking about new readers who may not feel comfortable requesting. Hopefully this post will make access easy for everyone.
If you find yourself taking something from the options below and running with it (new characters/books, changes to models, etc) please email me at bryce kozla at gmail so that others may benefit. Thanks!
K-1 Class visit featuring The Book with No Pictures: this summer I gave my nephew, who just started first grade, his first ever reading of this book. Gotta say 6-7 is the PERFECT age for "Book w no pic" (ahem...the quote is a YS Internet Library joke from 2015 about the ubiquitousness of using and suggesting the book, but hey. What I lack in up-to-date jokes I make up for by writing in excess of one or fewer blog posts every year). Here are the direct files!
I've written up a lot more programs through the years,which again, are debatedly outdated AF (except for my guest posters and former intern Jennifer, you are all eternal) but could be a great stepping stone for getting into event programs for your library.
The goal of this course is to have students emerge as passionate advocates of the disability community, armed with actionable ways to create and maintain inclusive services, spaces, and collections. Several of my past class members identified as people with disabilities, and they communicated how empowered they were to become self advocates. A former student, Jennifer, wrote in 2020 about all the changes her library was able to make as a result of her involvement in this course. We actually did a preconference together at a state conference!
My course has some starting places for building accessible spaces, but it is much more about digging into the history of the disability community, examining why accessibility often seems like such a low priority, and challenging yourself and your workplace to work toward being more accessible and inclusive. I am not an expert in PWD except in my own lived experience and through conversations that nondisabled people are not privy to.
If you already have some knowledge about the "why" inclusion is important, and your staff seems ready to welcome disabled people in your library, I would definitely encourage you to take a class on specifically creating accessible spaces.
A possible way forward. Once you rework your personal framing of PWD (or work on your internalized ableism if you are disabled) through exposing the abled narrative and learning the history of the ADA, you'll: get an introduction to design thinking to support all patrons including disabled patrons and workers; evaluate books for good (okay, decent and not completely harmful. We have a long way to go) representation of disability; and how to start advocating for PWD in your library, including resources to find organizations to partner with in order to create programs and services that will actually be meaningful to PWD.
A support network and access to a disabled perspective you may not otherwise get. Every week, you engage with the material along with your classmates, in the discussion forums. These forums are places for you to explore the material together. I will provide gentle guidance and resources to help dispel misconceptions. As long as the conversations are in good faith and do not break my course's cardinal rule ("The humanity of disabled people, and our right and desire to pursue work in and to patronize public libraries are not up for debate in this course"), they will be carefully considered and responded to with links, information, and personal anecdotes to clarify things.
A few weeks ago, I was honored to present a preconference on disability justice in libraries with a former student, Jennifer. It was awesome to talk about the overarching lies that the abled narrative tells us and having Jennifer talk about the ways that her library is countering these lies right now.
As I continue to learn and grow in my understanding of disability justice, my preconference (Inspirations, Burdens, and Other Lies: The Disability Community in the Library) continues to grow with me through many iterations, from the confronting name change to the examples I cover to how I cover it. The following is information that didn't make it into the presentation this time, but it was referenced and provided afterward.
The truth is, decent representation--and especially #ownvoices titles -- are so few and far between that if you recognize the above tropes, a piece of media may still be an important piece of your collection until a time when it can be weeded and replaced by a more worthy representation, lest disabled children don't see themselves on your shelves at all (this is a point I would make about disability specifically, and only in some cases. It is possible for nothing to be better than something if that something is harmful to a child's fragile and growing sense of self). But promotion, obviously, is different.
I know that we can't always know everything about a book before we order it, and we rely on reviews a lot. One more way the abled narrative finds its way into publishing is in reviews themselves. Here is an article by Nicola Griffith on spotting ableism in a book review.
A few weeks ago, Adriane Herrick Juarez at the Library Leadership Podcast reached out to me to be a guest on the show and talk about trauma-informed libraries. It was my first ever podcast! This conversation gave me the opportunity to give a quick run-down of trauma-informed basics in a way that I hadn't before outside of my course and training materials I made locally.
I recorded this on a Friday evening, after I had facilitated a 2-hour meeting and attended one more. As such, I broke one of my personal cardinal rules of presenting and had about 4,000 cups of coffee that day. I stutter and mispronounce words I write but barely say. But, the content! The content is there!
If you're here because of the podcast, nice to meet you! I'm Bryce. I started this blog in 2011 with easy reader book reviews. They were terrible, so I quickly switched it up to talking about field trips and youth programming and reading research. A few years ago, I turned tides again and started using this space to be vocal about trauma and disability justice in libraries. What a bait-and-switch, eh? I swear I used to be funny, even!
Head on over to listen to my episode of the Library Leadership Podcast. I emphasize workforce wellness and quote Uncle Ben from Superman. I don't know if transcripts are ready yet, but I will send you the Q&A list (which is basically the transcript) if you email me at brycekozla at gmail.
A couple weeks ago I got an email from my landlord with no context (just "please see attached" and a generically-named attachment. It was information about my utility bill. It looked like I had to pay something, but turns out I didn't.
Now, I know there's no way of them knowing that something like this would activate my stress response; but also, realistically, this is a pandemic. A time when we hear news stories everyday of people being evicted. A time when the housing and jobs crunch here in my area has only been exasperated by income loss across the community.
This webinar was tough to develop and present and I'm actually taking two days off work as a result (I did this without knowing how I'd feel just in case but: Thanks, Past-Bryce. You're the best. Love, Bryce). I share this just so you know where I'm at; I may not have the best time replying to emails right now. Thanks for understanding.
"We are preparing a study about accessibility in public library makerspaces. This study will help to inform public librarians how to make their spaces more accessible for all, creating more inclusive libraries. We want to know about your experiences in public libraries and in makerspaces. We will be conducting a series of focus groups with disability self-advocates and public librarians across the United States.
We would like to invite you to take part in this process, to share your knowledge and experiences with us. For your participation, you will receive a $30 Amazon gift card. Your involvement is voluntary. Any information you share with us will be kept private and confidential. If you want to participate, please complete this brief online form"
Well, times have changed since *checks post date* last September. My April 30 webinar on trauma responses during a pandemic has been viewed over THREE THOUSAND times. Only like 5 of those were my parents (Twenty, tops). Every day there's new evidence of a population whose brains are overflowing with stress and are acting on ill-planned, counter-intuitive, and counterproductive attempts at self-preservation (to be clear, I'm talking about people who ignore reasonable health guidelines and/or are violent about their need for a haircut, for instance; and not people protesting police brutality). Amid this backdrop public-facing service workers are being met with vitriol for trying to keep themselves and the community safe.
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