Series Books

I, just like the kids, love series books! I often read the first book in a series aloud in the library, expressly to get as many kids hooked as possible. I tell them if they liked the book, it is so easy to pick up the next book in a series! They have already made a big investment in understanding the characters and have started to become familiar with the author's writing style. I stress that I have favorite authors and love it when they publish a new book.

Of course, with The 39 Clues, I stress that they can become familiar with a number of different authors. I explain the logic to the series having different authors is to not have them in college when the final book comes out, like what happened with the Harry Potter series. I learned this from Rick Riordan. With each different author, I go over all the other books by that author that they will probably like, too.

Empowered to Frustrated

My empowerment of last week has fallen away to frustration this week. I have heard many good ideas regarding cataloging, something I do enjoy, with tangible results(!), and yet this year I have basically a classroom teacher's schedule, and a pink slip for a possible reduction in hours next year. Maybe I'll start another journal blog to specifically keep track of all the good ideas I hope to follow up on ...someday.

Another Book Display

The discussion board this week reminded me of another "display" I had intended to put together - collecting all the nonfiction Magic Tree House books and displaying them close to the fiction Magic Tree House books. I have had students looking for these nonfiction books, without any particular topic in mind. Also, they are so tough to even see on the nonfiction shelves of large, hardcover books. I'm sure the circulation will go up with them in clear sight.

Book Store Display

I have setup displays for my young patrons grouping certain nonfiction books together on the windowsill, or on top of bookcases. I have an American Girl section of nonfiction books beside a wire rack display of the fiction American Girl books. The girls love these books (babysitting, money, school smarts, feelings, etc.) and gravitate to them because they are American Girl more so than looking for a particular subject. The books also tend to be thin paperbacks, which makes it all the more difficult to see on the shelf.

Another display is all the 'ology' books, Dragonology, Pirateology, Egyptology, etc., which are otherwise scattered around nonfiction due to subject.

These books circulate a lot more, now - the goal.

Note: these are only displays of books, no changes to the cataloging. In fact, there is a bulletin board with the Dewey numbers of commonly searched for books, in case they do get put back on the shelf. The kids can find them, it just takes longer.

Empowered

After reading Catalog It!, I do feel empowered to make sensible decisions regarding library organization and cataloging of books, based on my patrons. After reflection, however, I am not jumping into any major reorganization. One must not only consider ease of access for students, but also ease of reshelving for parent volunteers! Kids would love to go to a genre section in fiction, however, unless there was a genre sticker on every book, the parents would not love trying to put them back.

I will feel no guilt however, leaving the Garfield books in fiction, and not in the nonfiction comics section.

Cataloging

Wow, it is not easy to read an entire book on cataloging! I love to catalog and miss it now that I have no time at all in my schedule for it. I have realized, however, that apparently I am quite spoiled by SAILS Workflows cataloging software. The cataloging interface presented is at a much higher level than the fields and individual character settings and the punctuation I just read about in Catalog It!. All this in a broad survey book for school library media specialists. I can only imagine what the 14 week courses in cataloging are like!

High level interfaces are wonderful things; such as being able to blog and create wikis with ease, not having to learn all the HTML code supporting it... or catalog new records without being aware of every field and MARC format underneath!

Annotated Bibliography: Cyberbullying

A cyberbullying annotated bibliography, developed with elementary/middle school teachers in mind, is also posted on the Freeman Centennial Learning Commons Wiki Teachers page. It consists of resources for teachers and kids, including tips, a cyberbullying glossary, webquests (including one for parents), and cyberbullying prevention curricula for grades 3-5 and for grades 6-12. I actually have quite a span going from what is appropriate for 3rd graders to what is applicable for 6th graders.

Internet Safety: Cyberbullying

What a broad topic internet safety is. I finally decided I had to narrow down my research. It was easy to decide on cyberbullying as it seems to be in the news daily and is a current concern in my school. I developed a cyberbullying presentation to give to teachers defining cyberbullying, and providing resources to use with students. I even went so far as to include a webquest for parents - to create an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to be used at home!

The presentation can also be reached on the Freeman Centennial Learning Commons wiki under Teachers Professional Development.

Another Presentation...

Now I know how to put a Google Doc presentation together and have a place to post presentations on my wiki. How nice to be doing something a second time, reaping benefits from the first time. This week I also found out how I could add speaker's notes on each slide.

Professional Development Presentation

I chose to create a PD presentation on wikis that I would feel comfortable with giving to the teachers at my school. I did not want to reinvent the wheel, and looked for credible resources on the web. An excellent resource for teaching teachers about wikis is the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through.

I created a Teachers page on the Freeman Centennial Learning Commons Wiki that has a section on Professional Development. In a list of 2.0 topics to cover initially with teachers, I created the presentation on Wikis.

Publishing new content containing other web content brought all sorts of issues with licensing and proper citing of resources that I am still trying to figure out!

Presentation?

Wow, my first thought is: how do I even make a presentation anymore? It certainly does not feel right to drag out PowerPoint. Happily, I found Google Docs presentation. It was so easy to put a slide presentation together. I've never been one to use all the fancy fading in and out, slide "transitions" in PowerPoint anyway. Just give me straightforward, easy slides and I'm good to go.