Building a Community of Readers | Media Education Lab

Librarians on YouTube: Building a Community of Readers

Kansas City Public Library is creating a community of readers, learners, and leaders on YouTube. In this program, we’ll hear from members of the Youth and Family Engagement team, who started a YouTube channel in 2020 to offer virtual storytime, learning activities, and more during the pandemic. We’ll learn from this library’s approach to building community and advice for other libraries looking to start a channel.

DATE: Wednesday, June 16

TIME: 12-1 pm ET

LOCATION: Online. Click here to register

This event is part of the Librarians on YouTube series.

Featured guests

Crystal Faris is the Director of Youth & Family Engagement for the Kansas City Public Library. With more than 30 years in youth librarianship, she has led youth services for Kansas City Public Library for fifteen years. Prior to coming to Kansas City, she was the Youth Services Manager for the Nassau (County, New York) Library System on Long Island and was an adjunct instructor at Queens College. She has served on numerous committees for the American Library Association and spoken at local, state, and national conferences.

Clare Hollander is the Manager of the Youth Services floor of the Central location of the Kansas City Public Library, a position she has held for the last five years. Prior to that, she was a children’s librarian specializing in early learning programming and school visits. A “newbie” to online programming when the pandemic hit, Clare has become adept at providing live Zoom class visits as well as creating content for the library’s “Make. Do. Tell” Steam videos on YouTube. She has been with KCPL 15 years.

Molly Doroba is the Early Learning Librarian at the Kansas City Public Library. She works with all the youth librarians in the library system helping promote early literacy skills and parental engagement in families with children ages 0-5 years old. Her specialties include leading storytimes, creating take-home activity kits that promote early literacy skills, working with community partners to record guest storytimes, and coordinating the library's "Stories to Go" volunteer storytime program. She also specializes in baking and eating cookies."

Moderator: Julia Feerrar, affiliated faculty, Media Education Lab. Julia is an academic librarian and YouTube hobbyist who recently started a channel, Everyday Inquiry, with her husband Trevor.