"Nan, is it tomorrow yet? Or it it later? Because we were supposed to go buy fireworks then!"
Guess what, fellow librarians and educators? It is tomorrow, and it is later. The 21st century is here! Are we ready?
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Is it tomorrow yet?
"Nan, is it tomorrow yet? Or it it later? Because we were supposed to go buy fireworks then!"
Guess what, fellow librarians and educators? It is tomorrow, and it is later. The 21st century is here! Are we ready?
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Is your library conducive for collaboration?
But as our curriculums change to keep pace, collaboration is a valued skill for students. In The Global Achievement Gap, Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group, identifies collaboration as one of seven survival skills critical to student success.
What can we do so that our libraries encourage student-to-student collaboration?
1. Arrange furniture so small groups of students can easily work together.
2. Allow productive noise.
3. Work with your tech folks to allow students to bring their own devices.
4. Establish relationships with students so they feel free to come to the library to work on projects as time allows.
5. Ensure that the library is open before and after school and during lunch.
6. Provide materials students may need. This may range from up-to-date online resources to basic supplies.
7. If space allows, set up a production lab so students may design and edit projects. This could be a small office or workroom converted for this purpose.
8. Collaborate with teachers to encourage projects that are process-based, inquiry-driven, and collaborative in nature.
Because students are social, collaboration is natural to them. As students work together in our libraries, we may be able to observe skills that will help us improve our collaboration with teachers!
What other suggestions do you have to encourage collaboration among students in your library?
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Nurture your (summer) reader
Summer is here, and with it comes swimming, vacations, lazy days, and hopefully, reading.
A landmark study reported in SLJ concludes that "...children who read at least six books during the summer maintained or improved their reading skills, while kids who didn't read any saw their skills slip by as much as an entire grade level"(See previous post).
The key to reading (summer or otherwise) is to make it enjoyable. If reading becomes a chore, it can be tedious at best and damaging to your child’s chances of becoming a lifelong reader at worst.
With this in mind, below are some tips for nurturing your reader:
1. Reading isn't just for bedtime.
You’re tired. Your kids are tired. Try setting aside another time when everyone is fresher and less cranky.
2. Allow your kids to choose their own books.
The most important thing is that they like the books they choose. If not, keep looking or ask a librarian for suggestions. Don’t force your taste on kids or make them read books that would be “good for them.”
3. Reading is its own reward.
We don’t need incentives to do pleasurable things, so if you hold up a carrot to get your kids to read, they will think of reading as something they have to be bribed to do.
4. Don’t say reading is important. Show it.
If you don’t read for pleasure, it’s going to be tough for your kids to be readers.
5. Reading aloud isn’t just for little kids.
Go ahead. Don’t be afraid to be goofy. Do the voices!
6. Provide the opportunity for reading.
Turn off the TV. Take books everywhere you go. Listen to audiobooks in the car.
7. Allow all types of reading.
Print books, ebooks, and audiobooks all “count” as reading. Ditto for magazines, comics, and graphic novels.
8. Own books.
Checking books out from the library is great, but nothing beats having a personal copy of favorite books. Give a bookstore gift card for special occasions!
9. Allow your kids the right to quit reading a book if they don’t like it and to re-read a book as many times as they want if they love it.
10. Talk about books with your kids.
Strike up a conversation about what they’re reading, not to test their comprehension, but to show genuine interest.
As summer ends and school begins, I hope you can look back at summer with memories of great vacations, lazy days, and favorite books that you and your child have shared.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
An end and a beginning...
Today is bittersweet. It's my last day as Library Coordinator for Frisco ISD, a job I've held for seven years. I've been in the district for 11 years, which is forever for me and pretty long in such a fast growth district.
When I was hired as librarian at Staley Middle School in 2001, the district had eight campuses. When I became coordinator in 2004, we had 21 campuses. Now there are 49.
And I'm not doing a good job of letting go of our wonderful library program, this great position, and our awesome librarians, who are friends as well.
I'll have a library! And kids!
So change is in the air for me, and change will be on the horizon for Shelf Consumed as well. This summer I hope to give it a little facelift. And I'll keep posting, but maybe from a little different perspective since I'll be a librarian again. YAY!
When I was seven, I joined Brownies because I wanted a uniform (a life-long goal I've yet to really reach). We ended each meeting with a little song: "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold."
This change feels much like that. Silver and gold!
Friday, May 20, 2011
Rock the vote, y'all!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Wrap up the year in fine form
Even though books may be due soon and many librarians will be completing inventory, do keep the library open if at all possible. Is it hectic? Are you busy? Definitely, but teachers are too, and they don't have the luxury of closing their classrooms.
Some folks have questioned whether inventory is still needed. For me it's like balancing your checkbook. It's not something you look forward to, but when you're done you feel pretty darn good. And in this case, you're balancing the checkbook for the library, which is a district asset. If inventorying the entire library feels too overwhelming, next year you may wish to schedule a half day periodically to do it in small sections.
In addition to inventory, there's a long list of things to accomplish including the following:
1. Make every effort to get missing, lost, and overdue books rounded up. This may involve calling parents with a gentle reminder, going to the cafeteria every day to ask kids to go look in their lockers, digging through trash cans during locker cleanout, and enlisting the help of pretty much everyone at your campus. Some librarians get creative with a competition of some sort.
2. Encourage teachers to continue to check out books through the last day of school and over the summer. If teachers have books they're finished with but haven't returned, you could go from room to room and trade books for chocolate.
3. Fix problems found from inventory. Mark missing books as lost and catalog books not in the system. Go ahead and delete items that have been missing more than one year.
4. Prepare a one-page report for your principal. Highlight important things that happened in the library this year. Include stats of how many books circulated, how many classes came to the library, and the number of collaborations completed. Your purpose for the report? Showcase how the library impacts student achievement and builds a reading community at your campus.
5. Let the teachers know how much you appreciate their support. Put a card in each box with a fun-sized candy bar that reads, "Thanks to your awesome support of the library, we have been able to..." Fill in the blank with 2-3 great things that you've been able to accomplish with their help.
6. Leave the library open as long as possible. Even if you aren't able to circulate books, you can still provide services and programs. Make a book trailer to get kids excited about summer reading. Hold one more book club meeting to talk about what kids are planning to read this summer.
And before you wrap up the year, be sure to take a moment to evaluate. What would you like to change or add next year? What successes can you celebrate? It's a great feeling to look back on a job well done!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Sass and Serendipity winner!
Thank you to everyone who voted! With a 63 percent majority of the vote, Gabby has been identified as the sister with the crossed feet.
Comments I received via email or in person included:
“Purple is a sassy color. White is dreamier.”
“Crossed feet are sassy.”
“The more responsible, no-nonsense sister would have the longer skirt.”
“The crossed feet seem more flirty than sassy.”
“The one with the crossed ankles seems younger.”
I’m amazed at the attention to detail and level of consideration that went into the voting. Again, thank you for your thoughtful analysis.
And to those of you who chose Daphne, don’t feel thwarted! You don’t have to change your view of the cover and can still imagine that the feet belong to her.
I hope all of you will keep a look out for SASS & SERENDIPITY when it debuts July 12 and read it to see if we made the right call.
Extra-special, big-time thanks to Leigh Ann for allowing me to commandeer her amazing blog for a couple of posts, for all that she does for bookish types everywhere, and for just being an all-around great person.
Happy reading!
Jennifer Ziegler
Friday, April 29, 2011
Sass and Serendipity: Take the poll!
Please welcome ShelfConsumed's very first guest blogger, YA author Jennifer Ziegler!
Jenny is the adorable author of How Not to be Popular, a 2009 Texas Lone Star reading list selection. Recently a fellow librarian and I ran into her at the TLA conference, and she asked our opinion about the cover of her new book, Sass and Serendipity. "I love the cover," Jenny remarked, "But I don't know which girl represents Gabby (Sass) and which one is Daphne (Serendipity)."
Since I'm obsessed with the covers of books, I love Jenny's idea of a poll in which you, the readers, get to cast your vote as to which sister is the one in the purple dress with the crossed ankles.
Let the fun begin!
Jennifer Ziegler writes...
Growing up, I hated having a sister. My sister Amanda spied on me and tattled on me and took my stuff without asking. She even once pulled a knife on me. (It was a round-tipped butter knife and all she did was threaten – but still!)
Amanda and I shared a bedroom from the day our brother Jason was born until the day I left for college. It was tough not having my own space where I could keep my stuff – and my secrets – safe and sound.
Now that we’re both adults, Amanda and I are the best of friends. It’s comforting to have someone who understands you so well … who knows what worries you and what cheers you …who can pick out the perfect gifts and YouTube clips to pass along to you … who can recall the exact face Dad made the day he discovered the petrified piece of something in your brother’s room and then laugh about it with you.
Back when I was sixteen and yelling at Amanda that I wish she’d been taken home from the hospital by a different family – preferably a gypsy family who roamed far away from our house – I never would have guessed that someday I would miss her and want to see her more often. But I do.
My relationship with Amanda was a big source of inspiration for my new novel, SASS & SERENDIPITY, which comes out July 12. The book is about Gabby and Daphne Rivera, two sisters who live in a present-day small Texas town. Gabby is the older one. She is sassy and super-responsible and believes that “true love” is just an excuse for people to go crazy. Daphne, the younger sis, is an optimistic daydreamer who believes that any guy could potentially be “the one.” It was a joy to write and I’m very proud of the results.
One of the last steps in creating a book is the concept for the cover art. As the author, I can have input on the cover, but I don’t design it. Mainly what I do is cross my fingers and hope that the art department at my publishing house will “get” my book and create an image that evokes both the theme and mood of my story. Happily, they did both with this design. In my view, it perfectly captures the classic-meets-modern, silly-meets-romantic, sweet-meets-edgy atmosphere of my novel.
But one detail isn’t clear on the front cover: Whose feet are whose? Do the crossed ankles of the sister in the purple dress belong to Daphne – the one who believes in romance, true love and serendipity? Or do they belong to sassy, dependable, no-nonsense Gabby?
I’ve decided to let readers decide. What do you think? Please cast your vote and help me decide which girl is which.
Help! Who do the crossed feet belong to?
Gabby (SASS) or Daphne (SERENDIPITY)?
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Working on your "to don't" list
Other people's "to do" lists fascinate me. Many people simply jot a list of tasks on a legal pad and mark them off when finished. Others have elaborate systems involving color-coded pens, multiple notebooks, and grids.
I quit writing a "to do" list a year or so ago when I realized a) it was depressing, and b) I was spending time on the "to do" list that I could actually be spending "to doing" instead. But that's another post.
You may not be ready to give up your "to do" list, but some management geniuses think you should work on a "to don't" list.
Come again?
In a fantastic piece this week, Daniel Pink draws from the ideas of Tom Peters and Jim Collins to suggest that we could improve our work with a "to don't" or "stop doing" list. Some of my colleagues have been talking about a similar idea of selective abandonment. Selective abandonment!
In other words, what things can you just not do anymore?
*Things that cause you to lose focus (Tom Peters)
*Things that cause you to be busy but not productive (Jim Collins)
*Things that cause you to spend less time doing good work & on the people you care about (Daniel Pink)
In regard to the library, I would also add the following:
*Things that take time away from helping kids and teachers
*Things that serve as a roadblock to kids or that make the library less welcoming
*Things that misplace the focus of the program
Below are a few items that I would encourage you to consider for your "to don't" list:
*Fines (punitive; sends the wrong message; a hassle)
*Overdue notices (ditto)
*Library orientation (wastes valuable time on procedures & stuff kids won't remember)
*Passes & signing in (your administrator may require this, but if not, why do you?)
*Fixed library schedule (ditto)
*Lessons in isolation (i.e. here's how to use the databases for LATER; not how we learn)
*Assigning the task of checking out to library staff (more efficient and empowering to allow kids to cko)
What would you add to the list?
As with goals, lists become real when we write them down. Why not begin your "to don't" list for the library today?
Monday, April 18, 2011
Counting the cost of librarian job losses
When I first opened the map this morning, it was basically blank. This afternoon it is a sea of blue pin points, and I'm sure more will follow. It is heartbreaking.
It is heartbreaking to consider the hundreds of persons who will be out of work.
It is heartbreaking to consider the hundreds of schools that will be without library services.
It is heartbreaking to consider how many years it will take to rebound from these cuts.
And most of all, it is heartbreaking to consider the thousands of kids who won't have a librarian.
Who will hand these kids that one book that turns them into readers for life?
Who will show these kids how to be fluent in this information age?
The cost of these jobs is devastating on so many levels and for so many years to come.
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