This, my friends, is the blog of 3 youth services librarians who apparently love group projects so much that they have embarked on another even after they graduated! Anna, Erica, and Kate are all graduates of the LIS program at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
Anna is the first Teen Librarian at the Council Bluffs Public Library (Council Bluffs, Iowa) since the mid-1970s and is ecstatic to be done with school after completing 2 master’s degrees back-to-back! She loves cats, coffee, knitting, Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch, and Rosemary Clement-Moore. Anna confesses to not having used her public library as a teen because they only had children’s and adult areas, thus making her work on developing a Teen Department from the ground up all the more exciting!
Erica is the Youth/Teen Librarian at the Bonner Springs City Library in Bonner Springs, KS. Erica also admits to not using her public library much as a teen because the books were old and the teen area was nearly non-existent except for a little neon sign that said YA and no one knew what YA meant. She mainly used the library as a teen to study and escape from the kids at school. She has extremely fond memories of her childhood public library in Hays, Kansas where she enthusiastically participated in the summer reading programs. One year, the prize she wanted more than anything was a Kansas City Royals bumper sticker. She lives with her husband and cat in her new house with an awesome garden, and loves to read and knit. She also keeps a reading blog.
Kate is the Assistant Editor at the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books and a substitute librarian at Urbana Free Library. Her husband finds the fact that she is an editor immensely amusing since many of her emails are misspelled and lack anything resembling grammar. She is obsessed with the Food Network and secretly wants to have her own culinary show focusing on great cuisines of the literary world. Her favorite YA book at the moment is Graceling and her favorite picture book is Oliver Finds His Way by Phyllis Root, neither of which have good food in them but are nonetheless awesome in their own right.
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