Written by Diksha Chodankar
Mentoring meetings started in the month of March 2024. It has supported me very much in my daily library work. It has helped me to maintain my reading log and to achieve my monthly reading goals. Earlier I was reading only picture books in the library. I was scared to touch chapter books and novels. But during the Mentoring calls we set up reading goals and in order to achieve these goals I used to read the books and during this reading journey I not only read picture books but explored different genres, chapter and theme books. Whatever books I am reading, I recommend those books to the library members and other teammates. My favorite chapter book from our collection is ‘Mirror’ written by Andaleeb Wajid.
This reading journey has improved my book talk skills too. It has given me encouragement and confidence to present a book talk. Earlier I used to get scared to present a book talk in front of large groups. I am happy to share that just last month I did a book talk with LMS participants and also received good feedback from them.
For 8 months we have been doing Mentoring calls and during this period we did different activities with the children both in the library and also in the Mobile Outreach Program. Like Read Aloud with the children that encouraged them to do critical thinking, passive stations for children, playing browsing games, doing display and book hospital with the children. I also did 2 pop up libraries in nearby communities sites.
The main objective of setting up these library displays was to increase footfall and to enroll new members in the library, making them aware about our library. During this time I interacted with many new children and their parents who told me that they will come with their children to explore our library space.
During the meeting we also exchange our ideas and support each other. For example Pooja who is the librarian of Parivartan library in Bihar, we gave her ideas about how to plan a monthly calendar, we also suggested topics and themes to each other for displays in the library. At present we have been given a task to do a case study on a student and I am doing a case study on Suraj. Suraj is a very calm boy who is fond of reading. Nowadays he comes regularly to the library and also borrows books everyday. He makes sure that his library card is updated. Presently he has read 97 books and now he has shifted from light orange section to yellow coded books. Like Suraj, my goal is also to encourage more children to come regularly to the library and to browse and read books.
I am very much grateful to be part of these Mentoring calls and it has played a very important role in my library journey.