Playaways

I have to say, Playaways are awesome! I just received a large order of them for the library. They are expensive ($40-80) but worth it. Many of my students don't have cassette players, so I got rid of all the books on tape during the pre-construction weeding. It wasn't a large selection anyway. The Playaways are very user friendly since they are all in one units.

I'm finally finding out what all the fuss about The Lightening Thief is about since I swiped the audiobook as soon as it came in. I'm listening to it in between classes (and when the construction isn't too loud) so it is hard to get into a rhythm. It's a good story, though, and I can see why it is so popular. Action, suspense, it's all there.

Construction continues - more plastic went up today as our former periodicals room was taken out. And the power to our 4 card catalog stand alones ;)

Construction Update

As I sit at my desk, a senior English class is analyzing television shows. It is an interesting project, as they are examining the sociological aspects of current programming. I'm hearing snippets of discussions about quite a variety of shows - Chuck, Bones, Friends, SpongeBob. In between their quiet discussions, there are loud, room shaking bangs, as my library ceiling literally comes down. The construction guys have been tearing apart our reference room and computer lab to turn it back into a hallway. The library will be moved this summer. For now, we are slowly shrinking as plastic tarps go up and the demolition team gets to work. Overall, the noise hasn't been too bad. There are times when I can't hear the phone on my desk, but it seems to come in bursts, which is preferential to all day jackhammering that others have dealt with.

We are slowly cleaning out our offices and taking boxes home. It is amazing how much can accumulate in 7 years. Of course, it isn't nearly as much as some teachers have collected in 20+ years of being in the same room! I suppose one good thing about all of this packing and moving is that we were all forced to do a little spring cleaning.

PA School Librarians Conference 2010

Another great conference! Can't wait until it is back in Hershey. It's nice to get out of town once in a while, but right now Hershey is a much shorter ride than State College!

This year I actually presented with the other secondary librarian in my district. We did a session on our freshman information literacy course first thing Friday morning and it was a success! We received compliments throughout the rest of the conference and I am still getting emails from attendees asking for copies of course materials. I will have to get my class page updated with the worksheets and other course documents.

I attended a digitized collections presentation that was quite impressive. Penn State librarians are working hard to digitize all kinds of Pennsylvania historical documents, especially newspapers. The presenter shared links to other sites, including the Access PA Digitial Repository, Chronicling America, the National Digital Newspaper Program, and, of course, LOC's American Memory Collection. It is wonderful to see these valuable resources being preserved AND that access to the will remain free. This week the GSLMC library staff was able to present our available resources to the facutly during our PLCs. They were very excited to see the links to the digitized collections.

The speaker at the luncheon on Saturday was Laura Amy Schlitz. What a storyteller! I'm not even close to being that good. Theater major was not an option for me! She was capitvating and humorous as she shared the story of how she was published for the first time.