No Shhing Here

We've been invaded. I'm not entirely sure what's going on in the back of the library, but it involves one hundred WII army tanks, cotton balls, and red checker pieces. I think it's some kind of battle reenactment - maybe France vs. Russia? Don't know what it is, but I love it anyway. This has been a CRAZY five days. Between author visits, National Library Week, Mesoamerican research projects, and general lunacy, I'm about to loose my mind (never mind the engagement ring that went missing for 48 hours only to be recovered from the bottom of the kitchen garbage bag). I promise updates on this week's events. Just as soon as the crazy dies down. They just called for a cease fire in the back. Spring break here we come!

April is a busy month in the library world. Besides celebrating National Poetry Month, we're also recognizing National Library Week (April 10-16) and National School Library Month. Although we've got events scattered throughout April, most of our "BIG" activities will happen next week. What's the point of School Library Month? According to the ALA , "Every April school librarians are encouraged to create activities to help their school and local community celebrate the essential role that strong school library programs play in a student's educational career." This year's theme is "Create your own story @ your library" so we're focusing on writing and storytelling activities. Back in September (How I had time to think about this back in September is beyond me....) I collaborated with our local YA public librarian to plan activities for this week. Up first: an author reception with Ellen Yeomans. Ellen's written a wonderful YA...

We've never gone out of our way to celebrate National Poetry Month, but this year we've made an effort to focus on poetry. A celebration means a display and this month is no exception: Our April poetry display in the library. I don't know if this is true everywhere, but our poetry collection was starting to rot (metaphorically). For the most part, it just sat on the shelves, buried deep within non-fiction or randomly scattered throughout our "Teen Fiction" section. Students who wanted it couldn't find it, and many others didn't realize it was even an option. Our solution? We created a poetry genre. Our library is already organized by genre, so it made sense to pull out all the poetry books (I'm including novels in verse) and give them their own special shelf. Here are the genre stickers our secretary came up with: Poetry genre stickers on book spines Since creating a special section devoted to poetry, we've seen circulation increase --...

1) All student teachers are not created equally . There are loads of horror stories out there. Luckily, this is not one of them.  2) I recently had a student teacher. She's just left. :( Suddenly, there's only one librarian brain around this place . Having a student teacher made me realize just how wonderful it would be to have a colleague. I've got listserv friends, Facebook buddies, and librarians down the street, but there's nothing like another one living in my space. 3) I would say I "lucked out," but I knew I was getting a good one . Future school librarians enrolled at Syracuse University's LMS program have to do LOTS and LOTS of field experience. This is a great opportunity to vet student teacher candidates. I can handle working with someone for a few hours regardless of ability, but if the person is going to live in my space and work with "my" teachers and "my" students, then they need to have their act together. Interactin...

So, in an earlier post, I lamented a mental block we faced when creating a new mission statement. I'm totally over that now, and four months later, I'm happy to report that we've crafted one that meets our requirements: it must be SHORT and it must in the spirit of a Learning Commons.  Here's our finished product after some additional tweaking and adjustment: Learners engaged in authentic experiences inquire, analyze, and create through shared learning to produce and communicate new knowledge. I have to give credit to Allison Zmuda for excellent guidance in creating this statement. As part of a Learning Commons series of workshops held by our local BOCES School Library System , we got to spend two days with her brainstorming and thinking about the Learning Commons model of school libraries.  Allison challenged us to create a mission statement with the following characteristics: Succinct Memorable Measurable Gives leverage to make substantive change What do...

We're incredibly lucky to have an amazing library secretary. Besides the fact that she's super intelligent, very self-directed, technology savvy, and fun, she's also CREATIVE. This is a fabulous combination for our library needs. My teaching schedule doesn't leave a lot of time for setting up displays and bulletin boards. Luckily, our secretary loves doing this. She goes out of her way to create visually interesting, diverse, and appropriate displays that change monthly. Without further ado, here's how the library's looking this month. Below: The circulation desk is decked out in conversation hearts. Students wrote their favorite book on heart cut-outs, which we plastered around the library. The books on display required very little thinking -- they're just the ones with pink and red covers - easy is never a bad thing! :) Below: More of the Valentine's Day display. This is "Sweethearts of Literature" -- match the famous couple to the cor...

Just a quick vent: I'm annoyed at Apple's App Store. When I'm searching for apps, I want to be able to sort by rating . I don't have time to click through thirty different Spanish translator apps to find the one that gets the best reviews. Apple --  make my life easier!!! Let me sort by rating! Okay, I'm done now.