A typical sitcom day for Lucy and Ethel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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!

Recycling and Cute to Boot

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!

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!