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:

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.

Can You Find the Face Out?

It's amazing what a little face out will do.

Our fiction shelves had gotten very uneven: too many books on one shelf, just a few books on another, etc.  Amy has always said she wanted more face outs on the shelves, so I went through and shifted our entire fiction collection to even out the shelves and make room on the ends for face out books.  I think just a simple face out at the end of the shelves make them look so much more appealing:

For the face outs I tried to pick a wide variety of genres, and I also tried to pick books that might not have been as popular as Amy or I think they should.  I tried to find some that should have more
attention than they currently receive.  

It's too bad I didn't take before pictures.  Of course I wasn't thinking that far ahead.  :(  It is kind of hard to tell with the pictures, but the shelves look quite attractive, and when you walk into the fiction room, your eye is immediately drawn to the shelves quicker.

Since the face outs have been put in place, I've had to replace three of them.  That means three face outs have already been checked out!  I know that's not hard scientific data, but it gives us some indication that they are actually working!

So, if your shelves look a little drab, just do a little shifting and face outing...you won't be sorry! 

LaterPost: What Did You Do on Unofficial?

Every year on the University of Illinois campus, a couple of weeks before Spring Break, Unofficial St. Patrick's Day "celebrations" take place.  This is basically an excuse for all-day binge drinking, or in some cases all-weekend binge drinking.  Since our school is on the UIUC campus, we can't help but be directly affected by this yearly gathering of green beer drinking yahoos...I mean, celebrants.  This year was different, though: this year the Uni campus was on lockdown.

The students were inside ALL DAY.  This was difficult for these young minds, who are used to being able to roam free throughout the campus for lunch and during their free period.  We did the best to keep them occupied.

We had an impromptu Game Day, which had pretty good attendance.  (And, during which I got to see faces I didn't even know.  Hey, when the chips are down, guess you better go to the library, huh?)

Amy gets in on the Bananagram fun! 

Here's the winning hand.

I also put up a lovely new Author Spotlight display for students to gaze upon.  (Pretty sure I saw ONE student notice.)  This month we're having a Pisces Party and spotlighting five different authors born in March under the Pisces sign.  (That title Amy's awesome idea.)

And, if those two efforts weren't enough, Paul created a new poetry contest to whet the students' appetites for National Poetry Month in April.  He's always had Poems of the Week posted, but few students ever take notice.  He brainstormed with another teacher to get ideas on how to highlight these awesome works of poetry he so carefully selects.  The display is now called Poem of the Whenever, and it comes with a quiz!  We've cleared the library doors of clutter, and the poems are now the focal point of the entryway.  Students can now read the poems, complete a quick quiz, and get a prize when they have all the correct answers.  (Yes, we let them use the poems while they take the quiz.  Yes, we let them correct the answers until they have them all right.)

It was a long day, but we all muddled through.  If anything, the students probably appreciate their freedom even more this week...at least I'd like to think they do.



SPECIAL NOTE: We had one student come in and complete the Poem of the Whenever quiz today.  He walked out with a pencil, a piece of chocolate, and a high degree of self satisfaction.

I Had No Idea: National Eating Disorders Awareness Week

Eating disorders are not something to be ignored.  In order to shed light on them and help those that might be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help in a one-on-one manner, we have planned a couple of things to raise awareness of eating disorders.

Amy has been working with the school social worker to sponsor a Uni Period talk about eating disorders, and a registered dietician will be in attendance to lead the talk/discussion.  This year's NEDA focus is I Had No Idea. 

 Signage on our library doors for our Uni Period talk on eating disorders that Amy created.

I also did my best to create a display with information and fiction texts on eating disorders.  One student said that she is concerned with fiction texts that focus on eating disorders, because she fears that they give students who are in the throes of one ideas.  This is a valid point, and after this I was hesitant to put any fiction texts up.  However, after thinking about it for a bit, I felt that these fiction texts could help those recovering to know that authors are aware of eating disorders, and that if needed, they can find themselves reflected in some texts.

I sourced some titles from a Goodreads list on YA Eating Disorders, but this list was filled with books that would do more harm than good (giving "ideas," as the one student who raised concerns stated).  I tried to find some fiction titles in our collection and other collections from around the university that would give a more realistic picture of what eating disorders entail.  The signage posted here was downloaded and printed from the NEDA website.  

Eating disorders are easy to ignore, can be easy to hide, and easy to push to the side in order to worry about other diseases.  They are still life threatening and affect many more than one may realize.  This week, we hope to offer guidance, help, and hope to one, two, or many who may be grappling with an eating disorder. 

Greensleeves

There's a science project goin' on in these here parts, and it's a science free read.  The Subbie group can read any non-fiction science book they want, so that gave Amy and me lots of room to pull cool books for book talks, displays, and a book cart. 

The students can find books in one of three ways: look on the shelves, look on a designated cart in the main room of the library, or seek help from Amy, Paul, or myself for a reference interview.  Amy requested a lot of texts from other libraries on campus, and then she asked me to go into our own collection and seek out interesting titles to face out on the shelves.  This was more fun than I thought it would be.  Here's me being totally honest: I didn't know how many interesting science books there are!*

Three of my favorite science books I pulled, covering three of my favorite topics: Harry Potter, time travel, and Buffy.

Amy started the collection for the Subbies to peruse, Paul processed all of the books and created "temporary" statuses for them, so they're properly acknowledged in the online catalog, and I, well, I had the GREENSLEEVES FACE OUT idea. 

We've put greensleeves on each of the books for the Subbies, and then for each shelf in our collection, I picked one or two texts to cover with a sleeve and do a face out.  We cannot cover each and every non-fiction science text in our collection, but I pulled several I thought were super interesting to do as face outs.  These sleeves draw the students' eyes, and if they like the subject/topic, but not that specific book, they can look down the shelf to find a book with a similar topic.  I will admit that I was proud of my idea, and it has worked.  Students were much more confident looking on the shelves knowing that there would be suggested face outs.  In fact, it worked so well that Amy, Paul, and I only did a few reference interviews. 

This is just another example of collaboration, and how a simple thing like a colored piece of paper can make all the difference in the world for a student to gain confidence in the library.




*CONFESSION TIME...I am not a great scientist: Science is my worst subject on Trivia Crack, and I wanted to enroll our daughter into a STEM school, so she would be sure to have a lot of science instruction in elementary school.  (When I was in elementary school, science was always THE LAST subject my teachers made room to teach.) 

Revamp & Revise

We loved our Question Board.  It was, and IS, a great idea.  Supervisor Amy felt it needed a bit of a revamp, and boy oh boy was she right.  Our new effort is even better than our original:

This was an awesome collaborative effort with input coming from all three library workers.  Amy wanted to focus on our library mascot, the Dragon which hangs from our ceiling, and now the students have a specific "thing" to talk to.  Paul thought it would be cool to ask the Dragon about its umbrella wings.  I thought it would be awesome to add our completed questions to the new library blog, the Digital Dragon.

The first question...or QUESTIONS...posted were created by us.  Paul brainstormed the wing question, and somehow, I don't even remember how, Amy and I eventually landed on a question about everyone's favorite gonzo food Rocky Mountain Oysters.

I admit, I am very proud of our collaboration and the Dragon's Response (which I helped it write).  The new, revised board is already getting noticed, too:

 Is it a caped crusader?  Nope.  Just an interested Sophomore during Spirit Week reading about Rocky Mountain Oysters.  (Sophs had to wear RED.)

Don't ever stick with an idea if it's not working.  Don't be that silly and stubborn.  Everything we do is an effort, a try, and sometimes after thinking on it, we can revamp, revise, and make something even more fabulous. 

Relaxation Station

It's Finals time round these here parts, and Amy and I feel that it is our responsibility to not only offer a space for students to prepare and study for the finals, but also offer them a place where they can come, relax, and take a moment to breathe.

We've brainstormed a couple of ideas for the Library's Relaxation Station.  We have a puzzle out and ready for the students to work on.  By the end of the second break period (there are two each day during Finals Week), the frame had already been completed!  We also have come coloring sheets out.  Coloring is so therapeutic, so never be ashamed of coloring, even as a teen or adult.

At the end of the week we'll also be offering a Very Merry Morning.  We'll be listening to David Sedaris' recording of his story "SantaLand Diaries" from his collection Holidays on Ice.  We'll also be having our monthly games offering and treats.  

Yes, we definitely want the students to do well on their Finals, but we also want them to have a bit of fun to relieve their stress.  We just hope it doesn't get too loud.



*OOPS!  I forgot to post this before I left for Holiday Break!  I still thought it was cool for everyone to see the puzzle that was completed by the Uni students.  :)

Dashing December Displays

They're dashing for a couple of reasons.  Number One, I just wanted to use a form of Dasher in my title.  Number Two, December is short around these here parts, so they won't be here for long.  And, Number Three, I had to find a way to triple alliterate the title. 

Author Spotlight was a no-brainer for December: the fair Miss Austen, without a doubt.  It is her birthday month, after all.  I took her original works with the newest covers (paperbacks in permabound), and then I pulled other Austen-esque titles: some non-fiction works about her works, one of the graphic novel adaptations, and a few of the recent fiction works inspired by her life or works.  (I still need to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  The day I created this display, I came home to find that my father had actually brought me that exact title for me to read, for a friend had given it to him.)  I had lots of fun--AGAIN--creating info slides to put up around the display, too. 

Because we had already spotlighted two males for author of the month, I knew I wanted to do a female for December.  When I started looking in our collection, and before I had remembered December was Jane Austen's birthday month, I noticed a lot of the female authors in our collection have written trilogies.  Trilogies are too small for an author display, and when I brought this up to my supervisor she said, "Why not do trilogies for Christmas...Like the Twelve Days of Christmas, but Twelve TRILOGIES?"  Um.  Yes.  That's why she's in charge.  She makes my ideas so much better.  (What will I do without her??)

And, so, Twelve Trilogies for Christmas display was born.  Some of the trilogies are rather established, like the Inkworld Trilogy or the Bartimaeus Trilogy, and some are rather new, like Lisa McMann's WAKE Trilogy and Jeff Sampson's Deviants Trilogy.  This display had books flying off of it faster than any other yet.  Marie Lu's Legend Series was checked out within the first few days.  Other quick check outs included selections from Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games (no shocker there) and Marisa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles. The best part was fitting them into the display space.  I got to experiment with lay out, book stacks, and still keep the display pleasing to the eye.  Finally, I did make one sign to give students a little bit of reason why all of these random series were stacked up together.

The first semester of displays have been pretty great, I think.  I've tried to keep them interesting, eye catching, and always focused on different types of books.  I may have fallen short of that last goals a few times, but with winter break coming up, I have a few weeks to think of and create new displays for the new year. 

ALL the New Fiction

Remember all of the awesome new fiction books we got last week?  Well, we got even MORE this week!  We have no room for all of the new books in the New Books display.  So, Amy wanted to try something new.

I took a portion of the new books and put them on the "back book display."  This is where I put most of our bigger displays.  We want to see if the books go faster from the back display as opposed to the New Books display that the students see as they walk into the library.

I've been creating informal tally sheets for each display to keep track of which books are checked out from each display.  I've done the same thing for this "display race."  Both displays have some pretty spectacular new books, so I hope a lot of books get checked out.

WHO WILL WIN???

VS.

For the back display, I did create some signage, so students would know what was up.  I even decided to use some Snoopy, because new acquisitions always make me want to do my happy dance.  Winning.

Finally, our awesome library technician, Paul, came up with some great yellow tags to put in each new book to flag it for students. 

Students here at Uni work so hard in their classes, but several do come in to check out books for pleasure reading.  A lot of them tend to check out the same authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, Tamora Pierce, Kristin Cashore.  All are fantastic, but I hope all of this teamwork to push the new books works, because they are awesome and deserve to be read, too!

Under the Influence

A couple of weeks ago I sat and thought and thought and THOUGHT about a new bulletin board, but nothing was coming to mind.  I must have thought about it for over two hours.  By the end of my think tank time, my head hurt.  I got home and told my husband of my toiling, and in two seconds flat, he said, "Why not do a board about author influences?  You know, like what other authors have influenced authors?"

Yeah.  He's that good.   I was in awe.  I don't know if that was collaboration, though: just my husband being awesome and thinking of a great idea off the top of my head after I had tried to do the same thing for hours. 

This was the most in-depth and detailed bulletin board I've done yet, so I'll try not to bore you too much with the method.  It took a lot of little steps to get this board done!

• STEP 1: Create a list of relevant YA authors that students at Uni actually check out with semi-regularity, and also include new authors that they should get to know.
• STEP 2: Start reading and researching the authors to find out what has influenced them.  The influences range from TV to art to music to other authors (of course).
• STEP 3: Create a list of what/who influenced whom.
• STEP 4: Hunt down and print pictures of all the authors and influences.
• STEP 5: NEVER LOSE YOUR LIST of influences and try to keep them organized.
• STEP 6: Start creating your board.  Space out your authors, try to group the influences by type (I have TV in one area, movies in another area, etc). 
• STEP 7: After everything is on the board, get lots of strings and lots of thumb tacks and start creating your lines of influence. 

The result might look something like this:

In the end, I'm kind of satisfied with the board.  It looks too crazy-busy for me.  I wonder if the idea would work better with a bigger board?  Because I LOVE the idea, and I'd love to do it again.  I had fun researching all of the authors, and I feel like I know them better now, but I don't think the board is having the WOWZA effect I hoped it would.  I really wish I had colored yarn for the lines, but I needed to get the board done, and all we had in the library was butcher string.  HOWEVER, this was definitely a learning project, so even if it's not perfect, it was still a great experience.

It's All Hocus Pocus

It's that time of year, folks: HALLOWEEN SEASON!  We already talked a little bit about Halloween Storytime, so let's talk Halloween Displays today.

Upon receiving a new shipment of bright and shinies which included THREE witch-centered books, Supervisor Amy had the idea of doing a witch book display, and who would I be to argue with my supervisor?  It was too much fun putting together this great, fun, seasonal display.

Amy wanted Katherine Howe's Conversion to be the focal point of our display, and she also wanted to surround it with titles about or of the Salem Witch Trials.  (Conversion looks AMAZING by the way.  We've already had someone check it out, so 1) the display is working, and 2) I'll have to wait to read it.  That's a good Librarian Problem.)  This is another great display that allowed me to find a variety of genres for the pale, green shelves: fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel, and a play this time!

We didn't have everything that I would have included if I had access to ALL the books, so I made a small sign to go with the display.  On that I included Quentin Blake's version* of witches, some of Harry Potter's finest witches+ (McGonagall, Hermione, and that evil Bellatrix!), and some other classic witchy women (Willow, Galinda, Meryl Streep's witch from the upcoming big screen adaptation of Into the Woods, and the Wicked Witch of the West*).  And, OF COURSE, the sign HAD to include the Sanderson Sisters from the 1993 Halloween classic Hocus Pocus.



* Keep in mind, we are a high school library with limited collection space, so we don't have Roald Dahl's The Witches or L. Frank Baum's Oz collection.
+ I've already included Harry Potter in two displays, so I opted for no Potter this time.  And, let's face it: which one would I have chosen?  Probably Deathly Hallows, cause Mama Molly is BADASS in that one, but that was included in my first display of the year.