We know there are a lot of crafters who work in libraries. And of course, crafting is a great type of program to do in any type of library! Each week we are sharing links to a craft that you might want to try in your library – or work on it yourself. (Hint: we would love to see photos when you are done!!)

You may be starting to think about Valentine’s Day crafting. We found this very cute basket you can make pretty easily, and fill it up with all sorts of library-loving material!

For this craft, you need a few basic items:

• heavy cardboard
• toothpicks
• felt
• yarn
• decorative embellishments

You can find all the instructions here, along with several other easy to do crafting projects. (This is #9 in the list.)

Get ready to spread some Valentine’s love for libraries! Or, use this plan with a different underlying cardboard shape to do different kinds of crafting projects. There are so many possibilities to try here!

We are excited about sharing our VR kits with members. (Thank you to the Minnesota Dept of Education, Library Services; and to the IMLS, for the funding for this project!!) Virtual Reality kits are very cool, and we have so many good educational resources for people to share.

And we are enjoying finding all sorts of articles on different ways VR is being used to entertain and educate people, in all sorts of different areas of life.

These kits are fun, of course – learning is best when it connects with people. And that is the main focus of our VR kits: education and learning.

We have looked at all kinds of educational uses for VR, and this week we found an article to share about using VR to reach out with students with severe autism. We are giving a quick excerpt below, and you can click the link at to get the whole article with all their photos.

How VR helps kids with autism
make sense of real world

“Staff at Prior’s Court, located in Berkshire, southern England, hope the high-tech approach helps students adapt to the real world and enjoy new experiences such as virtual skiing or deep-sea diving.

People with autism may find unfamiliar situations stressful.

The VR scenarios introduce children to situations like visiting a shopping mall or getting on an aircraft without leaving the comfort and safety of their classroom.

“Our young people, they have difficulties with sensory issues so they can find it overwhelming going to very busy places or transitioning to a new place,” Nuno Guerreiro, computing teacher at Prior’s Court School told Reuters.

“They like what is familiar, they like their routine. So the VR sets allow them to experience new realities and probably help them transition when they have to face a new place.”

Prior’s Court cares for around 95 young people at the severe end of the autism spectrum, including many who are non-verbal and are unable to communicate their needs. “

We like books; we like parks – and Minnesota is lucky to have both of them! Join our Goodreads book challenge: Armchair Travel to Minnesota State Parks.

We give you a link to each state park, a short fact, and a prompt for you to find a book. You find it, and read a book, and then tell us all about it.

In this podcast, we give you a few suggestions for books to fit a prompt for each park. Try one of these books, or find one of your own to enjoy!

The Minneopa State Park was established in 1905. https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_par…

There are bison in this park! You can drive around the Bison Drive to admire them. For this prompt, find a book with bison OR other animal conservation project.

I have long been a big fan of bringing in automation to the repetitive parts of library work. If we can get that stuff done by technology, then staff have more time to spend helping patrons with the more important parts of our work: spending time with patrons, talking material, helping them find great stuff!

Here is a school library staffer who has tried out self-check and has had a great success. We have an excerpt here, and you can click on the link to read the whole thing:

Three Reasons to Love Self-Checkout
in an Elementary Library

“At the start of this school year, a new library space was created and my position changed. I now work with students in preschool through fourth grade. The third- and fourth-grade students were already using self-checkout in their old space, and I did not want to change that. I just had to figure out how it could work in our new library.

So I starting reading about other elementary librarians who used self-checkout with their students, especially in the younger grades. What I found was that there are many librarians who are doing this and doing it well!”

Here are her three positive takeaways:

• Time to Talk about Books
• They Know What They Have
• Never a Line