WHAT’S UNDER THE WATER? We all have our own ways of jump-starting creativity. A quick walk around the building, a coffee break, a chat with co-workers. Children’s librarian Scott Buchanan, who runs an afterschool STEAM program for fourth- and fifth-graders at the Mt. Lebanon Public Library, likes to browse the shelves.

“If I’m ever in need of a topic, I get a lot of inspiration from our nonfiction section,” he said. “That’s usually the first place I go. When I think of the nonfiction section when I was a kid, it was all pretty dusty and dry, but I think there’s been a movement in publishing to create more dynamic, more interactive books for kids.”

Like, for example, The Strangest Thing in the Sea. The 32-page book lists a dozen sea creatures, with fold-out pages containing fun facts about each (female ocean sunfish can lay up to 300 million eggs at a time! If a sea urchin loses an arm, it can grow two in its place!), before ending with the strangest creature of all: A human. Makes sense, right? We have to create an artificial environment anytime we want to spend a lot of time below the water’s surface.

Buchanan built on the book, coming up with a program where he gives a slideshow presentation of some aquatic animals, and breaking it down into three categories — defenses, feeding and locomotion — and under each category, he lists six options. Then the kids roll a die three times to select properties, such as camouflage for defense, fins for locomotion and using a luminous fin as a way to attract prey, the way an anglerfish feeds. 

Once the kids have selected their attributes, they can use craft supplies to build their own creature and, if there’s time left in the hour, they can pair off and let their creatures battle it out with rolls of the die, as the kids describe how their creatures use their attributes to win.

The program earned Buchanan a Best Practices Award from the Pennsylvania Library Association, which he will receive at the association’s annual conference this month in Harrisburg.

Buchanan has been at Mt. Lebanon for about five years. Before that, he worked as a communications librarian in Duquesne, and worked in Arizona as a health sciences instruction librarian. In every position, he has learned more and more.

“As an instructor, I’m somewhere between a teacher and an expert. I don’t consider myself either of those things, which is great because I get to learn alongside the kids. I bring what I can, which is just sort of the scaffolding for them to create the knowledge themselves.”

NEW SENIOR SERVICES LIBRARIAN Annamae Bolen is Mt. Lebanon Public Library’s new senior services librarian. Bolen has a master’s degree in library science from PennWest Clarion, and comes to Mt. Lebanon from the Woods Run and Allegheny branches of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, where she worked for the past four years.

TAKING THE GAVEL Mt. Lebanon Public Library Director Robyn Vittek will serve a term as the Pennsylvania Library Association’s 2027 Vice President/President Elect. The association advocates for public, academic, special and school libraries across the state, representing more than 1,200 personal, institutional and commercial members. Membership is also open to public library trustees and friends of library organizations.