Building a Community of Readers in the Library

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 I’m not going to keep you long at my blog today; instead I’m going to send you over to Expect the Miraculous to read a post written by Andy Plemmons, who is the award-winning media specialist at Barrow Elementary School.

 In The Power of First Lines: Another New Library Orientation, Andy shares how he begins building a culture of reading during the very first week of school. His message to students revolves around the joy and power of reading, and everything he says and does during their first visit to the library communicates that.

I appreciate that he so generously shared his strategies for giving kids a positive experience with books. And in a world where social media revolves around sharing only our moments of carefully filtered perfection, I appreciate that he also shared what he terms a “pitfall” of this type of library session. (To which I reply: I realize that we all have a different level of tolerance for noise and disorder, but my philosophy is that learning is often loud and messy, and that’s okay. I’m glad Andy feels that the value of giving the students this type of experience outweighs the nuisance of a few mis-shelved books.)

If you’re thinking, “Wait, this is a library orientation lesson, and it’s already the end of September, so hasn’t this ship pretty much sailed already?” let me reassure you that it’s never too late to implement these ideas in your library.

So without further ado, go read his post!  You’ll be glad you did!

Bookshelf image is from Creative Library Concepts 
http://creativelibraryconcepts.com/roll-it-over-mobile-shelving-helps-libraries-to-open-up-space/

Snapshot of My Reading Life

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World-Read-Aloud-Day-2014For week 3 of the World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) blogging challenge, bloggers were asked to “post a photo that gives readers a glimpse into your reading life.”  I decided to go with this screenshot of my NetGalley bookshelf, since this is a relatively new addition to my reading life.

NetGalley Shelf

Click photo to enlarge.

 

NetGalley is an online service that “delivers digital galleys, often called advance reading copies, or ARCs, to professional readers and helps promote new and upcoming titles.”  Members look through the available titles and request approval to download the ones that look interesting.  There is no cost to join or to preview books.

I haven’t been a member for very long, but it’s a lot of fun to get a sneak peek at upcoming books, and it gives me a little edge when I’m preparing book orders.  Perhaps it’s something that you’d like to try!

 

And Now a Word From Our Students

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World-Read-Aloud-Day-2014For week 2 of the World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) blogging challenge, bloggers were asked to answer the following questions individually and with a child or children:

1. I think everyone in the world should read…

2. If I could listen to anyone in the world read aloud to me it would be…

3. When I read aloud, my favorite character to impersonate is…

4. The genre or author that takes up the most room on my bookshelf (or e-reader) is…

5. My favorite part about reading aloud or being read to is…

I decided to open up two of these questions to the students at my school, and I created Padlet walls where they could post their answers.  Here are our results!


Click here to view our 3rd Grade Wall

 

 

 

 



Click here to view our 4th Grade Wall

 

 

 

 

 

Our students were excited about the opportunity to share their opinions with the world, and I think some of our teachers will begin using Padlet as a class brain-storming tool.   Win-win!

 

Netvibes to the Rescue!

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I know lots of folks are upset about losing Google Reader as a resource for managing their RSS feeds.  If you’re looking for a replacement, you might want to consider using Netvibes.  This free service has been described as a personalized start page, and it helps you organize all your web content in one place.

I’ve been using it for about four years, mainly to manage my blog feeds, but it can do so much more.  Because Netvibes allows you to add widgets and html coding to your pages, you can embed text, photos, videos, live websites and/or thumbnail links, Flickr streams, etc.  I can check the weather, check things off my To-Do list, and check my blog stats using a Google Analytics module.  I can even read and send Tweets via my Twitter widget at school, where Twitter is blocked.  (Shhhh, don’t tell anyone!)

Take a look at my public page (Keeping An Eye On…) to get an idea of how it works.  If your district blocks shortened links like mine does, you can click here instead.

I also use Netvibes to archive the websites I’ve shared as part of my WWW program, which I wrote about in a previous blog post.  WWW stands for Weekly Wednesday Website, and I used it in the past to share a new site each week with my faculty.  (Now that I have a flexible schedule, I can work more closely with teachers to recommend sites and tools one on one, so I no longer send out those blanket weekly emails.  I do still add sites to the Netvibes archive, though, for the convenience of my teachers.)

If you think you’d like to make the switch from Google Reader to Netvibes, they’re making it easy for you.  From the Netvibes blog:

As you may have heard, Google has decided to shut down its Reader service on July the 1st. Good news: you don’t need to look for an alternative, Netvibes is the perfect home for all your RSS feeds, and more. Judging by the increase in traffic since the announcement, it’s safe to say that most of you have already make the move, and we’re grateful for that. And if you haven’t done it yet, here’s how you can easily join our community.

It goes on to provide step-by-step instructions for importing your feeds from other services so that you won’t have to start over from scratch.  Apparently a lot of people are making the switch, because there’s a banner across the top of the site today that reads: If you’re experiencing slowdowns or feed latency, please bear with us as we work hard to handle a huge amount of new users. Thank you for your patience.

Whether you choose to use Netvibes or another service, I wish you all good luck on finding a new RSS manager!

 

Celebrating Picture Book Month!

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November is Picture Book Month, a time to Read*Share*Celebrate!  I’m featuring some of my favorite picture books this month on my Book Buzz blog for kids, but it’s not easy choosing from so many outstanding titles!  But hey, too many great books is actually kind of a nice problem to have!

Leave a comment and tell us how you’re celebrating Picture Book Month!

Updated 11/3: Okay, I just realized yesterday that there is an official Picture Book Month Calendar with a suggested theme for each day.  For those who are blogging or tweeting — (use #PictureBookMonth or @PictureBkMonth) — you may want to use the theme as a guide for choosing books to feature. 

Unfortunately I have already selected most of the books I will be highlighting this month; the only additions will be recommendations and/or guest posts from teachers at my school or other librarians in my district.  But it may not be too late for the rest of you to do it properly!

 

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Library Books

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I always like to share something fun on Saturdays, so today I encourage you to take a look at the Awful Library Books blog. 

This site is a collection of library holdings that we find amusing and maybe questionable for libraries trying to maintain a current and relevant collection.  Contained in this site are actual library holdings.

Be sure to read the comments; often they are just as much fun as the entries! 

 

SCASL Blog – Are You Reading It?

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Just thought I’d give a shout-out to one of the blogs on my blogroll this morning.  If you’re not following the S.C. Association of School Librarians (SCASL) blog, you’re missing out on some interesting news and announcements! 

The Favorite Tweets of the Week feature is particularly nice for those who aren’t using Twitter, although they do seem rather more heavily weighted toward middle and high school librarians.  The annual Call-to-Conference is there, too – I hope to see many of you in Greenville this spring!

If you do stop by, leave a comment on one of the posts.  Tell them Lori sent you!