Fiction eBooks

I have been debating the ebook thing for a long time. My number one goal with ebooks is accessibility. In other words, two unlimited simultaneous access ebooks on the Irish potato famine can serve the six students doing projects much more than the two print books I have.

Some school librarians are doing ebooks and ereaders. I haven't been convinced to delve into that yet. It appears to be a  hassle with setting up accounts since they aren't designed for library use, only personal use. I have taken the approach with fiction that I will train patrons how to download from the public library on their own device and will stick to purchasing research materials in ebook format. I am also in an area where many students have their own technology, so this works well. With a limited budget, and only so much time to work on projects, my priority is on updating my print fiction and going digital as much as possible with reference materials.

What is your perspective on ebooks and ereaders?

The Rise of Pinterest

Pinterest is a great site. I have used it personally (is wedding planning too cliche a use?) and professionally. For my students, although I honestly don't know how many have accessed the page, I try to use it for reading promotion. I have set up boards on my GVLMC account for One Book, One School (Maze Runner) and reading lists for chemistry, summer reading, and various award winners. I have also added fun library pictures, book art images, and children's literature.

How are you using Pinterest in your library?

Integrating the Short Story Collection

I have been rearranging and weeding the entire library over the last 6 months. The latest target is the short story collection. It is currently housed across the library and out of sight of the rest of the books so it doesn't get used often, especially voluntarily. I ordered "Short Story" stickers and either labeled or weeded each book in that area. I have been integrating the books into the rest of the collection to try to make the students more aware of them. The books in which all of the stories are clearly in one genre go into the appropriate area of the fiction section. The ones that are mixed genres (or classics that frankly I'm not 100% sure where they should go) I have been putting in the 800s. With the space I have freed up, I'm going to pull out the career and college prep books. My juniors have a quarterly career prep course, so there are many projects that use these books. However, with the career books scattered throughout the main collection they seem to be underused.

How do you shelve your short story books?

Weeding

This year I did something you aren't supposed to do your first year in a new library. I weeded. Yup. I did it. A lot. I tried to resist, but I couldn't. I did wait until the second semester, but I just couldn't justify some of the titles anymore. Plus, this isn't my first time at the rodeo. I'm not spending an extra day inventorying books that aren't going to be used. I won't put out numbers, but it was significant. It was really easy though. I ran a list of circulation stats and hit the stacks. Fiction books that were really old, yellowed and smelly are easy. Paperbacks with out of date covers and plot lines could go. Non-fiction that was way out of date in science, biographies, and social studies didn't make the cut. Many titles I will replace, such as classic fiction titles on the Literature Analysis reading list (no wonder they weren't circulating!). I won't throw out numbers because it always freaks out non-librarians. However, when you have all of the weeded books in a pile it becomes quite obvious to all that it would be hard to justify putting the books back on the shelf.

This year I managed to get a district mini grant to get some new science titles and I'm going to apply for an LSTA grant to fix up the social studies section, although I'm having a hard time deciding which area needs it more. I'm probably going with the Western Civ research paper topics since those teachers used the library pretty heavily this year (collaboration gets rewarded!). I'm excited about applying for the grant since it is the first time I've done it. I attended a workshop at the PSLA Conference this year that gave a lot of good advice and inside tips. My biggest concern is that while my budget isn't great (but I do have one and every library is staffed making it hard to complain these days) my district's demographics may be too good to get outside funding. I'm curious to see how this all plays out.

There are a lot more books that need to go, but frankly I ran out of boxes. And I need to be able to weed a certain percentage of the collection every year to apply for LSTA grants, so if it is a success I plan on doing it every year.

One Book, One School 2012-13: Maze Runner by James Dashner

Our high school selection this year for One Book, One School is Maze Runner. I haven't read it yet, but I know it is a pretty popular title, so I'm excited to check it out. I have decided to use this opportunity to try to take advantage of two tools I have been wanting to try to promote the book and encourage discussion about it.

I set up a board on the library Pinterest site. It was so easy to add a few book trailers and interviews from YouTube, as well as links to Dashner's homepage and Twitter account.

I also use GoodReads.com with my college students and am curious to try it in my high school library. I set up a private group and added some discussion forums, an interview video and the book trailer for Maze Runner. I am going to try to promote this with my book club to get it started. I know some librarians have had some success with this and hope to get some discussions going about what the students are reading.

The (Second) First Year

As May approaches quickly, I've been evaluating my first year in my new district. It wasn't my first time at the rodeo having taught for 8 years at a MS/HS, which made the transition much easier. Since I already had a personal system for record keeping, I didn’t get bogged down by trying to plan lessons and sort out how to deal with things like the budget and usage stats at the same time. This is a very academic district and they hit the ground running as soon as the school year ends. Even for a non-rookie, a new environment can be overwhelming at first. New faces, politics, curriculum, collection, etc., all need to be sorted out. Here are a few things that helped me make the transition a little easier:

• Last year’s yearbook - I have learned faces and names, but haven’t put all of them together yet. By keeping last year’s yearbook on my desk I can quickly check names of people I just talked to (unless they are standing next to me and I have to ask to put their name on the schedule. Can get away with that this year, more embarrassing next year)
• Claim the space - I quickly realized I was going to have to physically make the space mine for my sanity. I love decorating the library for holidays and changing the posters monthly. I bought new posters after throwing out many of the old ones that were left to try to get a younger atmosphere and put my stamp on the environment. Many people have commented on the ever changing decor and how much they enjoy it. It’s an easy thing that really makes the library feel like it is mine.
• Change it - Remember that it is your library and it is now a blank canvas. You can do whatever you want. Just because your predecessor did things one way, doesn’t mean that you have to keep doing things that way. Give it a few months, though, to get a feel for how the building works before doing anything too drastic. There was an online scheduling system in place here and it lasted until October. I didn’t know who was working on what, classes were signed up at the last minute, not every teacher had a login to the wiki scheduler, etc., and I couldn’t check it every period to see what was going to happen next. I took it down and implemented a traditional plan book and now people have to see/email/call me to schedule. Now I know my schedule and can actually juggle more classes into the library than the spaces on the online schedule allowed.
• Pace yourself - Realize that you can’t do a promotion for every event and figure out a new school in your first year. I focused on the classes and collection in the fall and then did a promotion for School Library Month (Books to Movies tie-in with Hunger Games) in April. Next year I’ll try to do something in the fall, as well. There are also a lot of  other changes that I want to make in the library, but I have to keep reminding myself that it doesn’t have to be done today.

What helped you adjust to a new library?

Book Talks

On Friday I did book talks all day for high school students of varying abilities. I must confess - book talking is not my strongest skill. I feel that it requires showmanship skills that I do not possess. When I interviewed for this position I was asked to rank the elementary, middle and high school positions that were open in the order of preference. I chose high, middle, then elementary. I said that while the K-2 position might be interesting after dealing with teenagers for so long, but I don’t do puppet shows. Research and edtech are my things, not entertaining or doing sales pitches.

Over the last eight years I was lucky enough to be in a MS/HS library with another librarian. We shared teaching duties, but I handled the technology things and she handled the print-related things when it came to acquisitions. Throw in coaching and grad school and let’s say I fell a bit behind on the YA lit. This is embarrassing, I must confess, especially when a student asks for a recommendation and I feel like I’m always referring the same five or so authors. I can really be in trouble when they ask for a book similar to one of my go-to recommendations. As a solo librarian I have been trying to rectify the situation, but it isn’t always easy to do so. Especially when you are learning the school culture, curriculum and collection yourself.

It isn’t that I don’t like YA lit. I do. The problem for me has been that it was just a low priority in my crazy life the last few years. One thing that has helped me (ok, forced me) to read more YA lit is the local librarian’s book review session. In return for writing a review, you can receive books that were donated by publishers for free for your library. With a shrinking budget, I grabbed as many interesting titles as I could and, although I had to read them in a very short time, found myself with about 20 new titles that I could talk about with my students. I also created “cheat sheets” - paper folders with lists of recommended authors for chicklit, science fiction/fantasy, sports, adventure, etc. It was easy to do and popular with the students. I saved the lists as a Google Docs file so I can updated it easily when I need to. Resource lists in the card catalog are useful, but sometimes I think I’m the only one using them. The students can take the folders to the shelves as they browse and I’m not blanking on author’s names when they ask me for suggestions.

One of my goals next year is to do better book talks. I have bookmarked a lot of websites that share tips for book talks and book trailers. I also want to use the book review feature of Destiny with students. This is a necessary skill for all librarians and an area I will freely admit I need improvement in.