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Youth Services Librarian for the Okanagan Regional Library System - Vernon Branch Monica Gaucher, B. Ed., MLIS
Find out more about her exciting career and contributions by clicking below My Job
Job Description I am an ambassador for early literacy.
Describe a day in the life of your position: I see two primary roles in my job as a youth services librarian. When I’m physically in the library my role is to uphold the mission of our library, that being providing equitable access to educational, recreational, and cultural library material that will enrich the lives of children and their caregivers in our community. This also involves providing programming to this community, such as story times, baby times, and summer reading clubs. I am striving for the ultimate goal of bringing awareness to parents of the importance of reading to kids. My programs expose parents to the best in children’s literature and also provide an example of how they can share books with their kids in a fun, educational way. Another aspect of that side of my job is acting as a reading advisor to teachers, parents, day cares – anyone involved with the life of a child. Some examples for you: a mother of a preschooler needs something to help her child cope with the recent death of the family pet; a parent of a young teenager that has given up on reading wants book recommendations to re-ignite the reading bug, teachers ask for booklists for specific subject areas. I help each find the appropriate material.
And what’s the second aspect of your job, the promotional part? I consider myself a PR person for the library. The people who visit and use the library are fantastic, but they are what I call the “converted.” They already understand the value of a public library system, the importance of reading to children. There’s a whole community of people that don’t use our services, even though it’s available free of charge for them. I consider it my job to “convert” them, make them aware of the library, its services, and the importance of reading to children.
So, how do you achieve that? I take a proactive stance on promoting the library to the youth of my community. When I joined the Vernon branch in 2000, I focused on building a list of contacts for outreach and on heightening the presence of the library within the community. I try to take the library to places where families, children, parents gather to share the information about what the library has to offer. One simple example is a school. Children may not come to the public library for a variety of reasons, but all children are in a school. There is a captive audience that I can spread my message to! The Vernon School District has been fantastic in supporting me in this campaign. I have a program called the Picture Book Club where I’ll visit a school once a week for a month. I go from class to class, making arrangements for library cards, telling stories, reading FANTASTIC books that they might not have known existed. I basically try to get them excited about books, reading, and the public library.
Does going to the schools work? There is no way to track how many kids come in as a result of my school visits. What I do know is that children are tracking me down in the library, asking if I remember them from the school. It really makes my day to see them come in, introduce their parents with a big smile on their faces, and then tell me how excited they are to come to the library together.
My Career
What kinds of programs do you run or are a part of? We have a ton! I’ll touch base on a few: Strong Start is a provincial initiative. It is a free drop in program where early childhood educators lead parents and children in learning activities (stories, music, art) to help them get ready for Kindergarten. I’ve networked with that agency and now visit that facility once a month. I present a storytime program and hope I get those attending interested in the services the library can offer. Healthy Families is an agency that provides parenting information to low socio-economic families. I’ve networked with them to promote the library and try to teach the value of reading literature to children. Mother Goose was a program for 0-12 month olds. Moms were taught the value of oral language, how it stimulates brain development and ultimately turns those children into strong readers. It was an interactive program with lots of fingerplays, nursery rhymes, and stories. However, all non-profits in our community are facing some rough budget issues and this program is on the chopping block until we figure out how to keep it going… Anywhere I can go to promote literacy, I’ll go.
What’s the biggest hurdle in your job? I need to be extremely creative with my resources. Libraries are in a dangerous state right now. Interesting that although the province wanted to make BC the most literate place by 2010 (2010 Legacies Now), libraries in this province have faced financial cuts, limiting our resources.
Has technology affected the library at all? Technology has completely changed the library. I see in the future that our virtual branch will become our busiest library branch. The library is a great place for electronic resources, databases, recommended websites. You can search your library from home, place holds from home, and renew your books from home. There are many online resources for library customers to use for research or leisure. Libraries participate in a province wide program called Ask-Away where you can ask the librarian on duty a question from your computer. The really cool thing is, you can be here in the Vernon branch seeking help for a project, and the librarian helping you with your research is in Fort St. John! It’s literally a virtual librarian!
What tools do you need to succeed at your job? To be a youth services librarian you must be outgoing, creative (especially for finding funding), and organized. You also must have a love for the literature, for learning, and for working with youth.
My History
What are some major projects you’ve accomplished at the Vernon Library? When I came to Vernon, this library branch was doing almost nothing in terms of outreach and public relations. I’ve been here 9 years, and we are now very involved in the community. There are times when we are in very high demand. I’m proud of how the library has been networked in the community. We’re part of several strong programs that foster education and mental growth for the youth of the Okanagan.
What were you doing before you came to the ORL? I went straight from high school to my B.Ed. and worked as teacher for a few years. I left the teaching profession and decided to try working in public libraries. I ended up in Saskatoon working as a Children’s Assistant. While there, my supervisors encouraged me to go forward with my MLIS. Upon graduation, I worked as a school librarian and then to the Fraser Valley Regional Library for six years. Life and my husband’s job brought me to the Okanagan, and I’ve been with the Vernon branch for the last nine years.
Why did you choose the library instead of teaching? I admire all teachers, as I know the pressures, stress, and work load they are under. I taught for several years, but was burning out. I don’t know how teachers do it! The classroom setting just wasn’t quite right for me. I needed to find an avenue to share my love of teaching, my interest in children’s books, and my love of working with kids. After working in a public library, I realized that this setting was my niche – and this is my passion.
My Thoughts
What value does your job bring to BC? I would like to think my job brings an awareness of the library- this awesome public thing to use for free that contains a wealth of information! Also, I hope my job is making an impact on parents, helping them to realize the importance of reading to kids.
What do you think is in the future for BC? Libraries are changing and the world is changing. I am beginning to see a new trend, and that is that school age children are turning to the online environment to do their research. Some nonfiction books are still popular and used, especially ones on dinosaurs, animals, and sports, but I’m beginning to see a significant drop in the usage of other non-fiction books. It’s a changing world, and maybe libraries need to look at how kids are learning. Libraries are shifting funds to electronic resources, ebooks, audiobooks, but how many people know about these? I think libraries need to be one step ahead of learners to keep them interested and to do this perhaps we need to go into an extremely high level of PR, or even high tech PR.
What is the value of Licensed Professionals to BC? As a professional I take my job very seriously and I worked very hard at it. As a youth services librarian this means ensuring that the next generation is literate as well as fully aware of what services a public library has to offer.
What does the phrase Professionals Making a Difference in BC mean to you? I think all professionals have a passion for their work and believe in the difference they can make in their respective communities.
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