Exclusive New Book Preview for Bookclub Members

You know how some of your best ideas just “hit you” out of the blue?  Last school year, a senior service learner (who was also a member of our Bulldog Booklover Club) was assisting me in processing a new shipment of books.  We were like the proverbial kids in a candy store as we checked the books received off the packing list.

“Oooh…I wanna read this one!”

“I remember the reviews I read as I was considering this one; it is supposed to be awesome!”

My service learner grabbed paper and a pencil to start writing the titles of the ones she wanted to be sure to read.  After all, she was a senior, a voracious reader, and she didn’t want to miss out on one single book that could sweep her into another world for a few hours.

The “Aha!” Moment Strikes

What reader doesn’t love new books and the prospects for adventure, mystery, and/or romance each holds?  As we continued to pull each new title out of the box, I had one of those “aha” moments:  why not hold an exclusive new book preview just for our book club members?

At the time, we were still in our old facility and decided to set up a preview display in our conference room.  Invitations were created and announcements were made and I arrived at school earlier than usual on the morning of our first preview to set up the waiting area for our book club members.   Because our space was limited, I could only allow three members at a time into the conference room to pour over the new books and choose the one they were allowed to check out.

Eager faces awaited me as I opened the library doors at 7:30 and a horde of students raced to the back to claim their space in the preview line.  Excitement bubbled over – letting me know that this was a tradition in the making.

Setting Up the Preview in our New Facility

We still use a conference room in our new facility, and even though it is smaller in size than the first conference room we used,  it contains bookcases and tables perfect for setting up the display. 

Our book club members love this membership perk; watching them as they make their selections (and smell those new books!) makes the time and effort of setting up the preview worth every minute.  I photograph each with his/her selection and request a honest review of it when each is finished reading.

An added bonus:  other students in the library the morning of an exclusive new book preview often ask to see what our members are checking out and ask to have a copy of the book held for them.  Seeing the excitement of their peers creates more interest in new arrivals than do announcements or displays.

How do you promote new books?

Advocacy: WBALTV Segment Promotes Children’s Books

The Best Books Of The Year For Kids – Video – WBAL Baltimore.

Barb Langridge of abookandahug.com was recently featured on Baltimore’s WBAL Channel 11 News.  In this segment, she discussed several recent honor and award winning books:

1.  Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein  (Caldecott Honor)

2.  A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip Stead and Erin Stead (Caldecott Winner)

3.  Dave the Potter by Laban Carrick Hill and Bryan Collier (Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award)

4.  One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia  (Coretta Scott King Author Award)

5.  Bink & Gollie by Kate DiCamillo and Tony Fucile  (Geisel Award)

6.  Heart of a Samurai  by Margi Preus  (Newbery Honor)

7.  Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool  (Newbery Award winner)

~Barbara Langridge, http://www.abookandahug.com/announcements

Barbara is a booktalker extraordinaire and in a five minute segment convinced me to read all seven books.

Promoting Books

Watching Barb animatedly talk about these children’s books started me thinking. How can we use Barb’s experience to promote our libraries and library programs?

• Offer to do a similar booktalk for your PTO or other parenting groups in your area.
• Share the video with the education reporters for your local newspaper and television stations.  Offer to provide a similar service to both.
• Locate your local independent newspapers/newsletters.  Contact the editors and offer to write a column focusing on children’s books (or in my case, young adult literature).
• Are there parent bloggers in your area who might appreciate a guest blogger?  Contact them and offer to write a post.
• Contact after school care programs in your area to offer to do booktalks.
• Is there a college or university in your area that offers an education degree?  Contact them and offer to be a guest speaker for classes.

Be Prepared

You know your community.  When you approach others to offer to speak or write, be prepared with local statistics and research that backs the power of reading. Have an example booktalk you can do on the spur of the moment or an example of your writing about books to share.

At a loss for where to start with books?  Why not choose award winning books (as Barb did in this video segment) or use your state’s award nominees?

One Last Word (or two or three)

Bravo WBAL Channel 11 in Baltimore for seeing the need to offer this service to your viewers!

To show your support for the segment and this television news program’s support of reading, please leave a comment on the video segment page and like the Facebook group for abookandahug.

Visit abookandahug.com and check out a new feature:  tools for children to create booklists.

Barb’s Books Alive program is carried on a cable network.  Do you know of any similar programs on children’s literature?

Inspire Your World!

“We must stop reacting to the world around us and start inspiring it!

For too long have we defined the core of our profession – service – as standing ready to serve. No one ever changed the world by standing ready. We do it through action. This is the time – this is the place – we are the people.” ~ Dave Lankes, “Libraries and Broadband:  Forging a New Social Compact”

Changing Nature of Libraries

In his recent presentation at the Delaware Library BTOP Launch, Dave Lankes, associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, challenged several long-held beliefs that we as librarians have used to guide our work. He then  focused on the changing nature of libraries:

• [from]quiet buildings with loud rooms to loud buildings with quiet rooms
• [from] places of knowledge access to places of knowledge creation
• [from] territory of the librarian to territory of the community

However, these changes are nothing new to those of us in the school library field.  Joyce Valenza and Buffy Hamilton have long been promoting these changes.

What Else is Changing?

What else have we been doing because “that’s the way it’s always been done”?  When we hear that statement, we should automatically reexamine the issue at hand.  This is a new day.  This is a new time.  And I am excited to be part of it!

Image Attribution:  Stock photo: beach, playa 6  http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1270499

ALA’s “Our Authors, Our Advocates”

The American Library Association is sponsoring the “Our Authors, Our Advocates” program.  Library lovers are encouraged to share these Public Service Announcement (PSA) videos with not only our friends and families, but also with our communities.  You will find four PSAs, each featuring a different author:  Sharon Draper, Brad Meltzer, Sara Paretsky, and Scott Turow.

Why not embed one or more of these videos on your library’s website?

The videos are posted on YouTube, which is blocked by many school filters.  School librarians might find success in sharing these videos by using VodPod or SafeShare.tv.  Both services are free and easy to use.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

ALA Our Authors Our Advocates Sharon Draper, posted with vodpod

 

Organizing Booktalks

Reader’s Advisory can take many forms, but my favorite is booktalking.  The beginning of a new semester is the perfect opportunity to reach out to teachers and offer to do booktalks for their classes.

Last week, I gave booktalks for twelve classes.  Each booktalking session averaged three to seven books which can become a management nightmare.  I use the following method to organize booktalks so that if teachers wish for me to booktalk more than once to their classes, I can be assured I am not repeating myself.

Organizing Booktalks

1. First, I created a spreadsheet of the books from which to choose (and keep adding to it).

The spreadsheet includes the author, title, and up to three genres.

2. Next, I gathered the booktalks I have created (or found) on each title.  These are all titles I have read; one of the primary rules I learned in my YA Lit course was to only booktalk books you have read.  Creating booktalks is often time consuming, so when I don’t have the time, I use Nancy Keane’s Booktalks — Quick and Simple.  I file these alphabetically by title.

3. Finally, I created a simple booktalk chart template that I use for each teacher.

I keep all of this information in my Booktalk Notebook that I keep for reference at the Circulation Desk.

Giving the Booktalks

Once a teacher requests a booktalking session, I confer with him/her to determine a few factors I need to consider as I plan:

1.  length of time teacher wants to stay

2.  class composition (equal numbers of males and females?)

3.  student interests (At the beginning of the semester, teachers often can’t provide a great deal of information, but if they have done interest surveys they might be able to share if any students are in band, chorus, orchestra, student council, or participate in any sports.)

Then I pull together from three to seven books based on teacher information.  I use the template to record the titles I plan to do for each class. If this changes (sometimes I can tell from a class’s attitude as they enter the library that I need to change a title or two), I note the changes after the booktalks.

I set up a display of the books I plan to booktalk in front of the Promethean board, and as students enter and are settling in at the tables, I play an Animoto video I created on the current year’s South Carolina Young Adult Book Award nominees. Brochures on each table provide more information about each of these titles. I end the booktalks with a book trailer and tell the students that they are free to check out the titles I used on the table.  It is always SO rewarding when students run to get a copy of the books on the table!

Analyzing the Booktalking Session’s Effectiveness

Often I can tell if a title is going to get checked out as I am doing the booktalk.  High school students don’t fake interest in books; their body language speaks volumes.  And, bless their hearts, some students are not ashamed to say, “I’m getting THAT book.”

Other ways I use student feedback to help me improve my booktalks:

• A quick look over at the table a bit later as students are checking out books lets me know if a title (or titles) didn’t get checked out.  I make a note of this on the template.

• If a title did not get checked out, I discuss the booktalk and title with my service learners and the other media specialist to see if I can pinpoint the reason for lack of interest.  If possible, I revise the booktalk before giving it again the next block.  Sometimes this works, sometimes not.

• If students ask me if I have more copies of one of the titles I booktalked, I put the title on hold for them and make a note of it on booktalk template.

I would love to read about your booktalking methods and sessions.  How do you organize your booktalks and what techniques have you found to be successful?

 

Bull’s Eye!

Image attribution:  Poster by thewikiman   http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewikiman/5163839574/sizes/z/in/photostream/

Ned Potter, author of thewikiman blog, created and shared the above poster in a Jan.4th post.  Short, simple, to the point. Love it!

 

 

Updated Advocacy Page

Over the holiday break, I found more resources to add to this blog’s Advocacy Page (you’ll see the link above).  Because the page is growing in length, it was getting quite cumbersome.  I thought it best to organize it.

You’ll now find resources in three categories:

• ALA/ALA Affiliates’ Resources
• State Organizations’ Resources
• Other Resources

What other great advocacy resources do I need to add to this annotated list?

 

Image attribution:

“This is not a social media megaphone” by altemark    http://www.flickr.com/photos/24844537@N00/337248947

Edited through a Creative Commons license using Big Huge Labs Pop Art Poster utility

Kindle Problem Solved!

As I shared in an earlier post, I am one of many of thousands of people who helped the Kindle 3 become Amazon’s all time best seller.

Almost all blog posts that I read concerning the Kindle included the passion the blogger had for their new device.

I didn’t share that passion because I was having a problem with my Kindle 3 that was extremely frustrating. My Kindle seemed to have a mind of its own; it would reboot for no apparent reason several times a day.  I would be engrossed in reading Tess Gerritsen’s The Mephisto Club only to be rudely interrupted by a sudden reboot.

The reboot would take several minutes and had prevented the Kindle from bookmarking where I had been interrupted in my reading.

User Error?

At first, I assumed that I was the one at fault; perhaps I had not read and followed the instructions correctly.  So I followed the troubleshooting guide and restarted my Kindle.  Didn’t solve the problem.  Next I followed the instructions and reset my Kindle to the factory settings.  Didn’t solve the problem (and I lost the few pdf files I had placed on the Kindle).

Amazon Customer Service Q&A Community

I checked the Q&A Community and discovered the problem wasn’t with my Kindle (yay!) but with the leather cover that was purchased with it from Amazon.  I removed the cover and the Kindle has not rebooted once. Several different reasons were given on the forum for the reason the cover was causing the problem (the metallic hooks were causing interference, the cover itself causes static electricity, etc.) but whatever the reason, the cover is the problem, not the Kindle.

Now I can wholeheartedly say that I love reading on the Kindle!  I will be contacting Amazon later today to determine what the next step is with the replacing the cover, but I am a much happier camper today than I have been.

For those using Kindles in their schools, what cover are you using to protect the Kindle?

 

****Update****

I contacted Amazon Support last night and was VERY satisfied with the results.  Not only did Amazon refund the faulty cover price, but they also gave me a $25 promotional offer to apply to any cover I order through them.  If you’ll read the comment from Heather Loy below, you’ll see the cover that I choose – it doesn’t hook into the Kindle at all.

2010 in Review

Today, WordPress.com provided me with information concerning this blog’s 2010 status.  I thought readers might be interested in some of that information as well as how I hope to use it to improve this blog.

From WordPress.com

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 10,000 times in 2010. That’s about 24 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 43 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 142 posts. There were 69 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 24mb. That’s about 1 picture per week.

The busiest day of the year was March 15th with 269 views. The most popular post that day was Warning! We Filter Websites!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were Google Reader, schoollibrarywebsites.wikispaces.com, librarystuff.net, google.com, and mail.yahoo.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for building blocks, informania, edward cullen, questions, and word collage.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Warning! We Filter Websites! March 2010
1 comment

2

Promoting Books July 2009
7 comments

3

Advocacy: Annual Reports June 2010
6 comments

4

Discovering New (to me) South Carolina Talent November 2010
6 comments

5

Advocacy: Monthly Reports November 2010
6 comments

Thoughts

First, how readers discover this blog amazes me at times.  I often check to see what search terms drive people here.  They usually include the title of this blog but the other terms change with time.  Point:  Edward Cullen.  One post mentioning his name seems to have driven quite a bit of traffic here;  I’ m sure those searchers were a bit disappointed.

Since this blog concerns school library matters and educational technology uses I would have expected more readers to use terms concerning those fields to locate information here.

Lesson learned: Perhaps the tags I use need tweaking.  I need to study the tags other school librarian bloggers are using.

Second:  It’s very interesting to  me that although 269 people viewed the post “Warning! We Filter Websites!,” the only comment on it was a pingback from a mention on another site. Looking back at the post, though, I noticed that I didn’t invite comments on the illustration.

Lesson learned: Because I value other educators’ opinions and enjoy conversations that challenge my views and encourage me to see a topic from other vantage points, I need to remember to invite readers to comment.  I am indebted to those in my personal learning network for their inspiration and encouragement.

Finally, can I get even 10% of the ticket costs for those 10,000 Boeing travellers?

In what others ways can I use this data to improve the conversation?