INFO 267-11 (2-units)
Seminar in Services to Children and Young Adults Topic: Outreach Services to Children and Teens
Spring 2022 Syllabus

J. Snow
Email
Other contact information: I'm happy to meet with you on Zoom, through email, Skype if and when questions/issues arise.
Office location: I don't have an office on campus.
Office Hours: I don't have specific office hours, but I am more than happy to meet with you online with hours that work for both of us.

Canvas Information: Courses will be available beginning January 26th, at 6 am PT unless you are taking an intensive or a one-unit or two-unit class that starts on a different day. In that case, the class will open on the first day that the class meets.

This 2-unit course runs from January 26th - March 23th. It will open on January 26th.

You will be enrolled in the Canvas site automatically.

Course Description

This course will provide an overview of outreach services to teens and children in public libraries and will also introduce advocacy, training, and program evaluation of both traditional and innovative library-based programs; it will suggest approaches to serve underrepresented youth

Course Requirements

Assignments

Week 3: Identify a teen services or children’s services outreach librarian in a library system anywhere in the United States. Reach out to them by phone or email and ask if you could interview them solely for informational purposes, for a class (none of it will be shared in a public-facing way other than for class purposes). Due date: February 13, 2022

1. What is your title?
2. Does your library have an outreach services department or is outreach done solely by librarians on an individual basis?
3. What type of outreach do you provide and to who? 
4. How often do you provide services to those groups; weekly, monthly?
5. Are goals and outcomes identified before providing outreach by you or your institution and if so what are those goals?
6. How do you report to the library administration the outreach services you or your department provides?
7. What resources would you recommend for someone new to outreach to look for ideas for inspiration as well as best practices?
8. Could you describe a day in the life of an outreach services librarian?

Submit at least a 500-word paper on the interview by utilizing the above questions and your own. You may also submit a video where you talk about the interview itself and how the questions were answered by the librarian. If you choose this option, have the video be up to 6 minutes maximum. Deadline is February 13, 2022.
Helps to fulfill course learning outcomes #1 and #3

Helps to satisfy Core Competencies M and N

Week 4: Your library doesn’t offer outreach services. You are the children’s or the teen librarian (your choice) in a branch for a library system of 15 branches and a Main Library. You are interested in working with a Head Start agency and a group home that serves teens in foster care. One of the organizations has reached out directly to your library and the other you are interested in working with you because you know that the group home isn’t being serviced by a library nor do they have library services. Prepare an outreach plan for serving both organizations. Include in your plan;

1. Identify a REAL library that doesn’t have outreach services as part of its overall focus. This will be “your” library for this project. Look at the strategic plan of this library; is serving the underserved and underrepresented populations part of the plan? Are there any parts of the strategic plan that you can tie into providing outreach services?
2. Provide an overview of each of the organization's mission, scope, and focus of services. 
3. Amount of time per week you would be working with each organization. This would include time in the library preparing for the visits as well as time out of the library offering services/programs. Think about this in terms of hours per week.
4. What would the outreach consist of? For example, are you offering storytimes or book deposits and booktalks to each organization?
5. Identify two goals and outcomes for this outreach.  
6. How will you evaluate the outreach services you provide?
7. How will you share this outreach with library administration?

This should be a professionally written document of up to 800 words that could be used to share with library administration for them to understand what their staff is providing as well as be used as the promotion on this work internally and externally. Due date: Deadline is February 20, 2022

Helps to fulfill course learning outcomes #1 and #3

Helps to satisfy Core Competencies C and N

Week 6: Find 3 job descriptions for teen outreach services librarians and/or children’s outreach services librarians that provide outreach services that you find compelling. Share the job description and answer these questions; 

What are the libraries/library systems the job descriptions are for? Provide one example of a job description you looked at. Due date: March 5, 2021.

What websites did you look at to find the job descriptions? Please cite them.

What percentage of the job is focused on outreach services?

Does the job description define outreach and if so how is it defined?

What spoke to you about the job descriptions?

Do you have a clear idea of what you would be doing in terms of providing outreach?

Is this a job you would apply to, if yes why if no why not?

Provide the job description links or the actual job descriptions. Write up to 500 words evaluating the job descriptions and responding to the questions. Deadline is March 7, 2021

Helps to fulfill course learning outcomes #1 and #3

Helps to satisfy Core Competencies M and N

Week 8: Choose three books that may be of interest to teens or children and write up book talks on each of them based on the criteria below. Include a list of the three books and the booktalks. My assessment will be based on if you followed the criteria below. In addition to the submission of the list of three books and booktalks, prepare a spoken booktalk on one of the books and submit by video. Booktalks should be a maximum of three minutes. Due date: March 20, 2022.

Criteria (based on Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers)

• High interest "hook" in first 10 pages
• Well-defined characters
• Sufficient plot to sustain interest
• Plotlines developed through dialog and action
• Familiar themes with emotional appeal for teenagers
• Believable treatment
• Single point of view
• Touches of humor when appropriate
• Chronological order

Helps to fulfill course learning outcomes #1 and #2

Helps to satisfy Core Competencies M and N

Discussion Board Questions

Week One 

Question for discussion board: How is outreach defined in the ALSC paper? How is outreach defined in the book, Outreach Services for Teens? Do the definitions differ and if not what are the commonalities? Site some examples of outreach services from each. If you are on the school librarian track how do you see incorporating the definition from both the book and the ALSC paper into your work as a school librarian? Write at least a 350-word response to the posed questions and write it like you would a blog post. Please use the template from the YALSA Blog for your blog post http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/. Instead of the write-up for the discussion board you may submit a video of yourself responding to the questions and an overview of both the book chapter and the ALSC paper, up to a maximum of 4 minutes to be posted on the discussion board. Deadline by January 30, 2022.

Week Two

Question for discussion board: Imagine you are a librarian in a city. How do you see working with incarcerated parents and hospitals in terms of what was laid out in both articles; Reading on the Inside and the Reach Out and Read Program? How might you go about connecting with a prison/jail and offering early literacy services? What steps in connecting the library to the prison/jail were shared in the Reading on the Inside article? What type of early literacy programs do you see offering to the prison/jail? If you are on the school librarian track, how do you see this type of work being incorporated into the school setting? Is this something you would be able to do and if so outline a possible partnership?

Write at least a 400-word response to the posed questions. Deadline by February 6, 2022.

Week Five

Question for discussion board: In the 2019 Snow article, what is stated as different NOW for teens aging out of foster care? How do you see that benefiting teens in foster care, how can that help them? How do you see libraries connecting and serving teens in foster care as sited from the 2019 article and the 2009 article? What are your own thoughts on how libraries could support and provide services for teens in foster care? If you are on the school librarian track, how do you see working with youth in foster care in the school library?

Write at least a 400-word response to the posed questions. Deadline February 27, 2022.

Week Seven

Question for discussion board: Having read all the articles and chapters, what do you see as resources to help build a core collection for providing books for your outreach partnerships? Site the sources and how you would use them. Write at least a 350-word response to the posed questions and write it like you would a blog post. Please use the template from the YALSA Blog for your blog post http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/. Deadline by March 13, 2022.

Course Calendar

Grading

Assignment 1 – (Week 3)                                                                                      15 possible points

Assignment 2 – (Week 4)                                                                                      25 possible points

Assignment 3 – (Week 6)                                                                                      15 possible points

Assignment 4- (Week 8)                                                                                        25 possible points

Bi-weekly discussion board responses- (Week 1, 2, 5, and 7)                              20 possible points (5 points each)           

• Five points taken off for each day it is turned in late, unless worked out with the Instructor beforehand.

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Course Workload Expectations

Success in this course is based on the expectation that students will spend, for each unit of credit, a minimum of forty-five hours over the length of the course (normally 3 hours per unit per week with 1 of the hours used for lecture) for instruction or preparation/studying or course related activities including but not limited to internships, labs, clinical practica. Other course structures will have equivalent workload expectations as described in the syllabus.

Instructional time may include but is not limited to:
Working on posted modules or lessons prepared by the instructor; discussion forum interactions with the instructor and/or other students; making presentations and getting feedback from the instructor; attending office hours or other synchronous sessions with the instructor.

Student time outside of class:
In any seven-day period, a student is expected to be academically engaged through submitting an academic assignment; taking an exam or an interactive tutorial, or computer-assisted instruction; building websites, blogs, databases, social media presentations; attending a study group;contributing to an academic online discussion; writing papers; reading articles; conducting research; engaging in small group work.

Course Prerequisites

INFO 200, INFO 204, INFO 260A, or INFO 261A. 

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Apply professional standards, tools, and best practices in the information field and across specialized areas.
2. Communicate effectively to different audiences through use of oral, written, and visual formats across multiple media.
3. Critically analyze and apply research.
4. Evaluate and create information services and/or systems to reflect and respond to the needs of diverse communities and stakeholders.

Core Competencies (Program Learning Outcomes)

INFO 267 supports the following core competencies:

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Textbooks

Required Textbooks:

• Snow, J. (2020). Outreach services for teens: A starter guide. ALA Editions. Available through Amazon: 0838948154.

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Grading Scale

The standard SJSU School of Information Grading Scale is utilized for all iSchool courses:

In order to provide consistent guidelines for assessment for graduate level work in the School, these terms are applied to letter grades:

• C represents Adequate work; a grade of "C" counts for credit for the course;
• B represents Good work; a grade of "B" clearly meets the standards for graduate level work or undergraduate (for BS-ISDA);
  For core courses in the MLIS program (not MARA, Informatics, BS-ISDA) — INFO 200, INFO 202, INFO 204 — the iSchool requires that students earn a B in the course. If the grade is less than B (B- or lower) after the first attempt you will be placed on administrative probation. You must repeat the class if you wish to stay in the program. If - on the second attempt - you do not pass the class with a grade of B or better (not B- but B) you will be disqualified.
  
• A represents Exceptional work; a grade of "A" will be assigned for outstanding work only.

Graduate Students are advised that it is their responsibility to maintain a 3.0 Grade Point Average (GPA). Undergraduates must maintain a 2.0 Grade Point Average (GPA).

University Policies

Per University Policy S16-9, university-wide policy information relevant to all courses, such as academic integrity, accommodations, etc. will be available on Office of Graduate and Undergraduate Programs' Syllabus Information web page at: https://www.sjsu.edu/curriculum/courses/syllabus-info.php. Make sure to visit this page, review and be familiar with these university policies and resources.

In order to request an accommodation in a class please contact the Accessible Education Center and register via the MyAEC portal.

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