Lucy and Ethel's Library Schemes

Lets Get Jiggy With It.

2011-03-21T11:52:00.009-04:00

Need some new websites to create music with? I have a few to show you. First lets look at UJam; it is a cloud-based platform that empowers everybody to easily create new music. It is easy to sign-up for and has a video tutorial. Next, look at Audacity; it is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds that is similar to UJam. Maybe you are not the creative type, but just need some music for your presentation? Then look at Jamendo, 298,576 tracks of all genres, stream and download for free and legal sharing. Lots of music to choice from, music published under creative commons licenses; unfortunately, you will have never heard of any of the artists. Now if you or your students are true musicians, take a look at MuseScore. This is a site with free music composition and notation software. I hope the above sites help your students make their presentations a little better.

Celebrating Mardi Gras Indians

2011-03-15T18:35:00.005-04:00

This Black History Month we focused on the Mardi Gras Indians. After hearing a program on NPR, on how the Mardi Gras Indians were trying to copyright their costumes, I decided to celebrate them for Black History Month. I used a Tag Galaxy to show pictures of the Mardi Gras Indian's costumes. If you have not used a Tag Galaxy, it is a pretty cool way to show pictures. We combined this with a no overdue book reward. Lucy and I cooked up some Pain Perdu (lost bread) or New Orleans French Toast. The music is lively, the pictures are colorful, what's not to like about Mardi Gras.

NCTIES Conference-Bringing them in Nook, Line, and Sinker: Using Nooks in the School Library

2011-03-03T12:42:00.003-05:00

We just presented at the NCTIES tech conference in Raleigh. If you attended our session, and would like to see the Wiki we made for it, just click here. We enjoyed everyone's questions! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us:

Mary Simmons msimmons@currituck.k12.nc.us
Beth O'Briant bobriant@currituck.k12.nc.us

It's a Kiwi Craze

2011-02-15T18:41:00.006-05:00

We are trying to offer healthier choices in our new library café so we asked for kiwi. We were told “kids won’t buy kiwi”, but we talked them into letting us try with a few kiwi.

Well the students at CCHS have gone crazy over the kiwi. We sold 60 the first week and ran out twice that week. We are pushing the healthier snacks like kiwi and plums over pop tarts. Wondering how you eat a Kiwi at school? Well, cut it in half and use a plastic spoon to scoop the kiwi out of it's own natural bowl.

You Light Up My Life

2011-02-07T19:04:00.007-05:00

For Christmas, Fred gave me a LightWedge, and I love it for reading in bed. That got me thinking about books lights. I wondered if our students would use them if we had them available to check out. So I picked up three different styles that clip onto books and processed them for check-outs. (I did not get a LightWedge, due to the cost and the plexiglass scratches too easily.) We have let teachers and coaches know we have them. We think this will be great for homework on athletic buses. It's kind of an experiment. If the students check them out we will purchase more.

"You can't be In COMPETITION with the Cafeteria" .

2011-02-06T06:52:00.002-05:00

Lucy and Ethel hear it a lot. I was sitting in a session at NCSLAMA this year, listing to a speaker tell us how her library cafe was shut down. And then it hit me, "Why do we have to be in competition with the Cafeteria, why not partners?" We came home and had a meeting with the head of Child Nutrition, and he loved the idea. He is buying us furniture, a hot water dispenser and other things. We will start by having "The Knight's Cafe" open from 7:30 through 1st bell each morning. We will sell hot chocolate, juice, fruit and muffins. All money goes back to the cafeteria :( , but we feel that it will generate more traffic into the Library and have that Barnes and Noble feel. They get the money, but we get free furniture, rugs and he said he might buy us the 2 treadmills we want. Treadmills, that's another blog, I'm just full of ideas.

Lucy presents Weeding and Sowing the Garden of Your Library -Saturday

2011-01-27T19:44:00.006-05:00

This Saturday I will be presenting at the best one-day conference I have ever attended. It will be the first time I have presented here--and the pressure is on, as the ECU Joyner Library sponsored Librarian-to-Librarian Networking Summit is extraordinary! This one day conference not only has informative sessions, but the attendees are treated like royalty for the day!

Here is the link to the Netvibes page I set up with information for those who attend my session.

And my Powerpoint:

Weeding and Growing the Garden of Your Library

View more presentations from esva47.

Be Our Valentine

2011-01-17T12:17:00.010-05:00

We are going to host a small Valentine Event in the Library this year. We are keeping it simple. We will post signs around the school saying “Be our VALENTINE, bring your lunch to the Library to eat on Feb. 14^th”. I have repainted some wooden hearts we already had, black and white. I will use these hearts as my table displays, with some books that the student book club has picked out as good Valentines Books. I will have cards by the display saying “It’s not just BLACK and WHITE, it’s read all over”. I will then have the student’s name that picks the book for the display. “Recommended by Susie Que”. Then I have a little surprise planned. The surprise will not be advertised on our signs or in the announcements, but for those that come to eat their lunch in the Library, we will be giving them a small valentine, a warm cupcake. Lucy will be making them in her, Babycakes, cupcake maker. We will have several frostings available and they can choose and frost their cupcake for dessert.

Booky Nooks, part II.

2011-01-14T10:15:00.002-05:00

We are loving our Nooks! My video is a little dated, but I thought it would be helpful for some of you. To read about Kathy Parker's experience with Kindles, go here http://marianslibrary.wordpress.com/ . At Buffy Hamilton's site (see earlier post), I found Buffy Hamilton's persmission slip that she had credited to Kathy. I asked Kathy for permission to base mine on hers. So far, the Nooks are loaded with these books:
The Scorch Trials
Gone (Grant)
Clockwork Angel
Little Women
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Maze Runner
Dracula
Torment (Kate)
Queen of the Mountain
Lament
Kidnapped (Stevenson)
The Fiddler's Gun
The Good Thief
Girl, Stolen
A Christmas Carol
Fallen
All We Know of Heaven
Wintergirls
Compound
Linger
Shiver
The Morgue and Me
Pride and Predjudice
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Rules of Attraction

I am adding more titles soon!

Lucy and Ethel are back, and they have Booky Nooks!

2010-11-29T09:03:00.005-05:00

We are finally back to posting, after a particularly rough start to our year (we have two words to describe that--Graduation Project). Now that we are back being to our usual creative library selves, we would like to share our adventures as we add Nooks to our book collection!

I (Lucy) have batted around the idea of having Nooks or Kindles added to our library collection in order to renew interest in reading, and to expose our students to new technology that delivers print formats. In other words, I wanted to make reading exciting again. I have a Nook, and Ethel has a Kindle. They are very cool--we both enjoy our e-Readers, and I thought the students would too. I started my adventure by using Google to find out if others had blazed this path--and of course, they had! Many thanks go to Buffy Hamilton, who started this adventure long before me when she purchased Kindles for her library, and Jennifer LaGarde, who has purchased Nooks for hers. Here are links to their invaluable sites.

The Adventures of Library Girl

The Unquiet Librarian

Further Links I read:

Texas State Library Post on Buffy Hamilton

Edukindle Ning (this link is the post on Kindles vs. Nooks)

My first task was to find funding. Luckily, my budget, which came to me in early November, had increased from last year. I decided to make two big purchases with it, and just pray other supply money comes our way. I purchased a new scanner for our circulation desk (the other gave us over 15 years of service, but is tired and sketchy), and I purchased 6 Nooks and their cheapest cases from Barnes and Noble. I also purchased from eBay the protective cases and the overlay film for the screens. I used funds designated for books to get my first check for e-Books (more on this later as it deserves its own post).

Why Nooks? After reading the posts of Library Girl and the Unquiet Librarian, then talking to my local Barnes and Noble rep, I went with Nooks because I can have lessons and support from my local store (by local, I mean it is 45 minutes from our school). While they did not offer to come to our school and do the setup, I do like that the rep will help me in-store. I also already had a Barnes and Noble institutional account, so purchasing the Nooks was easy. I like that I can share one book with six Nooks by setting up an Barnes and Noble account with an email for every six Nooks. I like that I already have a Nook, and know how to use it. I also like that I just went to the store, and badda-bing, I had six Nooks in my hand (I did call ahead a day and reserve them).

I had my TA video my first observations about our process. More in the next post.

Just Desserts

2010-04-10T13:55:00.004-04:00

At the semester break, Lucy and I agreed that we had become quite the witches over the computers. Being in charge of 2 labs and 3 mobile labs was definitely taking the fun out of Lucy and Ethel. (By the way, just what does a teenager do with the little round DELL icon buttons? I would love to know.) Our students tend to take things off our computers, like buttons, stickers, and the plastic fronts, yes the plastic fronts. So we did a little brainstorming and came up with this idea. Lucy typed up the general rules for using the computers and slipped them into sheet protectors and placed them around the labs. The 1st time a class came to the Lab; we would go in and talk about the contest that the class could win. Basically, follow the rules while you’re using the computers and your class will go into a drawing for a “Dessert Party”. In May I will randomly draw from the classes that followed the rules and we will make a wonderful dessert for that class. The more times your class comes to the lab and behaves, the greater your class’s chance to win. OK, this is working, but not really the way we had planned. This motivated some students but by far not all, and it takes the whole class to make it in the drawing. Who it has motivated is the teachers, they want this party bad. You should see them running around pushing chairs in and picking up paper, checking the computers behind the students. It’s wonderful. Our custodian has commented that the Library is a lot cleaner. So I guess Lucy and Ethel’s aphorism for this blog entry is "The ends justify the means".

Lucy is Cooking Again!

2010-03-29T12:14:00.007-04:00

As anyone who has followed this blog knows, Ethel and I know the way to a teenagers' heart is food! We cook a lot in the library, and always tie it to education--I mean, how can food NOT be educational! I thought I would share my most recent cooking exploits, so you can adapt this book-themed unit to your situation. I have a 45 minute flex bell (I have 15 seniors assigned to me, and my assistant Ethel, runs crazy open library), so I had to come up with ways to entertain, educate, and delight them each day. We have a reading day, a study day (I use the word study loosely), and so I try to teach them a little something on the other days--life skills! They wanted to know how to cook cheap, easy food at college, so I have started a weekly cooking lesson, that they will soon take ownership of--they each will bring a recipe and food to share each Friday! I only cook enough for each to have a taste--that way, I do not compete with the cafeteria. Our flex is also after lunch, and as I said, there is much education involved. And the super cool thing is that because Ethel is operating open library, the walk-in kids drift in and just watch what I am doing! That lets them see the librarian in a whole new educational and fun role.

My book tie-ins are Michael Pollan's, Food Rules and Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet. I also showed my students two videos that I streamed from the Internet: Jamie Oliver's talk on The Ted at http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jamie_oliver.html and Jamie Oliver's first episode of Food Revolution at ABC.com. I also read them sections of Food Rules. For one cooking class I brought in my electric frying pan, hooked it up on the floor of the library, and stir-fried bok choy. I had purchased bags of already cooked brown Minute Rice which I cooked in the microwave in the back of the library for only 90 seconds! For the Bok Choy stir fry, I just put a bit of salt and olive oil in the pan, threw in the washed and chopped bok choy, and added soy sauce, ginger, and garlic. Then I added chicken broth that had a little corn starch mixed in. Served over rice! Half of my class had never had bok choy, and everyone tried it! It was great.

The next cooking class I taught them to make a quick pasta--in the electric skillet. I pre-cooked the pasta in the skillet before they arrived (bow-ties), threw some edamame in with it for the last five minutes, and had it drained and ready. I then put olive oil, a big chopped elephant garlic, salt, pepper, and sauteed it all for a bit. Then I threw in the drained pasta and edamame, and one cup of reserved cooking water, and added parmesan cheese. They loved it--cheap, simple, and healthy. They also really were engaged in the two videos. I am hoping it helps them focus on healthy eating, saving money on food, and provides them with some life long skills--and all from their library!

Sweet, Sweet, Donations

2010-01-25T18:59:00.002-05:00

Our students sometimes have to buy their Summer Reading Books and some students prefer to buy the class novels that are assigned in English. The English Department chair asked me to come up with a way to encourage the students to donate these book to the library. Maybe a prize if they donate their Summer Reading book, she suggested. I have thought about this for about 6 months. I could see giving a prize or reward every time a student donated a book could get pricey. After many months of pondering, here is my idea. If a student donates a classroom novel or their Summer Reading book their name goes in the hat once for every book they donate. In May I will randomly draw a name from the hat for what we are calling a “Dessert Party Lottery”. The winner of the Lottery will pick the dessert of their choosing from a menu provided by Lucy and I. The winner may invite 5 of his or her friends to join them for this treat. The notices went out 3 days ago and I have already had 11 books donated.

Kindle for PC

2010-01-11T15:23:00.002-05:00

I'd like to share a new way to enjoy books--without the high cost of a Kindle. I really want a Kindle, but have to get my girls through college first. Amazon is now offering a great AP for those of us who can't afford a Kindle yet--the Kindle for PC! It is FREE! It took me mere minutes to download the free software on my laptop. While not as totally cool as the Kindle, it really works well. In seconds, I purchased and downloaded my first book. I have also made a point to look for free books each week from the Kindle store which I have downloaded. I have had no trouble reading from the screen. By the way, one of the free book downloads this week is a Young Adult novel! I have pointed this out to some of my students as a great way to save money on textbooks next year when they are in college--the classics are free as well! Hope someone can use this tip!

Juneteeth in February, Anyone

2010-01-09T07:20:00.004-05:00

Black History Month 2010 we will be celebrating “Juneteenth”.

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the US. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th in Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now now free. -www.juneteenth.com

Our activities for the celebration will include an art display by Annie Lee. Annie Lee is known for her realistic and humorous portrayals of contemporary and historical African American family life. Once again I purchased a wall calendar of Annie Lee’s work, this will give 12 pictures to display. Tip: wall calendars go on sale during the month of Feb. so plan ahead to save money.

We will have another Tasting. In all my research on Juneteeth Celebrations, people say it is a must to have a red soda. Because Juneteenth originated in Texas, we have chosen Big Red Soda. Big Red is not distributed in our corner of NC (northeast), so most of our students have not tasted Big Red before. We picked up our soda at Wal-Mart in Charlotte NC, while we were attending the AASL conference. We will have teachers sign-up in advance to bring in whole classes for the Tasting. I can accommodate 9 classes of 30 students. The teachers will collect the money for the tasting (this one being 10 cents per student) . Any student not wanting to participate can opt out of the Tasting, but will still come for the very short PowerPoint Presentation.

So that is our plan. I will post a picture or two after the event and leave a comment.

Aleuts or Unangan original inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands

2010-01-02T07:33:00.013-05:00

After reading the book Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse, I decided to showcase a moment in history about the Aleuts of Alaska for Native American Heritage Month. If you are not familiar with the story, the gist of it all is, that the US Government sent the Aleuts of Alaska to internment camps during WWII.

Our Activity for Native American Heritage Month was a "bulletless" Power Point about the Aleuts during WWII. We had a display of Inuit Artwork (I could not find a wall calendar of Aleut Artwork).

We had a Tasting of Smoked Salmon Appetizer, (yes this was an expensive one). We chose Smoked Salmon because the Aleuts were highly skilled at attaining their food from the land and sea, such as sea lions, seals, otter, salmon, birds and such. The cost of this tasting was 50 cents per student. We had 6 whole classes to come in for the tasting, around 130 students over a two day period. Each student was able to have two appetizers each. A lot of our students had never tasted smoked salmon before. Our outdoorsy types seemed to love the smoked salmon.

Things I Learned
*A Smoked Salmon Fillet (1.5 lbs) will make over 200 small appetizer. I over bought.
*You must make the appetizers no more than an hour before serving. Crackers will get soggy.
*Need to bring lemon juice to wash hands. Hands smelled like fish all day long.

Yes, it's OK to Eat in the Library

2009-11-03T10:00:00.008-05:00

Coming to Charlotte for AASL? Come by our booth, and participate in one of our tastings! See the next blog post for the Animoto of some of the tastings we have had in the media center! We are very excited to be presenting at the Exploratorium during the AASL Conference in Charlotte on November 5, 2009.

Our flyer is here.

AASL Exploratorium Session

2009-11-02T12:42:00.006-05:00

Ethel and I are packing up and taking our little show on the road! We will be giving an Exploratorium session in Charlotte, NC on Thursday at AASL. We don't think our video or are handout link is working, so I am going to attach both of those here! Hope to see many of you in Charlotte! We are going to be at Booth 46.

Yippee!! New Post! New Idea! Bookmobile!

2009-10-14T14:06:00.003-04:00

Hello, followers--excuse our tardiness in providing a new post--those of you at a high school know how hectic the beginning and ending of school can be.

So, here is our new idea--we have been truly agonizing over the loss of our patrons this year--due to circumstances beyond our control. Students have less free time, hall visits are nil, lunch times are shortened,English teachers are in trailers, etc. But I have a lovely book budget, and new books arriving daily. We have a great collection. So, Ethel and I decided last week we would have to take the library to the students. We have a cart we were given when they were discarded from a local store. I placed a nice selection of books on it, and off I went to the trailers last Friday. We brought it back--Ethel decorated it. I went back to the trailers. I logged into Destiny in the classroom, and checked in and out books right there! I can't say I checked out tremendous numbers, but it was more than we have been checking out throughout the day. Check out our pictures!

Did you know, March 14 is “National Potato Chip Day”

2009-03-13T14:09:00.002-04:00

I am reposting this blog post from last year. Today we had the Potato Chip Tasting and it went great. Twenty-six teachers and students joined in on the fun. As you can see in the picture, I made a grid on a sheet of paper and under each chip the students found the type/flavor. The cost was 50 cents. For 50 cents, they received 12 potato chips and a bottle of water. The cost of the event was around $43.00.

Well, Lucy and Ethel are way too busy this year to pull it off, but next year we will be having a Potato Chip tasting on National Potato Chip Day. We've had the idea of a Potato Chip Tasting for a while now. The idea came from my husband, Fred. A couple of years ago Fred decided to have a Potato Chip tasting party at our house, similar to wine tasting.

He ordered 12 different (you might say odd) potato chips from Tims Cascade Snacks and set them around the house in bowls with numbers on them. Party goers had a card with two columns. One column was numbered 1-12, the other had a list of all the chips' names. They were to taste the chips and match the number of the chips with the correct name. After the tasting we had lots of sandwich fixings and party goers made a sandwich, and well, we had plenty of chips to go with the sandwiches.

At school I will probably not do the sandwich part just have the tasting. That will keep the cost down. This tasting will have a small cost due to the fact that chips are not cheap. We will also sign up in advance and limit the number of participants so we can better plan. I am posting this over a year in advance from when we plan to have this event. If anyone tries it this March please, please, let us know how it goes and give us feed back and tips for success.

P.S. I want to give a shout out to Fred, who just happens to be my husband and the Director of Media and Technology for our school system. Fred is very supportive of Lucy and Ethel schemes for the most part. I think we scare him on occasion.

Shakepearean Insults

2009-02-22T08:29:00.005-05:00

Ok, sometimes we all need a good laugh or maybe a new insult. This website will provide both. Ye Olde Official Shakespearean Insult Kit. I have shared this with our teachers who teach Shakespeare. It can be a quick activity with the students so then they to will be armed with insults like: "Swim with leeches thou frothy beef-witted nit", instead of the F bomb.

Homemade Marshmallow

2009-02-22T08:05:00.010-05:00

Our no overdue book reward this time was, HOT CHOCOLATE with HOMEMADE MARSHMALLOWS. This was a simple reward. We used instant hot chocolate that I received for Christmas. Heated up two 30-cup coffee pots with water. Bought 4 bags of cookies. And I made the marshmallows from an Alton Brown recipe. Most students and adults for that matter, did not know you could make marshmallows at home. They must me made at lease one day in advance, because they have to start drying out, so you can cut and handle them. We also borrowed a case of coffee mugs from my church to make it more special. The bonus that day was the reward fell, my accident on a school board walk-thought of our school. So I put some marshmallows on a silver tray and amused and astonished the Central Office and School Board. Never pass up an opportunity to showcase your Library.

How To Get The Books Back

2009-02-17T19:04:00.013-05:00

Do you have a problem with overdues and sometimes wonder what to do? Well Lucy and Ethel certainly do. We thought long and hard to come up with a way to reward good behavior and not to reward and reinforce negative behavior. Here is what we came up with. Once every nine weeks we have a random drawing. We are looking for a class with no overdue books. The first class we find with no overdue books wins a reward party. All classes that were drawn and did not win because of overdue books are read this notice. "Good News and Bad News. This proclamation is to inform the class of ________, that your class was the (what ever # the class was drawn) class to be drawn for the (we state the reward) for No Overdue Books Reward. Unfortunately, this class has (state the # of overdues in class, just the # not their names) student/students with overdue books. The next reward will be (state a date)." This has worked pretty well for us. We has had more students checking to see when books are due and renewing. The day of the drawing we make an announcement during class time telling them they only have 30 more mins. to turn in overdues before we draw. This bring in a ton of overdue books. (Isn't it amazing how many student have the overdue book with them at school and still do not turn them in, until you ask them for the book). And it does hurt that Lucy and Ethel give darn good reward parties. I will list a few: Pancake Breakfast, Ice Cream Floats, Christmas Party Luncheon, Hot Chocolate with Homemade Marshmellows. We would love to heard your thoughts on overdues.

One Man’s Trash

2009-02-15T14:02:00.005-05:00

We check out classroom sets of supplemental books from our library. Unfortunately, students can not check out a book if they have something overdue. This turns into a sour subject. Students make grand statements, like "Fine, if I fail English it will be your fault". OK, I don't think that is correct, but anyway, I found the answer. Instead of throwing away the old discard copies of classroom sets, I now keep them. We call them trash copies. If you have an overdue, then you take a trash copy. It is falling apart and we don’t care if we ever see it again. Return your overdues and you can check out a book with all of its pages. It works great. The picture shows our collection of trash copies to be given away. There are kept in a back room.

The Gullah Culture

2009-02-08T06:07:00.007-05:00

This year for Black History Month we are celebrating "The Gullah Culture". Gullah, Geechee, or Gullah Geechee descibe African Americans who live in the Low Country region of South Carolina and Georgia. The Gullah are known for preserving more of their African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other African American community in the United States.

Our activities for the celebration include an art display by Jonathan Green. Green's art reflects the everyday life of the Gullah people. As a child Jonathan lived with his grandparents in SC where he learned the dialect and cultural heritage of the Gullah culture. I purchased a Jonathan Green calendar and mounted the calendar pages for this display. This was the cheapest way to obtain this artwork.

We have purchased a CD of Gallah music. This will be played throughout the month including the day of our third activity, "The Shrimp and Grits Tasting". We will be serving a small taste of Shrimp and Grits (about a 1/2 cup) for 50 cent per person during all our lunches.

Our students love tastings and while they are visiting the library for this activity we will share more information about the rich Gullah culture and show them our display of books that have Gullah characters, are about the Gullah region, or are by a Gulla author.

It’s Audible

2009-01-11T14:12:00.003-05:00

I am a big Audible book fan. I like to mult-task by listening to my books instead of reading them. I read/listen to more than 100 books a year. I always have a real book or ebook on my Kindle that I am reading also.
Last year we (as in we, I mean the Library) subscribed to Audible.com for 24 books. We bought a download of the supplemental books that our teachers were teaching. I burned CDs of the download and put them in a CD holder that I bought from the Dollar Tree for a $1.00. (I only burn one copy, because of copyright. By only burning one copy of the download it’s just like buying a book from Barnes & Noble and placing on the shelf of your library. Yes, many people can use it, but only one at a time.) These books on CD are then placed in the Professional Library for teachers to use in class. The teacher can introduce the book by playing the first chapters of a book to get the students' interest up or to help the students with the dialect or names (as in books like the Kite Runner where names are tough).
To make the books more user friendly I took most of them home over the summer and indexed them. What I mean by that is I listen to the book, while following along in the hard-copy book. I made a chart to insert into the CD holder that tells what time each chapter begins on the CDs. This allows the teacher to play the first 3 chapters in class, assign Chapters 4 and 5 for homework and listen to Chapter 6 in class the next day. This really helps with a long book and/or reluctant readers. This also takes a really long time, because not all books break chapters at the beginning of a track.
We have had an Audible Account now for two years. They have contacted us and told us they they will not renew with us next year. I thought this might because of copyright, but they informed me they will not accept purchase orders anymore. If we continue this we will have to use a credit card.

It the teacher is not going to use the audbile book then with the teachers permission we will check it out to a student.

Lucy and Ethel in LMC Magazine!

2009-01-02T17:54:00.002-05:00

Okay, we have to scream it to the world that Ethel and I have an article in the January/February 2009 issue of LMC (Library Media Connection) magazine. Our article is on pages 16 and 17 and the title is "Journey into the World of Manga and Graphic Novels". This is the first time we have appeared in a print publication, and it is exciting. I have always had a griping fear of writing that Ethel shares--so we had to overcome much self-doubt to write this. We kept the folksy style we use in this blog because that is just how we are--folksy and funny! We hope you all read it and enjoy it--it was quite a learning process for us, and getting the magazine in the mail today (author copies) was really exciting! I urge you all to do the same--share your ideas with the rest of us by submitting an article to a magazine!

Twilight mania!

2009-01-02T17:41:00.002-05:00

Okay, I (Lucy), have fallen hard for the Twilight series. Yes I am late in the game, but my daughters (17 and 19) convinced me I had to read them. I devoured them in two weeks, ignored my family, the pets, and the housework, and had them all read two weeks before the movie premiered. The seventeen year old and I saw the movie on the day it opened, then saw it again after Thanksgiving! I even bought a Twilight t-shirt to wear to school. While I know not everyone enjoys these books, I will tell you that my reading them sparked a lot of great conversation with not only my daughters, but with students at our school and the other school I serve (both high schools). We have almost 12 copies of Twilight and the rest of the series, and they are all out. We have long lists of holds we are working through. I wore the T-shirt to school, and one of the questions I wrote on our green board for student response was "Who is your favorite Twilight character?". We had tremendous student response on the board. I also have them circulating heavily through my faculty--I haven't seen so much faculty enjoyment of a series since I hooked a group of faculty on The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon (an adult series). Reading them put me back in touch with my inner teenage girlie girl self. So if you haven't taken the plunge, do it just so you can make that connection--and remember, not everyone will enjoy them. And if you enjoyed the series, I would highly recommend for your Twilighters the book Impossible by Nancy Werlin. It totally rocks--it is well written, has fascinating characters, a great love story, supernatural creatures--what is not to love!

Spa Day! Lunch Time Treat In the Library

2008-09-28T08:22:00.017-04:00

Sometimes, I think we look for the impossible and try and make it happen, IN THE LIBRARY. Lucy & Ethel’s latest scheme was to let the students sign up for Self-Pedicures. The students that signed-up got to bring their lunch in and relax in our Lunch Time Spa. They loved it!

Here is how it worked.

We had a sign-up with 40 spots for self – pedicures

(2 people per lunch, 4 lunches per day, for 5 days)

We only had 17 to sign-up, but of this 17, five were boys. All who participated seemed to have a great time. Now, other students who did not sign up, want to know if we will be doing it again.

We set up the Professional Library like a spa with the following

2 foot baths (loaned to us from teachers)

2 metal pedicure sets (from the Dollar Store)

40 nail files (2 packs from the Dollar Store) (students kept files)

Bag of Cotton balls (from the Dollar Store)

Nail polish remover (donated)

Lotion (donated)

Corn starch packing peanuts for toe spreaders (donated)

Pedicure Book (We bought at Amazon)

Towels (lots of towels) (from my house)

Barbersol (that blue disinfectant you see at the Beauty Shop) (donated)

Lysol (to spray foot baths between students)

Nail Polish-around 50 bottles (donated from a Librarian at the Middle Store)

30 cup coffee maker (to heat up water for foot baths)

Big Plastic bucket (to dump water in between students)

Eucalyptus Leaves (for floating in foot baths) (donated)

Creative and Totally Cool Tool!

2008-09-16T12:08:00.003-04:00

I am playing around with a website that I can think of many educational uses for-- Wordle. Wordle is a free word cloud generator, and it's creative potential is endless. You can do cool random changes of whatever text you type or paste in, then print the results, or use it in your blog or on your webpage. I am sending this out to our English department, and art department. I am also picturing using it to make signs for the library--make one for the 600s, using words that are represented in that Dewey section. For example:
title="Wordle: The 200s Dewey Decimal System"> src="http://wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/190370/The_200s_Dewey_Decimal_System"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

Are You Ready For Some Football!

2008-09-13T11:41:00.012-04:00

This idea came from Ricky. He said we should have a paper football tournament in the Library. We did, and we called it the Intramural Paper Football Tournament. This took very little time to set-up.
Here is how we set it up:
• Made a student signed-up sheet for their lunch bell (we have 4 lunches).
• Made a play-off chart with brackets.
• Set up tables and ran a strips of painters tape down the middle for the 50 yard line.
• Made paper footballs out of neon paper. (Very easy to see.)
• Made field goal post out of a string of yarn tied around 2 full 12oz bottles of water.
• Set up a computer with an on-line stop watch.
• Read the rules of how to play and flipped a coin to see who would kick-off & who would receive.

We played during lunches until we had a winner from each lunch, then we moved the game to 8 am before school. At 8 am busses have arrived and the tardy bell does not ring until 8:20. So winner of 1st lunch plays winner of 2nd lunch & 3rd lunch winner plays 4th lunch winner. Then the next morning at 8am we had the final playoff for school champion of paper football. That student won a $4.00 Nerf football.

Things we will do better next time:
We will ask the PE dept. for student score keepers and a referee for each table. It was too much for Lucy and Ethel to do with sometimes 3 games going on at once. Plus the Library was still open and we had to keep running up to check out books. We will spread tables out and have a computer stop watch for each table so that games can start at different times.

Above and Beyond:
We only had 14 participates, so I gave each participate a small gator-aide and two fun size candy bars during the lunch time games. This was a surprise to students, they were not told they would get snacks at sign-up or I would have had students signing up just for treats. We told them we were carb loading before the big game. We had hoped for more students to sign-up. After other students walked in an watched I think we will have a bigger turn-out if we do this again.

In-House Field Trip -- AUNT ALEXANDRA TEA PARTY

2008-09-07T08:43:00.000-04:00

See this document for students who are reading or just finished reading “To Kill A Mockingbird”.

Spicing It Up For Hispanic Heritage Month

2008-08-27T20:01:00.009-04:00

Hispanic Heritage Month
Sept. 15th – Oct. 15th

Here is the plan. On a recent trip to Texas, my niece took me shopping at Central Market (a really nice, upscale grocery store). My mission was to come up with an idea for a Tasting for Hispanic Heritage Month. I was playing around with the idea of Horcha (a rice drink). I found this already made in a box near the soy and rice milk so I bought one. I picked up a big box of Galletas Marias Cookies as a possibility. The cookies are like an animal cracker in a wafer form. In the end I decided on Trechas' Chili Salt that is sometimes sprinkled on fruit. I bought a bottle of powder and one of liquid and we will serve it on apple wedges. Food is always a good attention getter with teenagers and I love the idea of exposing them to something new. I will be using the pre-made chili salt in the bottles that I bought, but I Googled and found many recipes to make your own Chili Salt. I will post pictures and comments to let you know if my idea was Grandioso or not. Forgot to mention, there will be a 50 cent fee for the tasting, just to cover our costs. Anyone else have any nifty ideas to celebrate this month?

Student self-checkout

2008-08-15T10:36:00.002-04:00

Lucy and Ethel believe strongly in letting students take ownership of their library experience. Once I got Ethel as my full time assistant, we started letting the students scan their own books. I know some of you do this, and do this at an even more advanced level than we do (more on that later). Picture Lucy, or Ethel, behind the desk. Student comes up, gives us their number. We type it in our Follett Circ Plus. Student then scans book (or books). We hit print for the receipt. We type in any passwords necessary for any overrides (like if the book is on hold, and we are letting it go, etc.). The students really like this--especially if they are in a large group. Believe it or not, when we get a whole class in to check out, it is faster if they scan the books themselves. Now, we'd love to have comments from some of you who take this to a higher level--having students type in their own numbers and scan, etc. How is that set up in your libraries? We are switching to Destiny by late spring (wish us luck), and wonder if this offers us even more possibilities here. Let us know your thoughts in our comments section!

In-House-Field-Trips

2008-06-16T11:55:00.003-04:00

We are making a book of In-House-Field-Trips that our teachers can look through and sign-up for. With the high price of gas and the difficulty in finding a bus driver, this is a good alternative for field trips. Some of these programs will be free. Others will have a small fee, if there is food or if we have to pay someone to come in for the program. We will design each program to fit into the time period allotted for a normal class (in our case 90 minutes). The students will participate during their regular class period and not miss any other classes.

So look for Blog Labels with In-House-Field-Trip

What's Your Sign?

2008-06-07T07:56:00.005-04:00

The Element Encycopedia of Birthdays : Know your birthday Cheung, Theresa

We picked up The Element Encyclopedia of Birthdays: Know Your Birthday up at our local Barnes and Noble. We also have the other Element Encyclopedias that we purchased there as well. These are usually housed in our reference section, but today, Ethel decided to arrange them on the table near our Slam Board, up by our circulation desk. Wow, what a hit! Students are constantly stopping by the table to read about their birthdays, and we have snagged some faculty members as well! Sometimes, it's just the little things we do that shows our patrons how cool we are!

Lucy & Ethel's DIY Project

2008-05-29T07:11:00.003-04:00

We needed more space in the Manga/Graphic Novel section of the Library. We needed to move the current magazine issues out of that section and ideally over to the the area where we check out back issues of magazines.

But how?

After a lot of brainstorming, we came up with this. We had the maintenance department attach 3 wood strips to the wall. (I had already measured and knew how many strips the wall would hold. I got the feeling that the maintenance guys did not believe me, based on all the, "are you sure this is what you want" I heard. I showed them the project when completed and they were duly impressed.) Then I measured, and installed 33 small screws to the wooden strips on which the 33 plastic buckets would hang. Finally, we added some labels to fronts of the buckets. There you have it.

The cost of our new magazine display was $34.12. Small Screws $1.12 at local hardware store and 33 Dollar Tree plastic buckets for $33.00. Boards were free from the maintenance department. (I had some wood strips I had found in the shop class, but maintenance said I could not use salt-treated inside the building. They brought wood strips that looked 10 times better than my scraps.) By the way, our Maintenance department rocks. They are in the Library within 2 days after a work order is put in. (This could be because Lucy and Ethel scare them, because they are worried about what we will do on our own. If I call and ask for hand tools, they are there within 2 hours!)

A typical sitcom day for Lucy and Ethel

2008-04-24T13:59:00.002-04:00

There is a reason we are known as Lucy and Ethel--we attract trouble, mayhem, and fun like flies. Yesterday, Ethel left the library to go check on a keyboard in another computer lab. A darling child, the apple of his mother's eye, had decided to rearrange all the keys on a keyboard. Ethel decided to rearrange them--and had a technician in the room with her. The lab at this time was full of students and a teacher. Ethel decided to remove the rearranged keyboard from the computer to hand to the tech so he could rearrange the keys. In a previous attempt to guard our computer cords from our dear children, Lucy (me) had zip-tied them together. So Ethel needed something sharp to cut the ziptie. Ethel asked the students if any of them had a knife--they shook their innocent heads--and she told them "and you shouldn't tell me if you do". Lucy sat in the library, innocent to what was about to transpire. The walkie -talkie in the library office goes off--and the person on the other end says "I need a custodian to the computer lab to clean up Mrs. O'Briant's blood (aka Ethel)". Lucy is shocked and awed and totally unaware of why Ethel is bleeding in the lab. She calls the nurse--no answer--which makes her mind run wild with possibilities. She finally gets the front office--and finds out the Ethel is cut badly and in the nurses office. The unwitting tech, not knowing that Ethel should never be given sharp objects, handed her his Swiss Army Knife, she tried to cut the zip-tie--and cut her thumb to the bone! She had also cut the offending zip-tie, and she grabbed the computer keyboard, and used it to catch the amazing amount of blood that was pouring from the cut. (The students in the lab never noticed). She had run into the English department workroom, put her the knife and the keyboard in the sink, bled in there, then ran to the nurses office with her thumb wrapped in the brown, unabsorbing paper towels that only schools seem to purchase. She didn't call Lucy because she knew Lucy would faint at the sight of blood.
Meanwhile, back in the library, Lucy finally gets a call from Ethel. The nurse is sending Ethel to the nearest Doc in a Box, and Ethel wanted her purse. Luckily, I had a teacher trying to sell us Krispy Kreme donuts at the time, and she took the purse to Ethel. Lucy finds another teacher to watch the library, and goes to comfort and joke Ethel about her prowess with knives. The tech who handed her the knife, is freaking out quietly, because his boss is Ethel's husband. Ethel is fine, required no stitches, but is walking around the library today with her thumb bandaged to some kind of metal thing, and she is suffering through the pain. She has found out that opposable thumbs are important--who knew you'd need your thumb so much!
Ethel's statement is that she heard she had to give another state test, and tried to stab herself.

Just another day of Lucy and Ethel in the Library--you can't make this stuff up!

GRAFFITI

2008-04-17T05:44:00.005-04:00

I was sitting in a session about Urban Readers at the NCSLMA Conference, (mind you no part of my county is urban) when this thought came to me. Graffiti as Art or Graffiti as advertisement. I grabbed my note pad and started making notes of how I could make this happen. I came back to school and got permission from the Principal. He told me he had been in trouble at a former school for having a Graffiti project, but told me to go ahead with it. So I did. I spoke with one of the art teachers, who said she would give students extra credit for working on the project. I bought a big bucket of sidewalk chalk from Wal-Mart, only to find it cheaper at Target the next week; oh well. I've posted some pictures of the project.

GRAFFITI AS ADVERTISEMENT
Arts students, here is your assignment. Come to the Library and select a Book or Magazine. Then take the sidewalk chalk to the courtyard to make your graffiti advertisement.

The Rules
*Artwork should be in graffiti style
*Should advertise book or magazine you have chosen, so someone will want to check it out
*Somewhere in the graffiti it should say “Check it out in the Library”
*Graffiti can only appear on the ground. No chalk on the brick walls
*Must be acceptable for a public school audience

A Page in Black History

2008-04-04T06:39:00.002-04:00

Several years ago I made about 14 single sided scrapbook pages, with an unusual black history fact on it. I made the pages 8½ X 11 and slipped them into sheet protectors. During Black History Month we place the pages in the middle of each table in the Library; every few days I move the pages around to different tables (so that the student who sits at the same table every day would get to see different sheets). The pages are bright and colorful, to catch your attention. I have reused them over and over again. Below are some of the people and/or events I used for the scrap booking sheets.

* John Myers-WWII Test Pilot
* Quilts-Secret Slave quilt code
* Marie Laveau-Voodoo Queen
* Henry O. Flipper-1st Black Graduate of West Point

P.S. If you’re not a scrap booker this could be a project for a history class, a contest for students, or a Volunteer project for someone to do.

P.S.S. This would work for Women's History Month, Native American Heritage Month, etc.

Visual Thesaurus

2008-03-26T12:05:00.008-04:00

We bought a couple of copies of Thinkmap’s Visual Thesaurus. If you have not seen this product you need to check it out. It makes looking up a word fun. We put a copy of it on our OPAC computer station and the other on a laptop presentation cart that can be checked out to teachers. I will have to admit you have to drag the students over to use it, but once they try it, we find they come back to play with it on their own. If you send that laptop presentation cart out with a smartboard, this becomes an interactive activity with the students. One year after purchasing this product our English teachers are now starting to use it in their classrooms. Our experience has not been the "Build It and They Will Come" mentality but more like "Slap ‘Em in the Face" with it and they will like it. Am I being too blunt?

"I love the Library" Lunch Sweepstakes

2008-03-17T15:16:00.003-04:00

From: lucyethel47, 1 hour ago

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This powerpoint shows pictures from a contest that we designed to reward our high school patrons for signing in to the media center--it was a way to reward our "regulars".

SlideShare Link

"I Love the Library" patron contest for our "regulars"

2008-03-17T15:04:00.005-04:00

Ethel and I decided we needed a way to reward those students who come to the library and hang out before school every morning. Our overdue contests reward a whole class--some of whom may or may not come to the library much. Our Twelve Days of Christmas return book contest can possibly reward a student who never comes to us. We have about 60-75 students who come to the library and hang out with us each morning. To reward someone from that group, and to reward those folks who sign in and out like we ask them to, we came up with this activity, that we just completed at 12:00 today. We thought we'd share this with the group-- you can change and adapt it at will. We called it the "I love the Library Lunch Sweepstakes". For 3 weeks, we ran the check in-check out list after our morning crowd left. We put those names in a drawing for our contest. The more times a student visited us during that time, the more times their name went in the drawing. They had to sign out as well (something our crowd often forgets to do). We drew a name 2 weeks ago--the prize was a lunch for the winner and 3 of her friends who had to have the same lunch (we have 4 lunches at our school). Ethel and I decided on the menu when we prepared the PR for the event. We prepared and served them: Spaghetti Carbonara, a caesar salad, french bread, chocolate mousse, and iced tea. We donned chefs jackets, and closed the library to other students during that lunch. We played Celtic music (yes, we have a mixed theme--it is St. Pat's, but, it is also Pasta Month). We set a beautiful table, with peach blossoms from my yard. Ethel and I shopped on Saturday (we are friends and neighbors as well as colleagues), she cooked the bacon yesterday, and mixed the mousse yesterday. We used a bagged Caesar mix--I tossed it before they came. We heated the bread in the microwave in my back office--and I cooked the vermicelli in my Wolfgang Puck Electric pressure cooker in the back office. Beth threw together the pasta dish in an electric frying pan in front of the student winners in the main part of the library. We served them at a beautifully decorated library table! Ethel ran off a history of spaghetti carbonara and chocolate mousse and had it at the tables. A fine time was had by all! Cost--around $20.00. We paid for it with money we make selling hacky-saks, gel pens, etc.

We Check-Out Balls--To Those Who Need Them

2008-03-15T09:15:00.002-04:00

No pun intended, well... yes the pun was intended. But we really do check-out balls. The students can come in at lunch and check-out a soft football, kush ball, or juggling balls. We also have bubbles and a set of indoor horseshoes for check-out. Our Library opens up into the school's courtyard, where there is nothing but grass and concrete. Last year some of the boys brought there own football and accidentally hit someone with it. Then we had a rule that you could not throw balls in the courtyard. The boys were sad and bored, to the point I saw them throwing wadded up paper balls. So I went to the Principals and asked about the soft balls. They agreed, and that's the story of how the Library checks out balls to those who need them.

P.S. We tape barcodes on a sheet of paper with the ball type and color beside it. Then we just scan the paper for check-out. All bubbles, balls, etc. are due back in the Library at the end of each lunch. We do not have any problems with them returning items. We do lose a lot of balls on the roof of the school.

We’re Calling it Coloring Therapy

2008-02-19T14:11:00.000-05:00

Here’s the deal-- I was unpacking something and it had 4 nice big sheets of paper in it, you know the kind of paper we use to draw on in 1st grade. I called out to Lucy, “Hey I have an idea--let’s put this paper out on the tables at lunch and just let the students color.” And that’s what we did. I taped the paper down on the tables and set out colored pencils. Made a sign that said “Let’s Color”. The students took over from there--during most lunches I had a small group around the tables coloring and laughing. And I feel better that I got one more use out of the packing paper before throwing into the landfill.

Lucy says: and no one colored or wrote anything inappropriate!!

P.S. Coloring Therapy is a real thing.

Yet another genealogy project--oh my!

2008-02-10T17:44:00.003-05:00

I really like to collaborate with teachers--my library professor, Dr. Bucher, drummed collaboration and public relations into our brains and I took it as gospel!!! But, Lucy is going to be honest--there are times, when a teacher comes to me with a collaborative project--that I cringe (inwardly). This is one of those times. One of my favorite teachers approached me last week and asked me to talk to her students about one of my passions--genealogy. You may be asking yourself ,if Lucy is so passionate about genealogy, why did she cringe? Well, I am going to be honest. As a very amateur genealogist (really no more than a baby in the big world of genealogy), I have some problems with this type of activity at a high school. I worry about the child who doesn't know his or her father or mother, but listens as others can recite generations of their family. I worry that they will unearth family secrets no one wants dug up (hey, Lucy did this with her own family genealogy). Famous quote from my aunt: "why don't you let those dead people rest". I worry that they will get sidetracked by the myriad of overwhelming resources on the net, and get drawn down the wrong lineage line.

I have worked on a collaborative project of genealogy before with another teacher at my school. I will try to dig up the publisher document we made to go with the unit, and attach it to this post. I even talked our Gale rep into letting us have Ancestry free for one month.

So here is what happened--our students are so young, that they must go back many, many generations before they could even begin to find someone related to them on Ancestry. Most had no names past a grandparent--and some didn't even have that. Now remember, most public records start in 1930 and go backward in time. My grandmothers were in their adulthood at that time--but for most children today, we are talking great-great grandparents or further. Many would hit on a name in a town where they thought their family came from, but were frustrated because we couldn't prove the relationship. Few have access to courthouse records to get back that far--etc., etc. To me, the activity promoted sloppy genealogy at best.

Yes, there were some positives--they actually talked to the elders of their families, they learned what they could about their families, and it gave them a sense of appreciation of older people, their ancestors, and history.

So weigh the negatives and the positives before doing a genealogy project. If you choose to work with a teacher on this, I did find some nifty interactive sites that I think will work well with today's students. I am going to use MyHeritage with these students tomorrow.

Here are the sites I found:

http://www.myheritage.com/

http://www.geni.com/

http://www.werelate.org/

http://www.familylink.com/

http://www.famiva.com/

http://www.genetree.com/

Remember, we told you we'd be honest! Wish Ethel and I luck when we do our genealogy talk tomorrow!

Portable DVD players in the Media Center

2008-02-01T13:07:00.001-05:00

We have teachers who show educational DVDs in their classrooms. Often, they have at least one student who is absent on the day of the showing, and they'd send this student to us to watch the DVD. Ethel and I got a little tired of pulling out our huge TV/DVD player on its tremendous cart and setting it up for one child. So, I had a little money in the coffers and Ethel and I did a supply run on the local Walmart. For around $112.00, I bought a portable DVD player, and today, it was called in to use! It worked like a charm--the student had her own set of earplugs, we popped the DVD in, and she plopped down on one of our comfy chairs! She really seemed to enjoy the experience, and the little DVD player was a whole lot easier to set up!!! By the way, I bought a Durabrand 10" portable DVD player. It totally rocks!

Recycling and Cute to Boot

2008-01-31T09:38:00.000-05:00

We have four rather large showcases outside our Library (silly architect)! Mind you, they are showcases not bulletin boards, so they need to have 3D items in them. One of my pet peeves is an empty showcase or bulletin board. Here is what I came up with as a quick fix, when other groups are not using the showcase and they are empty. I collect very large cardboard boxes (like filing cabinet boxes) and cut them into large panels for drawing. Then I use that old monster called the Opaque Projector to draw on the cardboard panels. I use things like clipart books that are not copy righted. Once I have the picture outlined in pencil, I trace over it with black marker, paint it, and cut it out with a hobby knife or box cutter. The figures are almost life size--each has a word bubble sign. It only takes a few minutes to put them in or take them out of the showcases. I have made several sets that I will just reuse. Click on the slideshare below to see our latest display!

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Altered books--or a positive thing to do with Discarded Books!

2008-01-25T11:01:00.001-05:00

Would you like to have teachers begging you for discarded books? If so, talk them in to doing a project with discarded library books as a culminating activity for a unit on a novel, or anything else that requires a creative approach! Our English 10 teacher had students make an Altered Book using as a culminating activity for their class. In the past, the book may have focused on a book they studied during the year that they liked, but the two pictured were made as a way to review the highlights from all their work in English 10 (World Lit for us). One of the books also contains poems and creative writing from the class as well. This activity greatly appeals to students who enjoy scrapbooking, or working with their hands to create. Think of students who need that creative expression.

Here are some websites and books to guide you:

Incredible Art Department Altered Book Lesson

TeacherTube videos on Altered Books (pull the page down--there are 3 from a teacher High School Teacher)

Lesson on Altered Books at Young Poets

What are Altered Books at Michael's Arts and Crafts

Altered Books on Squidoo

We bought these books for our collection for the students to use as examples:

702 ARE
Arendt, Madeline. Altered art for the first time. New York :
Sterling Pub., c2005.
http://www.amazon.com/Altered-first-time-First-Time/dp/1402716559/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201364783&sr=1-1

702 BRA
Brazelton, Bev, 1946-. Altered books workshop : 18 creative
techniques for self-expression. Cincinnati, Ohio : North
Light Books, c2004.
http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Books-Workshop-Techniques-Self-Expression/dp/B000X1N3PU/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201365061&sr=1-1

702 HAR
Harrison, Holly. Altered books, collaborative journals, and
other adventures in bookmaking. Gloucester, Mass. :
Rockport, c2003. http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Collaborative-Journals-Adventures-Bookmaking/dp/1564969959/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201365154&sr=1-1

702 MAT
Matthiessen, Barbara. Altered book collage. New York :
Sterling, c2005.
http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Collaborative-Journals-Adventures-Bookmaking/dp/1564969959/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201365154&sr=1-1

702 mic
Michel, Karen. The complete guide to altered imagery : for
collage, altered books, artists journals, and more.
Gloucester, Mass. : Quarry Books, 2005.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Altered-Imagery-Mixed-Media/dp/1592531776/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201365406&sr=1-1

745.593 URE
Ure, Susan. The altered book scrapbook. Ogden, UT : Chappelle,
c2006.
http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Book-Scrapbook-Susan-Ure/dp/1402752024/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201365258&sr=1-1

Geez, now that I am looking at this list from my Bookbag on OPAC, I am wondering why they aren't cataloged together. Lucy and Ethel will have to work on that in our spare time!

Visit THE HARLEM RENASSANCE @ your Library

2008-01-16T11:03:00.001-05:00

Had this idea in the summer and we are going to try it out this February. During the month of February we will celebrate “THE HARLEM RENASSANCE” in honor of Black History Month.

Here’s the plan. (We will let you know in March if it was a success or not)
During the month of February we will have the following activities in the Library:

Afternoon At The Movies-This will be after school and we show A Cabin In The Sky. This movie is short, 98 minutes long. A Cabin In The Sky was a groundbreaking production for its time due to the decision to use an all African-American cast. In the 1940s, movie theaters in many cities, particularly in the south, refused to show films with predominately black performers. I know that 1943 is a little past the Harlem Renaissance time period, but the actors and actresses in this movie were part of the Harlem Scene. As normal we will have free popcorn and sell drinks.
*Blues and Jazz for Lunch – During our 4 lunches we hope to have one of our assistant principals and friends play the music of the 20s. If this falls through I have CDs we will play during lunch one day (it scares me when I have to depend on other people).
* Sweet Potato Pone Tasting – If you research foods of the Harlem Renaissance, you will find that it focused on Southern Soul Food. This is because of the great northern migration of Black Americans to the cities. We wanted to do a tasting, but we live in the South so most Southern Soul Foods are foods our students eat on a regular basis. One that I found that we don’t seem to eat in North Carolina (but they did in New Orleans) was Sweet Potato Pone. This is something between a Sweet Potato cake and a sweet potato pudding. We are going to be the baker of this recipe, which Lucy found on the Internt
*A Rent Party – Our visions of a Rent Party. This will be during lunches so we can not sell food (state law). Instead, we will sell turns on the Video Game called “Donkey Konga” (you also could use Guitar Hero or Rock Band) If I am now talking a foreign language to you, ask the students-- they would love to fill you in on all the new games. I have Donkey Konga set up as a 4 player game and students will pay 10 cent per player per game. We will talk about what a real Rent Party was like in the 20’s and 30’s .
*Lindy Hop and Charleston-During lunches one day, I have asked the Dance Club to do a demonstration of the Charleston and the Theatre Class to do a demonstration of the Lindy Hop. I have,You Tube Video to show on the Smart board if these demonstrations fizzle out.

There you have it, one busy month-- to be so short.

Yes, we check out Magazines!

2008-01-16T09:45:00.000-05:00

Several years ago we did away with the periodical room. For one thing, nobody here still uses a print magazine index, now that we can our state database, NCWISEOWL (and don’t forget Google). So now that we are not a museum for old magazines, here is what we do. The current issue of a magazine goes out on the magazine racks as normal. We slap a barcode on all back issues and let the students check them out just like a book. We tried using envelopes with a temp barcode and the envelopes came back mangled. We find that it works best to put a barcode on the front cover and let it go just like that. Yes, some magazines come back mangled as well and we just delete them. That keeps them weeded and pared down. We do not keep more than 24 back issues and most magazines don’t even have that many. Our RIS (in-school suspension) classes come in about twice a day to exchange magazines. Remember, boys especially love short pieces of non-fiction and information like magazine articles. Struggling readers enjoy short magazine articles as well. We put the majority of our magazine budget into student magazines—we get LMC (Library Media Connection)—and that is it. If departments want professional magazines, then they can buy them out of their budget. In this media center, we focus our money on students (Lucy learned this after spending many years wasting money on professional magazines that the professionals never read).

We purchase about 40 different magazine subscriptions for our students.

Dry Erase Markers

2008-01-04T16:40:00.000-05:00

Here’s a neat trick. We like to write on our windows in the Library. This Christmas, my window markers were just not working very well--we could hardly see them. So I grabbed a white board dry erase marker and it worked better than the markers made for windows! I already had a bunch, in all different colors. We left the writing on the windows for about 20 days and it came right off with water and/or glass cleaner.

P.S. we love to use rubber cement to hang letters or fliers on the windows also. When you take them down just wash the window and it comes right off.

Buying Books for Teens

2008-01-03T14:04:00.001-05:00

Ethel and I like to think we run a pretty busy teen library. We try to think like teenagers when selecting books and putting up displays (scary thought, that one), and we are successful. Several years ago, I wrote a grant and part of that grant process involved surveying all of our students on what materials they would like to see in the media center. Yes, we surveyed all 1200 of them. We passed out surveys in first bell, and had teachers collect them immediately. We put the results in databases--one for females, one for males. It was an eye opener--surprisingly, our students took it seriously. We realized many things--that students can name over 350 different magazine titles (not all appropriate for the library), that we have books already in the media center that they wanted (so we probably needed to do more PR on those), and many other interesting tidbits. If you'd like to see a copy of the survey we sent to students click HERE. Feel free to copy it. It is about time for us to do this survey again--maybe at the beginning of next year. The hardest and most time-consuming part was analyzing the data and putting it into a usable format. Lucy and Ethel do suggest you try it--you will learn so much from your students!

Jazz it up! Recycle and Reuse

2007-12-30T07:57:00.000-05:00

Our school has some really old looking AV carts rolling around in it. When the teachers come to check one out and we try to give them the old green cart instead of the newer black ones, they whine, "Can I have that one over there? It's prettier". This drives me crazy so I started thinking about how can I give these poor unattractive carts a make-over. Here's what I came up with. Details:

Can of black spray paint - Wal-Mart $0.96.

2 Grip-It-No-Slip Placemats on Clearance - Targets $0.25 each.

Can of green paint I picked up from the school yard the Sunday after Homecoming. I try to go out to the school the weekend after homecoming. Kids have taken apart their floats and have left wonderful treasures behind.

A little creativity and about an hour of my time total. (10 minutes spray painting it black, 45 minutes painting dots.)

Ta Da! Now every teacher wants to check out "my little Pygmalion"

Options: I have also just painted them a pretty color and used one roll of the Grip-It-No-Slip shelf liner from Dollar Tree to cover the shelfs. ($1.00 per roll - one roll will make a runner down 3 shelves). If you don't have the time, energy, or talent, send the carts to your art department and let the students jazz them up.

Give us your ideas

Mini Workshop, Classes and Events

2007-12-21T17:52:00.000-05:00

Lucy and I love to hold small workshops, classes or events for the students, during lunches or after school. We believe that learning can be fun. Some of the workshops and events we have shared over the last few years are listed below. We keep the library open to the rest of the student body during most of our workshops. Sometimes a student is too shy to attend the class or workshop, but will watch intently. This is ok with us because they are getting something from the activity and maybe next time they will join in. All teachers and instructors donate their time. We have no budget for these activities. You can get started by finding out what special skills or talents your staff has, and talking them into sharing those skills or talents with small groups of students. Let us know what you are doing. We are always looking for another great idea.

Knitting Lessons (during lunches)

Lucy has given knitting lessons for the past 3 years. There is a fee for yarn and needles or the student can bring their own, and then the class is free. We invite all the faculty that can knit to come and help with the lessons.

Calligraphy Classes (during lunches)
We have several of our faculty members who can do calligraphy. During lunches, once a week, for a month, we held a mini course in calligraphy. (The teacher who was the instructor had a planning bell during our lunches). There was a fee for this class, $2.00 for a calligraphy pen or free if you brought your own pen. We had faculty and students signing up for this one and about half were boys.

Ballroom Dance Lessons (during lunches)
A month before the prom one year we held dance lessons during lunches. Our theater teacher had planning during our lunches and came in to do a mini dance lesson on a different dance, once a week for a month. We did the Waltz, the ChaCha, the Rumba, and even a little swing dancing. Believe it or not, one week we had to send the boys to the lunch room to find girls to dance with. Yes, we had more boys than girls. After this month of moving tables we went out and purchased Magic Sliders for our tables, so they would move easier.

Line-Dancing Class (after school)
Another year, the week before spirit week we held a line-dancing class to get ready for the big homecoming dance. Once again we had a teacher who could teach us some line dances. We had her teach "The Hustle" (because Lucy and Ethel danced the hustle when they were in high school) and "The Cha Cha Slide". (Lucy and Ethel were clueless to this one, but liked the music.) I brought the CD called "30 Greatest Party Songs Ever" (from Drew's Famous Party Music Series). After the lesson we even had a little fun doing the "Macarena" and the "Chicken Dance".

Chop Stick Workshop (after school)
We have a small Thai community in our county. We asked a couple who had owned a Thai Restaurant to come in and teach us how to use Chop Sticks. We had about 16 faculty and students sign up. The fee was $2.00 for chopsticks and the food to practice with. I got the chop sticks from the local Chinese restaurant for .10 each. We also had a student who had lived in Japan for 6 years and an English teacher on hand to help teach. This workshop was great fun.

Tie Your Tie Workshop (How to tie a necktie) (during lunches)
In this workshop we teach students how to tie a necktie. This workshop is free, but we asked the students to bring in a necktie. It turned out most did not bring their own ties. I put up a flier at my church for the men to clean out their closets of their old, out dated ties and donate them to the library. I now have over 60 ties to use for this workshop. We get faculty members and retired men from the community to come in during their lunch to teach. We set up some full-length mirrors, print off a few handouts they can take with them after the lesson. Voila, we have another workshop. We also pass out the ties to the boys who show up to Graduation without a tie.

Heads Up Workshop (How to get and keep good posture) (during lunches)
After the first tie your tie workshop we thought we should do one mainly for girls. I wanted to have a "How to Walk in Heels" workshop, but it turned into a good posture workshop. One of our local chiropractors sent us his assistant to talk to the students about good posture, heavy backpacks and other spinal issues. This workshop was free to students.

Yoga Class (after school)
One of our teachers taught a yoga class after school, once a week, for a month. This class was free, but we had some money left over from the chop stick workshop so we brought some yoga mats and had a drawing each week for a yoga mat. Then we turned down the lights, turned on the music, and twisted our bodies into pretzels. We thought this would mainly be a girl attended class, but 50%, who attend were boys.

Yoga for Stress relief (during lunches)
One year we held this workshop the week before exams. We had the same teacher, who taught yoga come in and talk to students about yoga posses they could in their seats, or at a 3 minute stretch break, during exams.

Afternoon at the Movies (after school)
Our school has a Public Performance Copyright License for movies. Sometimes we show a movie after school just for fun. Our school runs late buses at 4:50, so our movie must be fairly short. I look for movies that run about an hour and a half. Be careful with the time. I researched the time lenght of Hitchcock's THE BIRDS and it would work in my time schedule. However, I had looked up the time on the VHS tape and then I rented it on DVD. The DVD had added footage that the tape did not have, so the students had to leave before the movie ended. The movie is free and we serve all the popcorn they can eat. We sell drinks and that covers the popcorn cost.

Scary Smelly Cheese Tasting (after school)
We did this around Halloween and the students paid $2.00 for the cheese tasting. We showed about 5 minutes of a video called "The Cheese Nun" about how the mold in cheese is different from region to region. We talked to the students about veined cheeses, then we had a tasting of four different cheeses.

Mexican Hot Chocolate (after school)
We sold Mexican Hot Chocolate for Hispanic Heritage Month Sept. 15 - Oct 15th
Macarena Mondays (during lunches)
A quick and easy event is to have Macarena Mondays. Durning the last 5 or 10 minutes of each lunch move your tables and put on some music and everybody now, LET'S MACARENA. (LIMBO anyone?)

Library Media Bonanza!

2007-12-17T12:19:00.000-05:00

We got this idea originally from a middle school in North Carolina -- she had a presentation about her Media Bonanza day at a NCSLMA conference several years ago. We have since adapted it to our library. This is our second year! Library Media Bonanza is a day we close the library (except to check out books), and host a staff development opportunity for our faculty. We talk our tech department into participating as well. This is a self-paced staff development where teachers can move from station to station at their own pace, and ask questions along the way. We also put out displays of new or notable books, DVDs, and Videos. This year, our stations included Ethel on Finding Curriculum-related Podcasts, Lucy on how to operate the presentation carts and smartboard, a tech on mobile lab training and questions, our tech supervisor on Groupwise Mail and Calendars (and any other tech discussion). I am posting below some of the photos. We tried to lure them in with hot spiced apple cider and door prizes. I would love to say it was wildly popular and attended by all, but it wasn't. Teachers could come in either during their planning bell, or after school. The 28 (out of a little over 100) members of our faculty who did attend seemed to learn something and enjoy it. Ethel and I are still puzzling over what it would take to get faculty to attend! We'd love to hear comments from others who do successfully offer staff development.

Warning: our pictures are a little dark--our flash did not go off. We thought you may pick up ideas from even our displays and signage. Our easels all come from Dollar Tree. We also used discarded books with bubbles we printed that prompted teachers with questions we often get.

Lucy, Ethel, and environmental awareness

2007-12-11T14:17:00.000-05:00

Lucy and Ethel try to model sound environmental practices to our high school students and faculty. We run recycled paper through our printers (we did warn our faculty that we were doing this). We took apart our vertical files (gasp), and reused the paper in it, even though some of it was 15 years old. We found a site we'd like to share with our fellow media folks, as it contains a fundraising idea-selling reusable grocery bags, an idea we really like. Check out the ChicoBags fundraiser site by clicking here. You'll also find a shopping site there as well--Ethel has tried and uses their green bags for produce. She gives them high marks. I am going to purchase 1 reusable bag for each family member for Christmas! We are waiting to hear from ChicoBags --we'd like to sell them to make a little money for the library--and to educate our students along the way!

Thoughts on shelving and student input....

2007-12-04T11:21:00.000-05:00

Lucy and Ethel have found that in our media center, opening up the shelves by rearranging books, constantly weeding, and even purchasing more shelving has increased our circulation of books, especially in the non-fiction section. We try to put as many books on display with fronts forward as we can. I, Lucy, am a weeding fanatic--I have no problems throwing away books that either haven't circulated in several decades, that are nasty looking, have ugly covers, etc. If you have trouble weeding, or need suggestions, check out Florida's amazing Sunlink site! They also have a new book out on weeding. If you have problems throwing away a book, get your teachers to do an altered book project with some of your undesirables! If you don't know what an altered book is, click here. I have purchased several books from Amazon on making altered books--my teachers beg me for my discards, we are keeping books out of landfills, etc.

If you're like Ethel and me, you have at least one library pet peeve--one thing that just drives you nuts. Ours pet peeve is when some darling teen walks along our shelves, and slams all the books to the back of the shelves! (Isn't it amazing what can annoy a person?) If this is your pet peeve, try the solution that Ethel came up with. She has had our techs save every bit of the white Styrofoam packing material that comes with computers. She then placed it behind the short books on our shelves and now our books can't be pushed to the back, nor can a darling student throw books behind the others! It also keeps the stuff out of the landfill. Ethel is thinking of some way to make these more attractive--when she comes up with that idea, I'll post it!

Slam Board help!

2007-12-03T10:30:00.000-05:00

In an earlier post we explained our Slam board. This weekend, Lucy and Ethel and 2 other friends went shopping and found Teen Tabletopics at this super cute store. It has provided us with a whole box of topics to use. You can buy them online--and there are boxes for adults as well!
Go to http://www.tabletopics.com/ for more info!

The Goddess of YA Literature

2007-12-03T10:18:00.000-05:00

Lucy says...if you haven't been to The Goddess of YA Literature, you are missing an amazing opportunity to explore the world of YA literature! It is like taking a YA lit class featuring the best of YA literature with honest reviews! I have ordered almost everything she has recommended for my high school crowd! She recommended Before I Die, I bought it, and it is flying off the shelves! Three cheers to Professor Nana!

Free Rice

2007-11-30T10:42:00.000-05:00

We want to explain our link to http://freerice.org/, and how we have used it in our media center. Our students can come in to the media center during their lunches (we have ). We started teaching our walk-ins about freerice.org, as a way to have fun, learn something, and contribute to society (we don't let them surf the net or play online games). Ethel had the idea to pull out computers from our mobile lab cart during the lunches (if it is not being used by a classroom), and let the students play on Free Rice during lunches! It was a hit--especially with the guys.

Curing the Overdue blues..Lucy and Ethel's December scheme

2007-11-30T08:31:00.001-05:00

We have quite a few overdue books because we circulate a LOT of books! To bring them in, Ethel came up with two successful ideas--we used them last year, and they do work! We have a contest each nine weeks where we randomly draw a class--the first class we draw with no overdue books wins a party of some kind. Last nine weeks, we drew through third bell classes, and the class won a ice cream float party. This nine weeks we are drawing for a Christmas party catered by us (we are doing hot-dogs). We have had a huge response to this--it is in the announcements, and kids are renewing more than ever! We also are having a contest called the 12 Days of Christmas. It starts December 5th, and runs 12 days prior to getting out of school. Each day we randomly pick a student name, and if that student does not have an overdue book, they get to come to the library and pick out a prize from our prize box (which we replenish with Dollar Tree items and Target's dollar items). Yes, sometimes we do pick a student who has never checked out a book, but it was rare last year, and the student did have to come through our doors to claim the prize. The winner's name is announced each day on the loudspeaker as well! They loved it!

Contest Flyer

Bringing kids into the LMC--with a Slam Board

2007-11-28T16:14:00.000-05:00

Remember back in the day when we had Slam books--those composition books that had one question per page, and you wrote your favorite singer, or cutest boy, etc. on each page? Well, Ethel adapted this idea to our media center board, and it is a hit! We have an blackboard our reading area. We've made it a slam board--each day we are posting a different question, and the students run in to put up an answer (using sidewalk chalk)! So far our questions have been: what is your favorite candy? what superhuman power would you want? who is your favorite teacher? what makes you LOL? what's your middle name?

Lucy and Ethel firmly believe that if we get students to love coming to the media center, we'll eventually get a book or magazine in their hands!

Native American Heritage Month

2007-11-28T15:58:00.001-05:00

Lucy says..while helping a teacher design a research project for her 11th grade U.S. History class, I ran across these terrific sites I thought I'd share.

Smithsonian American Art Museum's Campfire Stories with George Catlin

This could serve as a springboard for the assignment--have them select an image in this collection--a chief, an image in Ancestral lands, Catlin's quest, the Western landscape, to find more information about--composing not only a 2 or 3 page narrative or reaction paper with more information (from various sources that are cited in the works cited page) about the image, but within the narrative, describing everything they see in the image that gives clues about Native American life at that time (they must choose and image of Native Americans, or Native American life, not images of Catlin and his party). Within the paper, they could also investigate this question--can you find how encroaching movement from East to West affected the life of the person, or the image? Can you find a picture of this area, or a person from this tribe today?

Here are the lesson plans from the Smithsonian site:
http://catlinclassroom.si.edu/lessonplans/contents.html

Also, I love, love, love this activity:

It has them search through primary source documents, and other websites:

Library of Congress

http://www.edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=268

http://edsitement.neh.gov/monthly_feature.asp?id=133

There are many more out there--just thought I'd share these! Feel free to discuss other great sites you've shared with your teachers!

What are Lucy and Ethel doing in the land of blogs?

2007-11-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

First, who are Lucy and Ethel? My name is Mary Simmons (aka Lucy), and I have worked as a library media specialist in Virginia and then North Carolina for around 20 years. I have been at all levels--elementary, middle, and high school. My co-author is Beth O'Briant (aka Ethel), and she is my library assistant (as well as my neighbor and good friend). I got my B.A. in history at the University of Richmond, then took what seemed like one-million library classes at ODU, where I received my masters degree. I was very well schooled there to always remember PR, PR, PR (public relations) no matter the level I served. Beth is the creative genius at the library--and together, we are always plotting and scheming new ways to entice students into the media center (that is where folks started calling us Lucy and Ethel--and because we are kind of zany!)

We want to tell you what this blog is..and what it isn't. This blog is not a site where we will wax poetic in educational mumbo-jumbo about the grand scheme of all things library related. Our sole purpose is to share with other high school library personnel practical ideas we have used to bring high school students to our media center. They don't always come in to check out a book--but we both strongly believe if we ever once lure them in, and they visit us often, we will eventually connect a book or magazine with that student--even if it takes us years! We believe our library is for our students--and we try to keep in mind what will make them comfortable. We want our kids to come to the library--even if it is just to be their refuge from the larger world of a big high school. We want them to have fun, read, and maybe just learn something in the process.

We want this blog to be a forum for sharing ideas -- if you have tried something that worked to bring students in to the media center--let us know!

Remember, not all of our ideas may work for you in your situation--but we hope you can find something we do that may work for you! If you have a problem that you'd like us to help you solve--we'll be glad to try and help you solve it!