Latest / Book Flood Podcast / Melissa Snider on Advocacy & Mentorship (E53)
Transcript
- Tom Nixon: Welcome to the Book Flood podcast. I am your host, Tom Nixon. Our guest this week is Melissa Snyder. Melissa is a librarian from Wyoming. ⁓ She calls herself a dual language librarian, which I'm gonna wanna talk about. And she has a focus on library advocacy and the importance of mentorship. Welcome, Melissa. Melissa Snider: Thank you so much for having me. Tom Nixon: Glad you could be here. Why don't we start with you talking a little bit about your career trajectory. How did you get to here? Melissa Snider: Sure, ⁓ well I started in, as many librarians might, with an interest in reading and books ⁓ at a very early age and ended up studying creative writing and having a double major with Spanish language as my undergrad. ⁓ When I was out of college, I came back to Wyoming and was working in a school setting and then at the public library, got my first library job in the Youth Services Department. And I had a wonderful mentor, ⁓ many wonderful mentors at the public library who showed me a new world of literature that I'd never experienced before because it was a relatively new and growing field of books. ⁓ Children's literature was really booming at the time. And so I had the wonderful experience of getting to know some new authors and a whole new world of books. And That experience really felt right. It felt like I had found my place. I loved being in the library and I really resonated with the ideas of working in a place where I was of service to other people. I was using my Spanish language skills a lot in our community and I just got to be around books and kids all the time and it was so much fun. And as a child of two lifelong educators, I did tend to gravitate back toward the education field and a friend of mine knew about a program at Simmons College, now Simmons University, that offered a school library track so I could go and specialize in school librarianship. And I did that program from 2005 to 2007. And when I graduated, I was able to return to Wyoming and start my career as a school librarian here. ⁓ in our district where I have been teaching now for 17 years and it's been a really wonderful journey. Tom Nixon: So Simmons, that's in Massachusetts. Melissa Snider: Mm-hmm, it's in Boston. Tom Nixon: Why does the young lady from Wyoming decide to go to Massachusetts just for the experience or because of the program? Melissa Snider: The program was a big draw. ⁓ I have had sort of an East West ⁓ life growing up. was born in Colorado, grew up in upstate New York and my family moved back to the West to Wyoming when I was going into seventh grade. And so I've been in ⁓ Western Wyoming now since I was 11 ⁓ most of my life, but ⁓ I still have family in upstate New York and in Vermont and a real deep connection to the Adirondack Mountains. ⁓ And so going east wasn't anything super out of ⁓ my realm of experience, but it was definitely based on friends who were heading that direction ⁓ and then just the draw of an excellent program that was exactly what I was looking for at the right time. Tom Nixon: And Boston is a lovely city. Yeah. What do you think library advocacy should look like at the elementary level or at the local level? Melissa Snider: It was a really fun place. Yep. I think, yeah, any type of advocacy really just starts with ⁓ connections and relationships with people. I think that anyone who is in a library setting knows that you are interacting a lot with people generally. If you're out on the desk in a public library or if you're teaching, you're obviously seeing a lot of students and faculty all the time. And so building relationships where you really, ⁓ you have people's trust, you follow through on whatever requests people have, you take their concerns and their information needs seriously, whether it's a five-year-old or a 50-year-old, you're being respectful of the people in your space and welcoming. And I think if you start there and just create a really vibrant, welcoming space that helps people find what they're looking for, that's the basis of any kind of advocacy. Because then when you go, let's say something's happening at the state or local level and you need people to stand up and speak on your behalf, or you need to ask people to take some kind of action. ⁓ Those people will be there for you. And I found that out in a very big way this last couple of years. I've been really blessed with an amazing community here of folks who have known me for a long time and I've known them. And I really appreciate the fact that people are willing to take action when we need them. So I think it really starts with building relationships and having respectful, trusting relationships with people. in your community. Tom Nixon: What does advocacy look like at a larger scale, state, national, that sort of Melissa Snider: Yeah, so Wyoming is an interesting state for statewide advocacy because we are the smallest in population. There are not very many certified or licensed school librarians in our state. I think we've got somewhere in the realm of 80 or 85 people. Yeah, so I've been... you know, helping lead the school library interest group, which is a part of our Wyoming library association for a long time. And I think our membership is at 25 official members. And when I talk to people from places like Pennsylvania or New York or Texas, I mean, that number blows their mind. ⁓ There aren't very many of us to speak up. So what has to happen, and I think that this happens wherever you might be, no matter your population. Tom Nixon: Mm. Melissa Snider: is that you really have to build coalitions with other groups of people. And as a school librarian, know, my coalitions usually are education related. ⁓ We have a Wyoming Education Association in our state that really helps ⁓ provide some support and advocacy for us. We have our Wyoming Library Association, which is a wonderful group. ⁓ But we've also expanded into other groups and stakeholders. And ⁓ because we're a small state, is possible for people to know, you know, they just go to their neighbor and talk to them. And they're the head of some kind of committee or group that maybe can stand up on our behalf. And so I think that that can be a model for a lot of places where you want to connect with other ⁓ groups and build coalitions who have a shared goal, ⁓ shared values and a common Tom Nixon: Mm. Melissa Snider: kind of mission that we can all work on behalf of each other's ⁓ needs when the time comes. Tom Nixon: Nice. What do you think the greatest threat to libraries is in 2026? Melissa Snider: I think it has been such a difficult few years. think distrust is ⁓ a great threat. think ⁓ disinformation is also a great threat. And those two things go hand in hand. ⁓ And what I would ask everyone to do is for people to go see for themselves. go to your public library, go to your school library, meet your librarians, meet the people working in those spaces, take advantage of all of the amazing services and resources that are available. And I think people would realize pretty quickly that some of the ⁓ stories that they're being told are untrue. And I think that there's a lot of disinformation that's meant to to stoke division and fear and libraries at our core, are a space for everyone. And so I want all people to feel welcome in my space. I want to have materials that meet information needs of many kinds. But I think that truth is really important and we've just seen such an attack on the idea of truth and. a really massive and successful disinformation campaign that has been really harmful ⁓ when it comes down to things like funding and staffing and attacks on ⁓ intellectual freedom and censorship. Those are all issues that are stemming from misinformation, distrust and dishonest people who are spreading these lies. my hope is that individuals will come and see for themselves and really seek out the true story of what it is we're doing in our spaces. Tom Nixon: And you would hope people would do that, but you the story that I always come back to is Amanda Jones, who wrote that librarian. ⁓ You know, she lives in a place that's a little bit like where you live, where everybody knows everybody. ⁓ She works at the same school that she went to kinds of things. And yet she would have people saying, just horrendous things that they have to know aren't true because they've known her all her life. And yet. It can be that way in a lot of places. And I'm not quite sure what drives that, but. Melissa Snider: Yeah. It's so hurtful. mean, that really, my heart aches for her and for other people who are experiencing that type of ⁓ anger and just hateful behavior. ⁓ I think that the last six years in particular, you know, since pandemic times have really been a challenge for us as a nation and for people trying to build community and live in community. And I think that for me, one of the solutions to that sort of distrust and anger is to rebuild communities. And, you know, sometimes that's not possible and it's not going to be Amanda's job, for instance, to reach across and try to build any bridges because she's been really harmed and threatened by people. But I hope that many of the folks who are maybe engaging in that type of behavior will have an experience that will remind them why it matters to have, you know, why our communities matter and, and that we really just hopefully can. look for the best in each other instead of the worst. Tom Nixon: Mm-hmm. Exactly. So what does being a dual language librarian look like? Melissa Snider: It's really fun. So our school is a Spanish-English dual immersion program. And a little bit of a backtrack to my career trajectory. It was interesting because Spanish has always been something I've studied since middle school. I just started studying it in middle school. I had a phenomenal high school teacher here in Jackson, Wyoming, of all places. And ⁓ I decided I wanted to add it to my college studies. went and studied abroad in Oaxaca, Mexico during my sophomore year and really loved it, had enough credits to add it as a major. So that was kind of just how I ended up keeping it in my educational trajectory. And then there's always just been a place and need for it. So like I said, when I was working in the schools, when I first graduated, ⁓ that was kind of at the very beginning of the... Tom Nixon: Mm. Melissa Snider: some major growth in our second language learner population or English learner population here in Western Wyoming. And since that time, our population of students has grown to about 30 % of our entire district. And the school that I work in currently ⁓ is made up demographically of half students who are speaking Spanish in their homes and half who are speaking English in their homes. So the wonderful thing about dual language is that we are a, everyone is a language learner. We're all learning language all the time. And there's no stigma attached to speaking one language or the other, maybe better than, you know, one is maybe your language of strength, or we call it the L1, you know, your, language that you're loved in is somehow how I've heard it referred to. Tom Nixon: Mm-hmm. Melissa Snider: But some kids come in really bilingual to begin with and many come in monolingual including most of our English speakers who are coming in to learn Spanish and those kids are in for a little bit of a shock and my own daughters have gone through the program. They're both in middle school now ⁓ and at first they struggle with it. You know, it's a different and uncomfortable feeling for them to be immersed in language half of the day. So they have a team of teachers. Tom Nixon: I like that. Hmm. Melissa Snider: In our model, ⁓ the kids will be in a Spanish language classroom for about half the day and English language classroom for about half the day. And then I am one of the specials. So I'm on a fixed schedule. I see all of the kids every week and I'm one of the only bilingual specialists. So I can go back and forth. And so we do a lot of... ⁓ just mix and match whichever language is best. We don't always have a target language for the instruction, but often we do. But we try to present as much information bi-lingually as we can. And we curate a dual language collection. So our collection of books was created when we built the school about seven years ago. We are the first and only dual language school in the state of Wyoming. There are other programs, but they're part of traditional schools. which is how we used to run, but then they built a school just for our program. And having been a librarian in both versions of that, I've really enjoyed being in the dual language program and having that be our sole focus because then we can all really practice learning language, teaching language, ⁓ and supporting students with the resources that they need to be successful and the teachers as well, because the teachers need really specialized resources in both languages. ⁓ Tom Nixon: Mm. Melissa Snider: to support their instruction. So as a librarian, it's been a particular challenge and something I've really had to learn more about. ⁓ But I was fortunate when I was doing ⁓ my studies at Simmons to work in the King Amigos School in the Cambridge Public School District ⁓ that was serving a Spanish-English language dual program, K-8. And I never thought Tom Nixon: Nice. Melissa Snider: you know, that that would be something I would end up experiencing in Wyoming. But having had that experience, I was able to sort of build on that. And ⁓ I've met some really wonderful people through this type of work and ⁓ presented about it and tried to connect with other people who are curating collections for for more than just English ⁓ speakers. ⁓ So, yeah, it's been a really It's been a joy. I love speaking in two languages and it is really wonderful to be able to communicate with kids. And it's a particular honor to be able to introduce many students who are newcomers to our country and our town ⁓ to a library because a lot of kids who are moving here may never have seen a school library for sure and possibly have never been in a public library either. ⁓ So that always gives me gives me chills really when I have those kids and I'm able to walk around a space with them and offer them books in their ⁓ home language to take home with them. Tom Nixon: Do you have a percentage or a number of books in Spanish that you try to keep? Melissa Snider: Yeah, when we built the collection, ⁓ we were at about 43 % in Spanish. And now we're still right around that number. you know, maintaining that has been something of a challenge. Something I have to focus on with my collection development, because it's much easier to add more English than it is Spanish. ⁓ It's easy to get off in terms of the purchasing side of things. So have to be pretty ⁓ selective with my purchases and make sure that I'm dedicating funds to both languages. Spanish language materials can sometimes be more expensive than English language materials. ⁓ Harder to catalog sometimes if I'm doing some kind of, if I'm doing original cataloging or copy cataloging, that can be a challenge. ⁓ But so, you know, those are sometimes obstacles or things that slow me down just since as a school librarian, you're the only person. doing all of those jobs versus a public library where you might have people back of house working on cataloging while other people are out interacting with the public. I'm doing it all. And ⁓ it's hard to find a solid block of time to work on those types of projects. But yeah, we've been able to pretty much maintain ⁓ our levels, our percentages. ⁓ We do try to focus on finding They, you know, it's referred to as authentic Spanish literature. So books that are written originally in Spanish and not translated from English to Spanish. ⁓ And I've found some really special vendors around the country who can provide those types of books. ⁓ And so, you know, looking for vendors and finding places to purchase materials has also been something that I have to spend time doing and do research about. Tom Nixon: Do you have any other languages in your school besides Spanish and English? Melissa Snider: Um, not many. have a few students who speak Russian. We have, um, some students who speak German actually, and that's about it for our linguistic diversity. When I was in, um, Cambridge, I think there were 60 something languages in their English language program. It was wild. So I always do hold that in mind when people are talking about the challenges of, oh, you know, got to find it in the second language. And I think, well. There are a lot of other languages that are harder to locate and harder to serve. ⁓ And, you know, having presented about the topic, I've met a lot of librarians who are serving communities where they have second language learners coming from all over the world and needing a greater variety of resources. So all the respect to those folks. Tom Nixon: Once upon a time, I was in charge of libraries for Fresno Unified in California. And we're one of those kind of places that, we now need books in X. And a few years ago, it was in Arabic. it ⁓ actually isn't that difficult. The challenge for us is always, ⁓ we have a large Hmong population here. ⁓ But it's mostly just Melissa Snider: Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Tom Nixon: us, ⁓ Minnesota and Wisconsin. And so there are, it's hard to buy books, Spanish, Spanish you can buy, although I agree with you about ⁓ wanting to get authentic materials. That's, that's definitely more of a challenge. Melissa Snider: Yes. Yeah, and then, I mean, you're getting into kids materials and then if it's coming from different Latin American countries, for instance, then the language can be really different. Like the meanings of certain words can vary place to place. So sometimes it's even hard for kids to comprehend a book if it's coming from Spain, Spanish versus Mexico Spanish, which is where a lot of my students are coming from with their linguistic background. ⁓ It's really fascinating. Another issue we run into is language, is home literacy levels. And that's in English and Spanish, whether our students are coming from a highly literate home or a less literate home and trying to meet the needs of kids who might be coming in with less traditional schooling. so you're not always, it's not like, ⁓ we purchased the books and they're on the shelf and now everybody can access them. That's not always the case. So as we know, it's always kind of, you start with. You're prepared and then you start moving things, differentiating for the students as you need to. You can see my dog is opening the door. She went, hello. Tom Nixon: I saw, I saw. little bit about mentorship. You mentioned that how important that is to you. Melissa Snider: Yeah, I just, I never want to forget. I always want to remember that I have had the great fortune of really being apprenticing with so many amazing librarians and library teachers. And I'll just shout out a couple of names. One person was Debbie Schlinger at the Teton County Public Library, Kay Farmer, Paddy Rocha, ⁓ just a great group of people who really got me excited and interested in the field. And then once I was in Boston, I worked with a woman named Sarah Novogradsky, who is still working in the school districts there. She is just a phenomenal human and an amazing teacher, amazing librarian. And I learned so much from her. And you know, it was like a tough point in my life too. I was kind of mid 20s, not knowing exactly what was coming next. And doing my best to follow what I thought was the right path. And I just remember not only were these people giving me professional advice, but they were also just helping personally guide me through tough decisions and next steps and heartbreak and all of the things that happen along the way. And I just really appreciate so much of what I learned from everyone. ⁓ And... You know, coming back to the school district, I've been really fortunate to work with some incredible mentor teachers here. And now I'm sort of at the point of my career, I guess we could say mid career. I don't really know, never know, I guess, ⁓ where you look around and suddenly you're the most experienced one in the room and That's a little bit of a shock sometimes. I have another colleague who's been in the district as long as I have, and we've both been in libraries for about the same amount of time. So we rely on each other a lot. ⁓ And then we do our very best to sort of help mentor the next folks. And I think, you know, just experiences I've had across our state, working with my state association, again, just super grateful for people I'm learning from, from the public library side of things, people I just really... admire who are doing incredible work in public libraries, advocacy work, ⁓ programming and collection. And it's just really inspiring. And I think that's one thing that I love about being a librarian is you never stop learning. It's always a field where there's something new happening, some new program you can put together, some new piece of literature that lands on your desk that you think, can design like a whole, you know. lesson or unit of study around this and ⁓ I just love that. I love that excitement but I think a lot of what keeps me moving forward and gives me hope is working with people who are so excellent at what they do and so dedicated to what they do and my goal is to be of assistance to other people now if I can be as well as to keep reaching for other folks when I'm Tom Nixon: Mm. Melissa Snider: needing support. I just think, you know, we can learn from one another and then there does come a time where we start to give back maybe more in different ways. And I want to encourage people to find those places and step into those leadership roles when you can. ⁓ You know, say yes to something if you're asked to be on a committee or provide some kind of volunteer effort. ⁓ It's not always the right time, but it's great to consider those opportunities and to take them when they come up. Tom Nixon: So this is one of the questions that I ask everybody. And ⁓ is there a book or a series of books from your childhood that still resonates with you? Melissa Snider: I remember in my elementary school library, which I was fortunate to have in Oswego, New York at Layton Elementary, I had a librarian and I read every Nancy Drew book that belonged in the library and there was a whole shelf of them. It was sort of like the dog man of its time, you know, took up an entire shelf or two. And I remember I read through every single book. And when I finished Nancy Drew, I turned and looked at her and I said, what am I going to read next? And she browsed through the shelves with me and I remember her pulling a book off the shelf and handing it to me. And it was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline Lengel. And I took that book home and it blew my mind. I just loved it. I loved Meg. I loved her brother. I loved their journey. ⁓ That book was a portal, you know, into more... Tom Nixon: Mmm. Melissa Snider: literary types of books from my series reading days and building those skills as a reader to being able to just really travel through time and space. ⁓ Another book that I absolutely loved as a child was Harriet the Spy. ⁓ Louise Fitzhugh, it was one of my absolute favorites. I read it until it was falling apart. I still have my original copy and it's pretty battered, but I keep it because I loved it so much and it was one of those books that I would take to bed with me and fall asleep holding. So those are a couple of my childhood favorites. Tom Nixon: What are you reading now? Melissa Snider: Right now, I'm always kind of reading too many things at once. I need to really try to start focusing. This is probably not something I'm going to do, but I like to say that I will. ⁓ But my books of ⁓ at the moment are Coach by Jason Reynolds. So the newest in the track series. I'm excited about this one because I do love the track series and all of the characters and I just love the humor and the humanity in his books. They're just so They're always funny in like the most surprising ways and the characters are so ⁓ real and flawed and fun to read about. So I'm loving that. And I also have, due to our school library collection on the block, Stories of Home. It's edited by Ellen ⁓ who's phenomenal. And it's published by We Need Diverse Books. And that's just a group, a company that I have really appreciated. ⁓ Tom Nixon: Mm. Melissa Snider: As somebody who's trying to curate a collection that has, you know, for a group of learners who have diverse backgrounds, I really am looking for wonderful books to hand them and books they can connect with. because of the work of Elano and the other folks at We Need Diverse Books, they've really opened a lot of doors in the publishing world for people and gotten a lot of great books on our shelves. So I love short stories, so I'm reading through that collection. Tom Nixon: Melissa, I wanna thank you for being on the podcast today for our listeners and watchers. ⁓ Please remember to like, subscribe and share. And again, thank you so much, Melissa. Melissa Snider: Thanks so much for having me.