Planning Library Programs, Celebrations, and Displays

I love that, as an educator, I get two official “starting over so I can get it right this time” days each year:  January 1st and the beginning of a new school year (which is Aug. 13th this year). There’s something hopeful and energizing about fresh starts, isn’t there?

I also adore new school supplies; each July I head out to the office supply stores in search of my planner.  Several years ago I stumbled across one that is as close to perfect for my needs as I can get without designing one myself:  Mead’s QuickNotes Academic Year Weekly/Monthly Planner. It’s well-organized and includes an extra planning space (QuickNotes) each week for jotting notes.  Each month begins with a full page of QuickNotes space which is perfect for noting special celebrations for the month.

Noting the Dates

Today, I sat down with my planner, my SCASL Executive Board Handbook, and my Mac.  (I want to thank our SCASL leadership this year for including a page of special library-related dates – very helpful!)

One other calendar that is essential to my planning is my school district’s calendar.  I crop it a bit and tape it inside the front cover of my planner.  I highly recommend doing something similar; I refer to this often during the year.

I am by no means finished with filling in the dates and celebrations, but thought I would share some of what I have so far.

The number one search query for bringing visitors to my site has been “library display ideas” and I hope that those of you who have landed here from such a search will find some ideas to use in your own library.

September

National Library Card Signup Month

• Partner with the public library to create a display and perhaps have a representative onsite one day.  Many students and their parents do not realize all of the resources that are available to them from the public library.
• Print the PSAs from ALA to display. Playing on this idea, get a group of your teachers and administrators to pose holding their public library cards.  Ask your superintendent if you can get a photo of him/her also.  How about your town’s mayor, police chief, sheriff, local politicians?  Make it into a contest to see which students can name the pictured local celebrities.

Banned Books Week Sept. 30 – Oct. 6

• Check out the Banned Books Week YouTube Channel.  Perhaps you could have some of these videos of celebrities reading from banned books playing in your library before and after school each day.
• Save and use ALA’s free downloadable clip art to display in your flyers, newsletters, bibliographies, or posters.
• Check out other display ideas from ALA.

Constitution Week Sept. 17-23

• Partner with a social studies/U.S. History teacher to display student work.  Because the CCSS recognizes the Constitution as one of the foundational US documents, perhaps you could create a board with not only the history of the Constitution, but also reading strategies.

October

National Book Month

• The National Book Foundation sponsors this event.  Why not use their list of National Book Award Winners (1950-2011) to choose books to display?  On October 10, this year’s book award finalists will be announced.

National Cyber Security Awareness Month

National Reading Group Month

• Promote your book club!

Teen Read Week Oct. 14-20

• The theme this year is “It Came from the Library!”
• Check out the YALSA Teen Read Week Pinterest board.
• Demco has several great posters (either plain or laminated) for TRW – love the Librarian Zombies!

Mystery Series Week – 1st week in October

• This one is new to me.  Love mysteries and students often request them.  Gather some of your mysteries for a great display the 1st week in October.

Banned Websites Awareness Day Oct. 3rd

National Read Aloud Day Oct. 22nd

November

National Life Writing Month

• This celebration is perfect for a display of biographies and autobiographies as well as one on books showing your how to chronicle your life’s story.

National Novel Writing Month (Often referred to as “NaNoWriMo”)

• Why not use this month to spotlight several new YA or children’s book authors?

American Education Week Nov. 18 -24th

• Display ideas: books with schools as one of main settings, books about education, faculty members photographed with a favorite book

National Game and Puzzle Week Nov. 18 -24th

• We’ll only have two days of school this week since it falls during Thanksgiving week.  Have games spread out on tables for students to play.

January

Appreciate a Dragon Day Jan. 16th

• Delightfully new to me!  Cull all of your dragon books for a dragonlicious display.
• Create a board of literary dragons and ask students to vote for their favorite.
• Use movie tie-ins to The Hobbit that debuts in theaters in December.

ALA Youth Media Awards Jan. 28th

• Create displays of the 2010, 2011, and 2012 award winners.

February

Digital Learning Day Feb. 6th

• This page, created for school librarians, provides lessons, tools, strategies, and more to help you promote this celebration.  Visit the Showcases page and watch several of the videos.  Can you encourage your teachers to let you film them sharing how they use technology in their instruction? These could be shown on your school’s newscast or played for students before and after school on Feb. 6th.

March

Teen Tech Week Mar. 10 – 16

• Last year, my co-librarian created a Tech Museum in one of our art display cases.  He included artifacts with printed info sheets.  Why not show students how technology has changed over time?  We had a record player, Sony walkman, a typewriter, 3.5 inch floppy disks, and much more in our case.

Read Across America Day Mar. 2nd

• No one is ever too old for Dr. Seuss!  Create a display of his books, or if you are in a library that doesn’t carry many of his books (like my high school library), create a bulletin board with book covers, quotes, and Seuss characters. The NEA provides printables that would go great with a Seuss board.

Freedom of Information Day Mar. 16th

April

School Library Month

National Library Week Apr. 14 – 20

National D.E.A.R. Day Apr. 12th

• You’ll find a variety of ideas here for displays and activities.

Support Teen Literature Day Apr. 18th

Children’s Book Day Apr. 30th

May

National Library Legislative Day May 7th

Teacher Appreciation Week May 6 – 10th

Resources

Want to discover other appropriate, delightful, or whimsical celebrations to assist you in planning for your library this year?  Check out these sites:

School Library Monthly Almanacs:  Author & Illustrator and Events (as of this posting, the new school year’s calendars are not posted, but you can review last school year’s calendars for ideas)

ALA’s Celebration Weeks & Promotional Events

Update: Librarians ARE the Digital Literacy Corps

Wow.  Joyce Valenza noticed my little post last week (Calling School Librarians to Action) and reposted it on her NeverEnding Search blog.  It then grabbed the attention of thousands of librarians as well as the American Library Association.  I was pleased to notice that ALA  responded quickly to the same newspaper article that had grabbed my attention (see “ALA Wastes No Time – Our Work on Digital Literacy“).

I was informed today that Matt Richtel, author of the article and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist,  provided us with misinformation.  The digital literacy corps referred to in his article has NO money associated with it.  I have sent him an email through the NY Times requesting more information. (You may request the same information from him here.)

Although the article was misleading, it hit a nerve among librarians who feel that the public still does not have a clear up-to-date understanding of our profession.

Evidently many of you are contacting the FCC as I requested. Deb Logan, one of the co-founders of Act4SL, contacted me yesterday and has given me permission to share part of her email here:

“The great news is that people are inspired to action… In all advocacy efforts, speaking up is important, but it is critical to not put people on the defensive…Communications need to be persistent, professional, positive and polite…This situation, in particular, is a great opportunity to position ourselves as part of the solution.”

Let’s keep in mind that all of us are working towards a common goal:  to teach our citizens digital literacy skills. 

Please continue to exercise your right to communicate with our governmental agencies and let the FCC know that librarians are trained information professionals who already address their concern that our citizens need to be taught digital literacy skills. Our efforts here may well help lay the foundation for future partnerships to better prepare Americans to navigate the digital landscape.

May the Digital Literacy Corps be with you! (With apologies from a former English teacher who cannot pass up plays on words.)

Image used through a Creative Commons license:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/starwarsblog/793008715/

Banned Books Week

***Warning:  my tongue seems to be stuck in my cheek this evening.

Banned Books Week (Sept. 24 – Oct. 1, 2011) is just around the corner. When I tell my students that we will be celebrating “Banned Books Week,”  I often am greeted with incredulous looks.

I know what those looks mean:  “Why would you celebrate the fact that books are banned?”  I have to quickly explain that the celebration focuses on our right to read what we choose.

Close to Home

Two years in a row, citizens of South Carolina have made it their mission to provide me with examples of books challenged in my own state.  How absolutely thoughtful of them.

Last year, my BBW bulletin board featured the book Sold by Patricia McCormick.  Its inclusion in a middle  school library had been questioned in Laurens, South Carolina that summer by a “well meaning” parent.

The parent chose not to  pursue the formal challenge process, but by going to the news media, she surely convinced many South Carolina middle schoolers NOT to read the book.  After all, teens never question adults’ intelligence.

This summer, a concerned parent challenged Chris Crutcher’s Angry Management.  He was horrified that a book that contained so much profanity in its first 24 pages would be on a summer reading list.  (He took the time to count the words?)

So tonight as I consider activities and displays to celebrate our right to read, I thought I’d have a bit of fun.  Dangerous authors are running amuck in the world.  What’s a librarian to do?

Well, librarians do value copyright, so this one asked for permission to use Chris Crutcher’s photo in the “Wanted” poster.  Visit his website to view the original photo and to also download “Guide to Teaching Challenged and Banned Books featuring the novels of Chris Crutcher.”

Want to make your own “Wanted” posters?  Visit this site.

One last thing – definitely not tongue-in-cheek:  I love my home state and am proud to be a Southern girl.  The two parents who challenged books are not representative of the entire state.

I Can Name that Book in One Pic!

Can you name that book in 5 pics?

A bit earlier this summer, my good friend Cathy Nelson shared her thoughts with me as she began planning for this fall’s Teen Read Week (sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association). She has several great ideas (see her post here), but the one that immediately captured my attention was her Books2Pics slides.  For each book, she created a slide containing pictures of several of its key elements. Her plan is to have one displayed each day during Teen Read Week and challenge the students to identify the book.

Because the idea looked just plain fun to me, when I finished reading one of the 2012 South Carolina Young Adult Book Award (SCYABA) nominees, I created a Books2Pics slide and shared it with Cathy and another good friend (and the third of the original Three Media Musketeers) Heather Loy, challenging them to “Name that Book.”

After I had created three of these slides (I’m telling you, it’s addictive!), I finally had that light bulb moment.  All of the YA books I am currently reading are from the 2012 SCYABA nominee list (gotta be familiar with those books!).  Why not sponsor a “Name that Book” contest during Teen Read Week similar to our YA Lit Jeopardy contest last year?

Name that Tune

For those of you not old enough to remember the “Name that Tune” game show, during the Bid a Note portion of the show two contestants vied for prizes by identifying songs from just a few notes.  A bidding “war” took place before one contestant had to name the song.  Contestant One would say, “I can name that tune in 5 notes” and Contestant Two would either counter by saying, “I can name that tune in 3 notes” or “Name that tune,” placing Contestant One in the hot seat to name the song from just the number of notes he/she had bid.

Each of the book slides I have created contains five photographs of key elements in the book.  I have used PowerPoint’s Customize Animation feature so that only one photograph will appear on the slide each time the mouse is clicked.  Two students, or teams of students, will challenge each other to “Name that Book” in 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1 photograph(s).  Since all books in the game come from the 2012 SCYABA nominees, there will be no need to give individual hints before each new slide.

“Picture It @ Your Library” is this year’s theme for Teen Read Week making this contest a perfect fit.  I can only hope that the students will have as much fun playing “Name that Book” as I have had creating it!

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

 

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