Displays Work!

I had some very encouraging comments from a 6th grade Language Arts/Reading teacher today.  I was doing a mini-lesson on conflict and previewing the 6th graders' upcoming thematic unit (unlikely friendships).  I did this, as I often do, with the help of a picture book.  Knuffle Bunny Too, by Mo Willems, to be exact.  After going through the lesson, I introduced the students to the three displays that are currently up in the library: Egypt (requested by the 6th grade SS studies to coincide with their current unit), Spooky Chills and Thrills (cause it's October), and 30 Years of Back to the Future (see previous post). 

While the students were looking for books and checking out the displays, their teacher came up to me.  She said, "These displays are a wonderful idea!  I didn't even know we had some of these books, and you forget about some of these great books if you don't see them."  All day the students have been pulling off books from the displays faster than I can replace them (always a happy librarian problem).  The teachers coming in have also been looking through them and seem quite happy with the variety of texts I've put out there. 

So far I've been trying to change up the displays once or twice a month.  It keeps students interested, it keeps me busy and creative, and, as the ELA teacher commented, it keeps books out there that students might not know (or have forgotten) about.  I continue to try to include many different types of books with each display: fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, and picture books if possible. 

Here's a quick look at the Spooky Chills & Thrills display before we come to a close for today:

"You Mean We're IN the Future??"

It's almost here, folks: the future.  October 21, 2015, is a day I've waited for since I was 9 years old and saw Back to the Future, Part II for the first time.  Tomorrow is the day.  The future of BTTF, the greatest film franchise of all time.  I wouldn't be a good librarian--or BTTF fan--if I didn't make a display to commemorate this momentous date in pop culture history. 

The Display

I've created a display with historical and popular fiction books from the 1950s and 1980s.  The middle section of the display are all books that have to do with time travel.  Let me just tell you all this: it was awesome fun going through our collection to find books for this display.  I only wish I could bring some of my own time traveling adventure books from home, like Audrey Niffeneger's The Time Traveler's Wife, Jack Finney's Time Again, or Richard Matheson's  Somewhere in Time. 

I also created some sings for the display, and I brought in my awesome Marty McFly art print that my even awesomer brother gave me for my birthday last year.  Like the Dude's rug does for his room, I feel that it really brings the display together.

The Trivia
I've created more Bulldog Buck Trivia (one question/day), and for the last two weeks of October all of the questions have to do with the Back to the Future trilogy--three questions for each film.  (We have no school this coming Friday, so I needed nine questions instead of ten for two weeks.)  By now the students should know that the trivia questions coincide with the big display in the library, but some were a bit confused why I was asking questions about Back to the Future.  I have been pleasantly surprised with the amounts of "I LOVE THAT MOVIE!" or "Man, I just watched that.  It's awesome!" and other variants of enthusiasm I've received.  

The Outfit???

Why haven't I been working on completing this outfit since I was 9?  I have NO idea.  :(

Well, I'm still bummed I don't have a size-adjusting fit jacket or power lace Nikes, but I do have a Marty McFly cap.  I'm going to ask my principal if I can wear it tomorrow.  She's pretty cool: I'm hopeful she'll say yes. 

10/21/2015
Tomorrow, I'll be way too excited.  I'll be playing the music in the library, gushing about the film to anyone who asks, and hopefully I'll get to go to a screening tomorrow night.  I love this movie so much, and I feel like if students see what I'm excited about and see me grinning and geeking out, they'll know that even though I'm a teacher they don't see that often, I'm still approachable and can have fun, too...even if I do spend most of my time in a big room filled with books. 

When Cameron Was In Egypt's Land

Hey, everybody!  I got to put together a sweet little mini-display for my 6th grade homies last Friday.  The 6th grade Social Studies teachers have already been my biggest collaborators.  They sought out my help shortly after the school year started to put together some web resources for their Hominid Project.  They were pretty stoked when I actually made them a spot on the library's website with links to reliable online resources.  (I mean, really.  What else should I have done?  Handed them copies of sheet with loooooong, drawn out websites that the students would all type incorrectly?  I don't think so.)

When they briefly mentioned last week that Egypt was coming up and they thought it would be cool if I could pull some books for their students I did just that.  We have a small display directly in front of you when you walk into one of the library's two entrances, so I thought this would be a great place to put the display.  We don't have loads of Egypt books, but we had enough to make a nice, small display.

The teachers thought the display was a great idea: When they saw it they told me they thought I would just put the books on a cart with a sign.  Um, no.  I don't roll that way.  I also brought up the idea of maybe having an Egypt movie theater day and have a showing of The Prince of Egypt at the end of the unit.  They loved this idea, too, but because keeping the students in focused, instructional time is such a big push, we don't know if we'll be able to swing this.  Maybe I'll have to think outside the box and have a showing after school.  We'll just have to see what happens after even more awesome collaboration with the SS teachers.

I could always just show the super short clip of Cameron being in Egypt's land.  That would definitely be within time perimeters.

#bannedbooks

Don't we all just LOVE the hashtag?  I know you do.  I thought it was about time I use it for the title of a post, and since last week was one of the most popular and important weeks for a library's year of activities, I thought I should bust it out.  But, I digress before I even begin...

BANNED BOOKS!!!  Every librarian's favorite topic!  Since this is my first year as an official school librarian/media specialist, I couldn't let Banned Books Week pass me by.  I am in a junior high/middle school, so I have to be careful what I push to these younger ones, but I feel like I was able to give an introduction to Banned Books in a fairly safe, yet interesting way.  I have created another big display for Banned Books, and I have also created one lesson (so far) to introduce the concept to the students. 

 A display with just a few of the banned/challenged books from our collection.  

NOTE:  The books on the bottom shelf include authors that have been banned/challenged, but not necessarily the specific title that had been banned/challenged.

 Students couldn't believe that some of their favorites--like Drama, Dr. Seuss, and Charlotte's Web--had been banned or challenged. 

 I created a short powerpoint and bookmark for the students to fill out.  As I went through the idea of Banned Books--what they are, why people try to ban/challenge books, popular titles that have been banned--I had students fill in a short bookmark for a future pop quiz.  At the end of the lesson I gave each table of students a baggie filled with a banned book cover that had been cut up into pieces.  The students had to put the puzzle back together to find out what banned book they had, and then they had to pick a representative from the group to read out loud why the book had been banned/challenged.  They did an AWESOME job working together and sharing their titles!

 Can you guess what titles they're putting together?

I even let Cardinals fans play. 

Along with the puzzle activity and display, I have put on the center of each table a quote from an author who has had titles banned or challenged and have put READstricted signs throughout the library.  I also have one trivia question/day to raise awareness of banned books.  (More on the trivia in a future post.)

So far, all is going well in our month-long "celebration" of banned books.  I have another activity planned for next week about banned picture books, and several students have already been asking about it!  Yay! 

Are You Ready for Some Football!?!

I'm playing catch-up...AGAIN...so here's a quick rundown of the football display that has come (and gone)* since my last post!

Football is quite big in my new school community.  Before the first game of the season there was a huge tailgating effort called Dawgapalooza (since we're the bulldogs), there's a huge Homecoming parade (that my uber cute 1st grade daughter was a part of), and many of the male students from elementary school to high school participate in the sport.  As a librarian, you have to know your patrons, so I thought a big football display to kick off the season would be just the ticket.

 A big, glorious display of American football and Football (soccer) books!  I also have some lovely framed Sports Illustrated covers to add a little humor to the display.

 Being from a family that upholds and appreciates the real sport of football (ie, SOCCER), I also had to include that in the display.

 The soccer season for boys is also in the fall! 

 Check out this one.  Man oh man, sometimes I'm super glad this collection hasn't been updated in years.

Just a few photos of the individual shelves of the three panel display.  To come up with the books for the display I just spent some more time in the stacks of our humble library, pulling everything I could find!  Easy!

I had lots of fun making a collage sign to go with the display, too.  I love to do picture collages, so this was a perfect little extra fun activity I gave myself.

The pick up from the display was constant, and the return was also great.  I had a lot of students interested in the books displayed, and they were awesome enough to return them on time, so others could get them.  Yippee!!!



*NOTE:  This display was up from September 15-October 1 as a beginning of season celebration. 

More Display Talk: A Later Post

For the first time since starting this crazy librarian stuff (that would be since August 2014 at Uni High in Urbana when I was grad assistant), I forgot to take a photo of a display as soon as I was done with it.  This was a big display, too.  The biggest one I had ever compiled, since my space at Uni tended to be so limited.  Why is this so bad?  Because students actually came and checked out books before I could document it!  (Darn kids.  Wantin' to read and stuff.)

My display is entitled Back to School.  All of the books have to do with starting middle school, starting a new school, school drama/problems, bullies in school, schools of magic and princesses, etc.  It was a lot of fun going through the collection to find books like this.  Because our collection is pretty small, I was worried I wouldn't find enough, but I shouldn't have worried so much.  I found plenty--enough to fill up three big shelves.

Here are a few photos of the display, its space, and the different organizations I've done to keep the display looking good as books are checked out:

Here it is after one period of students had been through.  Several holes already!  Good library problem.  The first display day was Monday, August 24, 2015. 

  
So many of the books had been checked out after one day that I re-organized all of the books onto the middle shelf, and left the two side shelves empty. 

  
A few of the books had been read and returned by Tuesday, September 1, so I was able to spread them out a bit.  This is a week after I put up the display.

And, of course I made some signage for the collection.  Because the display area is so big, though, the sign gets kind of lost.  I'll have to work on that in the future.  

Did you really think I WOULDN'T use this Billy Madison quote for my Back to School display?  If you did, you haven't been reading my blog for very long.

I've learned a few things from this first big display of the year:
1)  Students actually check out books here, because they want to, have time to read, or are forced to.  ;)
2)  If I want a photo of a display, I better take one QUICKLY...before the kids come and ransack it!
3)  Once again, gathering books for a display is the best way to learn about your collection.  I can also learn what I need to add to the collection. 

Meet Your New Librarian!

I have been trying to figure out a way to introduce myself to the students.  I wanted to make it part of their orientation powerpoint during their first visit to the library, but I was adding too many slides (and the cable we have for the screen is incompatible with my laptop anyway, so I couldn't do the powerpoint).  Then I thought well, I could put some trinkets up, but the library doesn't have a lot of space for my things yet, since I'm STILL cleaning things out.  Finally...like a bolt of lightening it hit me: DO A DISPLAY [you idiot]!!!  Why I didn't think of that at first, I have no idea.  Even if the students don't get an idea for my pop culture obsessions yet, at least they'll know what books I love.  I hope they can start to get to know more about me through the ones displayed.

Both the fiction and non-fiction collections here are rather dated, but I still did pretty well with what I have to work with.  I have six sections to my display, and they all contain some of my favorites from our humble collection.  The six sections include: picture books, junior novels, classics, young adult novels, graphic novels, and informational texts.  Next to each section I also put a sign, with a picture of some of my other favorites.  Finally, I put a quick blurb about how the students can follow me on Goodreads or Shelfari.

Students have already started taking books from the display, and I've been filling in holes with others I love as they are checked out (to keep it looking pretty).  My choice of Raina Telgemeier graphic novels get checked out quite quickly.  (I've already loved seeing both girls and boys checking out Raina's work.  Before getting a job in a library, I wondered if boys would be checking out her mostly female-centered works.)

So. FAST!

Everything's going so quickly here!  I barely have time to stop and breathe!  Now I really know why librarians never eat lunch: NO TIME!!!

But.  As hectic as they've been, these have been the four best weeks of my professional life ever.  I go home happy every night: I get to talk with students about books, help them find research tools, help teachers learn how to use Google Classroom and Chrome Books, and work with administrators that support me.  I know it might not always be this good, but man oh man, I'm takin' it while I can get it now! 

Here's a super quick rundown of the haps in the MSJH Library the first few weeks of school:

WEEK 1 started with LOTS of non-fiction shifting.  LOTS OF IT.  That's ok, cause I found out that the collection has the very first non-fiction book I ever owned:

And, I found out there's gonna be lots and lots and TONS of weeding going on this year.

 Um..."up to date" books on America's hottest, most popular teen idols???

I also found out that some people don't know how to take care of their books. 

 Just COPY THE PAGES, people!  Don't let the sticky notes get caught in there!

WEEK 2 began with some staff training and meet and greets.  I'm super nervous about being evaluated, since that hasn't happened in over three years, and they're using a evaluation tool.  How does a librarian show student growth for 600+ students?  I don't know, either.  We'll find out TOGETHER!

During WEEK 3 I found out that students really, truly check out books here!  Our (already weeded down) fiction collection is now looking a lot less than healthy, and since I forgot to take a picture of my first display.  I thought I'd have lots of time (since books were hardly every checked out last year) to take a photo, but I only got this one, which has lots of holes in it.  Oh, well!

 It was COMPLETELY FULL...I swear!  I should've written all the titles down, like I did last year at Uni, but as a lonely librarian with no aid, there's not time for stuff like that.

This WEEK 4 has started off well, too.  I've already completed another display (more on that later), and I found out I get to have the privilege of getting a Chrome Cart up and running by testing on Wednesday.  That means...I BETTER JET!  (Like I said, things are moving so quickly!)

One side note...Remember how I said I've gone home happy every night?  I felt a lot of guilt about that last week.  I don't feel like I should be so happy when I go home.  Almost like, if I'm not struggling then how can I be making a difference?  Well, I got so guilt-ridden last week that I started to cry on my husband's shoulder.  (OK, OK, you got me: it was UGLY crying.)  He said if I'm happy every night when I come home I can be a better mother AND better educator.  He's right (AGAIN), but I do feel like I should have to suffer for my art. 

Today's a GOOD Day!

Look what I found!  Some seniors just hanging out, reading some of our new releases.

This is probably the FIRST time they've been able to read for pleasure ALL YEAR.  I'm so glad we had so many fresh, new books to meet their needs and pique their interest.

 (Seriously...we have SO MANY.  There isn't room for any more...but we have more coming in!)

One of those seniors even checked out a couple of books to take home and read.  Hope he gets them done fast...tomorrow's (May 15) their last day!  :(