You Light Up My Life

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.

Just Desserts

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".

Sweet, Sweet, Donations

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.

Yes, it's OK to Eat in the Library

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.

How To Get The Books Back

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.

Are You Ready For Some Football!

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.

Student self-checkout

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!

What's Your Sign?

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!

GRAFFITI

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

Visual Thesaurus

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

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".


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

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.

Yet another genealogy project--oh my!

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

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!

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

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!