Day 12 (the final day!) of my Practicum

Well, today was the last day of my practicum in Minneapolis, and it was absolutely amazing - I attended the Somali Family Services (SFS) 5th annual conference at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College, which had the theme "Civic Engagement: Local to Global." There were several sessions about various issues related to the Somali population at the local, national, and global level.

The first session I attended was about a grant-funded "student ambassador" program that SFS and the League of Women voters have worked together to provide in 2008-2009. 8 college students were selected through an essay process to participate, and funding provides each student with a stipend for participating. The students are working together to increase levels of civic engagement and political participation in local government. The students learn about how government works in Minnesota, meet with local government officials and influential community leaders, and learn to advocate for the Somali community through these channels. In addition, the students are given training and practice opportunities to improve presentation and speaking skills so that they can advocate more effectively in the community. It was really exciting to see the students so invested in giving back to their communities and improving their skills. I would love to try to get a grant for something like this in Columbus, and it also inspired me to think about how we could partner with local high schools with student ambassadors to work in the homework help centers. I think this could be a really effective way to recruit bilingual staff for the future and partner more effectively with community agencies.

The keynote speaker was Khalif Farah, who works with the UN Development Program in Somalia and has a lot of experience with the cuurent state of Somalia. He was not speaking as a representative of the UN, but rather as a member of the Somali community to talk through the role of the Somali Diaspora in rebuilding Somalia. He particularly focused on the tension between the internationally recognized government and the myriad of GNO's that are trying to provide assistance in various different ways - what he called the "civil society." It was interesting, and made me realize how complicated the situation in Somalia really is right now. I need brush up on my political geography!

During the afternoon, the first session I attended was a workshop about youth violence led by the student ambassador and some other community leaders. This was my favorite session of the day - it was an open dialogue among the people in the room about the recent violence and gang activity within the Somali community in Minneapolis. There were many high school and college students in the room talking passionately about the issues, as we worked through five questions:

1. What is at the root of youth violence? Who or what is responsible

2. What needs to be done to stop the violence?

3. Who has the power to stop youth violence?

4. What are the barriers to solving this problem?

5. What community organizations are currently working on the problem? (and who should be?)

After talking through these questions, the attendees worked together to come up with an action plan for dealing with youth violence, and different students volunteered to take the lead on various different initiatives. It was really inspirational to see the youth standing up and taking responsibility for tackling this difficult issue.

The final session of the day was about global warming and how it affecting people around the world, including countries like Somalia. People talked about the challenges that Somalia is facing with more droughts, shorter rainy seasons, and dried up water resources. This creates population shifts that bring different groups into conflict when they must fight for resources and land. One of the presenters from OxFam was actually an old college friend of mine, which was completely unexpected!

The end of the day was an opportunity to talk with different community members and exchange contact information, which I think was really valuable. Being in Minneapolis the last two weeks has given me some really great contacts that will be valuable sources of information and advice for working with the Somali community in Columbus.

I have to say that this experience was even more valuable than I thought it would be. My supervisor at Minneapolis Central, Emily Watts, has been a fabulous supervisor - she worked to find me really valuable learning opportunities throughout my time in Minneapolis and showed great flexibility. I really enjoyed working with her and look forward to keeping in touch so that we can trade new ideas. On that note, all of the staff members that I worked with at Hennepin County Libraries were gracious and helpful - even when they didn't have advance notice to prepare! I will definitely be back to visit, and hope that HCLIB and CML can work together more in the future to come up with creative services for immigrant populations. I can't believe my time is over - it seems like it just started! Thanks to everyone in Minneapolis who made me feel so welcome. I had a fantastic time!

Day 11 of my Practicum

Today was an interesting day - I tagged along to some meetings with my supervisor, Emily. In the morning we met with one of the Americorps VISTA employees to talk about some of the challenges she was facing with getting conversation circles off the ground at different locations and organizing a program called "People and Stories." People and Stories is an eight-week program that uses classic literature excerpts in an adult basic education environment - students read the stories together and then discuss the ideas, formats, and writing styles as part of their learning experience. They are hoping to offer this program in partnership with several locations (schools, learning centers, etc.) starting in January. They have offered it in the past and had good success....

This afternoon, Emily and I went out to Ridgedale for a couple of meetings. Hennepin County Library and Minneapolis Public Library merged about ten months ago, and they are working together to iron out all of the details involved in such a huge change. They are completely restructuring their staff and working to create a strategic vision for service together. I work in a large library system myself (Columbus Metropolitan Library), and it is amazing how each library system has their own culture and habits - trying to merge such different cultures is such a challenge! It would be like if CML tried to merge with Westerville Public Library - but on a grander scale since both systems are so large. To put it in perspective, CML has one Main Library and 20 branches, while Hennepin and Minneapolis combined have 41 branches and a Central Library (I think that is the number?). To make it even more difficult, they are in the process of hunting for a new library Director. In the interim, they have Hennepin's former deputy director acting as a temporary director - who I had the chance to meet this afternoon. Believe it or not, she said "Are you Nerdfighter Librarian?" - I guess she had picked up the blog through Google alerts since I tagged the posts as being about Hennepin County Library! It was pretty funny, and I have to say it was the first time I was ever referred to as "Nerdfighter Librarian" in person.

My first meeting was with the Partnerships division, and the discussion was about how the department should be restructured. It was interesting to see the "behind the scenes" discussion of this administrative group as they hashed out the issues. There were strong opinions on all sides, but the conversation was in an "atmosphere of respect and dignity" - as the healthy workplace initiative recommends... :)

It will be interesting to see how this works itself out in the future.

The afternoon meeting was about the merge, as well - they talked about merging the websites and plans for moving forward. There was a chance for staff to ask questions and for them to hear some updates about changes in general.

Before we left the Ridgedale branch, I got a tour of their automated check-in/ sorting area - I am so jealous. As a circulation manager, I could only dream of such a system. At my branch, we still manually check everything in and sort materials...I would love to shift some of that responsibility to machines so we could have even more staff out on the public service floor! Maybe after the levy passes (it will pass! it will pass!) we will do this when we renovate buildings, or go to RFID tags.

Tomorrow I attend the annual Somali Family Services conference and I'm looking forward to a great day!

Day 10 of my Practicum

Today was really interesting - I spent the entire day in the New Americans lab helping with the morning study lab and the afternoon helping in the English Language Learner class and conversation circle.

The Hennepin County library has a partnership with the Minneapolis Public Schools so that they have an adult ed teacher who is employed by the schools but assigned to the Central Library as her "site." She does an amazing job working with the students and is teaching a variety of levels depending on where the students skills are. The students all have inspiring stories and are so dedicated to improving their language skills - I am so glad I had the privilege to work with them today!

I forgot my camera today, so no pictures...

I am feeling a bit lonely since my in-laws are both gone now and I am bouncing around in their house alone until I leave Sunday. I don't even have Tony-dog to keep me company. :(

Day 9 of my Practicum

I didn't have time to blog yesterday because I had an extra long day - I took my mother-in-law to the airport before going in for a 10 1/2 hour day. Yikes. I was pretty exhausted.

I spent the morning at the Franklin Learning Center, which is in the lower level of the Franklin library and offers tutoring for English and adult basic education. They have been around for 20 years (!) and do some really great things to support community members who are trying to improve their skills. I got the sense that they are a real "family" and the students feel very welcome in the space.

In the afternoon, I had the chance to sit in on a partnerships meeting with a group called "SCIP" - Schools and Communities in Partnership." They meet regularly and have different speakers tell the group about services and partnerships - I got to hear about a joint partnership between several local police precincts and the immigrant community. They are working to break down barriers and misunderstandings between the immigrant community and police by encouraging an open dialogue and teaching each group to understand the other. Very cool! It was inspiring to hear all of the different agencies talk about how they could work together to reach common goals and serve the needs of their communities more holistically.

Yesterday evening, I went to a special event at the University of Minnesota. There is a new book coming out about the Somali Diaspora by Columbus, Ohio resident Abdi Roble, and the author was doing a exhibit of the photos and a book signing for the public. It was inspiring to hear him talk about the documentary project that took over 5 years to complete. I am hoping that we can recruit Mr. Roble's help working with the Somali community in Columbus - he was really wonderful to talk with and has a unique perspective since he has experience living in both Minneapolis and Columbus.

Day 8 of my Practicum

Today I started out at the Northside Learning Center, which is on the lower level of the Sumner Library. The NLC is run by the Minnesota Literacy Council and they have a dedicated space with computers and a photocopier, along with storage for many books. They use library meeting room space for the classes, and most of the classes are taught by trained volunteers. The Literacy Council staff members create curriculum that is used in each of the three levels of classes.

I had the opportunity to sit in on one of the advanced English classes (level C) - we spent the first half of the class reading a play out loud that was based on a Sherlock Holmes story and discussing what happened. Along the way, we would talk about definitions and pronunciation of tricky words or phrases. The second half of the class was more focused on grammar and vocabulary - today's lesson was focused on the uses of the terms "never, seldom, rarely, often, usually, and always."

I spent the second half of the day at Central Library and met with a staff member from the collection development department to talk about the challenges of ordering foreign language and ELL materials.

I finished my afternoon meeting with my supervisor about the "Recent Immigrants" section of the web site that I have been working on. I am making recommendations for merging the MPLS and HCLIB "Recent Immigrants" sections into one introductory page. I got some good feedback and look forward to making some adjustments and additions. I am hoping to be able to take a second draft to a conversation circle later this week and see if we can get some feedback from recent immigrants during the session.

I am done with 60 of my 100 hours - only 40 to go before Saturday!

Day 7 of my Practicum

Well, it's going to be a short blog post today - I am really exhausted. I didn't have to go into the library today, but I worked on the website project for about 5 hours and my head is feeling pretty rotten. I am scheduled to share what I have so far with my supervisor tomorrow, so I needed to get quite a bit accomplished.

I did take a break this afternoon to go to a little town called Wayzata with my mother-in law, and we sat by the lake drinking coffee and talking. It was a nice break, and it gave me the break I needed to keep going on my work. We stopped to see the Wayzata library, but it was closed - it looks out over the lake and has a lovely outdoor courtyard for people to sit and read in the fresh air. Very nice!

My favorite PostSecret postcard...

I had to take a picture of this postcard for my mother-in-law...who walks her dog, Tony all the time... and should have thought of this earlier when he was a puppy!

Day 6 of my Practicum

Today I was fortunate enough to spend the whole day working with Vicente - one of the Spanish-speaking liasons - at the Central Library. From 10-12, there was a computer basics class taught in Spanish. Different students were working on different levels, and Vicente did a great job jumping from person to person and helping when people got stuck. They were learning all sorts of cool things, from how a mouse works, to how a search engine functions, to how to make a basic flyer in Mocrosoft Word. Some students were new, but many were regular customers who come almost every week to improve their computer skills.

The rest of the afternoon I spent helping in the New Americans Center, which is open for adult homework help on Saturdays. They have several tutors in who help out with a wide range of assignments and assist with test preparation. One older woman I talked with comes regularly to work on algebra - she didn't understand it when she was in high school and was always sort of afraid of math because she was never encouraged to try hard in school. She was so proud to show me how she had learned to graph, not just on paper, but using a program on a laptop.

I also worked with an older woman from Somalia who was working on an English Language class assignment - she wrote an essay about where she would like to visit if she could plan a vacation (Atlanta, Georgia). It was inspiring to work with each individual, and I would love to offer something similar right before of after our English classes at Northern Lights.

I also got to browse the current art exhibit in the Cargill Hall - a community art project called PostSecret during a quick break. Check out http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ for more details if you are interested...

I spent the last two hours of my day working in a conversation circle - we had seven students from all different places - Guinea, Togo, Egypt, China, and Ecuador. It was so interesting to compare the conversation circle to the one I attended earlier in the week - the feel was completely different with more attendees and a different facilitator. It was a great day, but I am absolutely exhausted. 47 out of 100 hours down - only 53 more before next Friday!

Tomorrow is day 7 - and I plan to rest as the good Lord intended (at least when I am done finalizing recommendations for the website project).

Day 5 of my Practicum

Well, today was a short day - due to some mix-ups with my schedule, I had the morning off. I planned to attend the ELL (English Language Learners) study lab session at Minneapolis, but when I got there there were no students, so I went home and had a nice lunch with my Mother-in-Law. We ate at a fantastic Italian restaurant called Bacio's and then went to Macy's until I was scheduled to work at the Franklin Library at 3:00pm.

The Franklin Library is very similar to the Northern Lights Branch (where I work in Columbus) - it is a building that is bursting at the seams with customers and serves a lot of kids, teens, and recent immigrants from various countries, particularly Somalia. The lower level of the building houses the Franklin Learning Center, which provides ESL and adult basic education classes. The Learning Center is a cooperative effort of the Minneapolis Literacy Council, several community organizations, and the library. I will be spending some time in the learning center next week, so I will go into more detail later.

The library itself just opened up a space on the lower level that is exclusively used for teens when the room is not needed for other programs or community group meetings. It is very cool - it has several internet computers, and one side of the room is a lounge/ gaming area. They have a flat screen TV and gaming equipment for use by teens during the evening hours (3:30-close). They also have a dedicated staff member who works these hours and staffs "Teen Central" - she has a background working with teens in the school system, and is doing some great programming for teens. They have a book club and design club (art and craft projects) and are planning to start a music listening club and a writing club this school year. It is obvious that the staff is great with teens and kids at Franklin - they knew them all by name and obviously had an established relationship with them. The teens were comfortable in and respectful of the space - even when Lily had to take away gaming priveleges because of some innapropriate shouting, they stayed in the space and changed their behavior appropriately. We played marbles on the floor and Lily taught us a game called "Thumper" that was great fun.

I also had a chance to talk with youth services librarian Johannah (of "Dancing with Johannah" local fame, see www.myspace.com/dancingwithjohannah ) who also had some great ideas about programming. I got a chance to sit in on a Cartooning workshop this afternoon, and she was fantastic with the kids in the program, and even did some drawing herself. The head librarian, Angela was extremely welcoming and we had some good conversations about working with some of the challenges that face both of our libraries. I think the biggest thing that I heard from all of the staff was the importance of relationship building with the kids and teens, and how much of a difference that makes in dealing with challenges that arise. I am proud that the Northern Lights team has the same philosophy and it is satisfying to see it so beautifully in action at another library! I look forward to keeping in touch with the Franklin staff and gleaning ideas from their experiences here in Minneapolis.

Day 4 of my Practicum

I got to see some really cool stuff on Thursday, including a rough edit of a TV show segment about library services that HCLIB is doing in conjunction with a local Somali television program. They are aiming to have the video ready in time for an early November Somali book festival so that they can distribute it...and they will also be broadcasting it on local and statewide television statements! It is really neat to see a video that directly addresses the Somali community and is made in collaboration with respected members of the Somali community leaders. I hear that the teens that are in the video can't wait for their television debut!

I also had a chance to visit the North Regional branch, which is in an impoverished area on the North side of downtowm Minneapolis. I had a great talk with the youth services librarian, who told me lots about what they are doing with kids and teens at their branch. School was out Thursday and Friday for MEA days (statewide professional development days), so I watched several teens as they lay down beats using a program called GarageBand on a MAC computer that is on loan as part of a collaboration with the Science Museum. The library opened at 12, and every computer was filled by 12:30 - just like a day with no school at Northern Lights!

Like most Minneapolis libraries, they offer homework help throughout the week, and North Regional also offers various activities for kids right after school, Tuesday through Thursday. Tuesdays are "wordplay" activities, Wednesdays are "science" and Thursdays are "crafty" activities. I love this idea, and it works well here in part because they have a beautiful space called a "discovery room." They do homework help in this area for younger kids and the teens work in the upstairs area. There is an open lab and teen gaming room upstairs, and they often let teens do gaming once they finish their homework as a special reward. They also have regular teen gaming programs once a week. They offer an impressive roster of computer and business classes, as well as regular storytimes for young children.

I particularly like that when they redesigned the space several years ago, they flipped the adult and kids areas so that the adult area is sort of off to one side and has a lower ceiling that creates a more soundproof environment. This is a "quiet zone," and the computers are only available for adults. All of their computers are limited by age range, depending on where in the library they are located. I am so unhappy that I forgot my camera yesterday, or I would share photos!

I finished my evening at the Franklin Learning Center and got to meet staff and talk for a while with Lily about their teen center. I am excited about bringing some of these ideas back to CML, because they are really working...more on that later!

Day 3 of my practicum

Wednesday I had the chance to work more on the website project, and then spent the afternoon at the Brookdale branch - one of the Hennepin County libraries on the Northwest (?) side of the city. It was definitely more suburban than the branches I had seen on previous days - and the building was beautiful. It is very new and is part of a larger complex that houses the Hennepin County court and human services department. To see more pics check out my Facebook profile...

I had the opportunity to meet with two of the bilingual community liasons - Chaleng works with the Hmong-speaking population and Marcela works with the Spanish-speaking population. Both of them are doing some unique programming and also provide help at the information desk in their native languages. There are phone numbers listed on the HCLIB website for each of the liasons, which means that customers can call directly in and talk with someone who speaks their native language! They do promotion on the Asian and Hispanic radio and public access TV shows and have a consistent turnout for their programs. They also promote the library at local markets and businesses to bring in new customers, as well as special community events and festivals. Chaleng's International Teen group just won an award for their activities this year.

They also focus on internal outreach, and work as advocates for customers who speak languages other than English by teaching classes like their "Faces of Latin America" program. Some of the resources they use and presentations they have given are available on their extranet at http://www.hclib.org/extranet ... check it out!

Day 2 of my Practicum

Tuesday was a great day! I started out my day at the Central Library meeting with my supervisor and with their AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, Michelle. I spent most of the day with Michelle, and tagged along to a meeting at one of the small urban branches, the Northeast Branch. She was checking to see how she could help with outreach to promote their once a month program about Citizenship, during which a lawyer comes out from LegalAid and tries to help recent immigrants with citizenship questions and forms.

We ate lunch at a fabulous Colombian Restaurant and then I worked on the website project for a while. From 4-6, I sat in on a "Conversation Circle" with Michelle. It was inspiring to hear the students' stories, and I really enjoyed it. There were three students - one from Guinea, one from Somalia, and one from Japan. They each brought something unique to the conversation, and topics ranged from favorite ice cream flavor to the reasons for the Second World War to the issue of polygamy. The conversation was candid and respectful, and it was amazing to hear such different perspectives on the issues. I would LOVE to try this model out at CML...

I ended the evening at the Franklin branch and observed a traditional Somali storytelling program called "Fireside Stories." Somali customers of all ages popped in and out of the program and it was fun to be a part of the process. They were very welcoming and kept insisting that the storyteller translate for us so that we knew what was happening. I particularly enjoyed the traditional songs that had a "call and response" portion that even I could pick up on, despite the language barrier. I wish I could duplicate the storyteller, Maryan (sp?) and bring her back to Columbus with me!

Day 1 of my Practicum

Well, the first day of my practicum was Monday, and I spent the day at the Minneapolis Central Library in downtown Minneapolis. They are closed on Mondays, so I was able to meet with my practicum supervisor and walk through the whole library uninterrupted - a really cool opportunity! The building is beautiful, with lots of natural light, and they are doing some really innovative things with the layout.

Each floor is basically the same layout, which creates a sense of comfort for the customers - the bathrooms are always along the right side on each floor, the computers are right in the middle, and the info desk is immediately to the left of the computer area.

Most of the library collection is on the right side of the library when you walk in the front door, and everyone has to enter and exit on the right side of the building. The left side houses a coffee shop, FOL store, computer lab, and restrooms on the first floor, along with their sorting room. The upper levels have their "closed stacks" (85% of their collection does not circulate but is available for in-house use) and staff work areas. The administrative offices have been largely relocated to the Ridgedale since the merger between Hennepin County and Minneapolis public, but there are still some Admin offices on the third floor of the building's right side.

There are so many cool things to talk about - they have a New Americans center with classroom space and a language lab, an Adaptive Technology lab for individuals with disabilities or learning challenges, and a fantastic roster of classes, programs, and events. I am really looking forward to seeing what ideas they are implementing that I might be able to bring back to CML.

One of the special projects I will be working on while I am here is redesigning their "Welcome Immigrants" web page since they are merging the two library systems' web sites. Should be an interesting project...

Practicum in Minneapolis

Well, for those of you who don't know, I am spending two weeks in Minnesota doing 100 practicum hours as part of my Culminating Experience - the last step before I am done with my Master's degree! I am focusing on learning about how Hennepin County Library serves the immigrant population in Minneapolis. They are doing some great things, and I look forward to bringing ideas back to CML!

I am going to try to blog about the experience for those of you who are interested - of course, this is day three and I am just getting around to starting. Bear with me and I will try to be better about adding posts and pictures.