Your Library website

Your Library Website
What should you have on your website? As 21st century librarians we need to have a web presence so that students can use some of your resources even when they are not in the actual school library.This is called your Virtual Library.

Hopefully your library website will link up to your schools webpage. By now you may have your blog up and running. So what else should you have on your site?

It is very important is your a link to your online card catalog. This way students can be in the classroom or at home and be checking out what books or resources you have available.

Another item you will want to have will be your online databases and perhaps also links to your statewide resources online that are available
for students to use. If you have links from your local region ( in NY we have area BOCES which provide for us several great databases for teachers and students to use) .

Do you have selected sites that students use in the computer lab or library? These are also great to have on your site so that students can easily connect to them. Most of ours are under a PortaPortal which I as the librarian maintain. This is an easy site to update any where you have internet service.
What is portaportal? A Portaportal is a free, server based bookmarking utility. Watch here for a link ! Using this helps students get to recommended sites quickly!

Selected Sites to Use for your Virtual Library!
1. www.blogger.com/tour- check this out. It will give you a tour and help you get started on your blog.

Copyright 2011- No duplication without permission of author.

Battle of the books- round One

Battle of the Books
On April 1st we have our first round of the Battle! The students did well and had fun. We will have 8 teams advancing to the second round which will be held in May.
The date is not yet determined so keep tuned!
All students that participated received a certificate and a cool pen or pencil! Keep reading!

Fiction Book pass

My article about Fiction book passes will be published in the October Issue of Library Sparks! I did this same principal using non-fiction books to help students decide on a topic for their reports. MMMMM- another article?? Maybe!

Ideas on Professional reading! -

Well this is different- another snow day! Do you keep track of your reading - both professional and for fun? When I read for fun ( I love historical fiction and biographies ) I don't. I just read for pure enjoyment.
However when I do professional reading ( books, journals) I have my notebook with me.I like to jot down ideas that I gleam that I can use , ideas for lessons, quotes that inspire me, ideas for advocacy, or ideas to share with library colleagues or teachers. I can look back in this notebook and make sure I have the quote or idea correct.

Author Visits -part 2

1. Get the students ready! Go on the internet and look at the authors website / or other resources and get information about the author. Talk to the students about the authors life and read them some of the authors books or chapters from the book if is a longer book. Put up posters around the school announcing the arrival , time and date of the author visit. Maybe you could have some of the older students make posters and place them around for you.

Author visits - Part I

1. Host an Author visit to your school. Contact your PTO / PTA and see if they can help with funding your author visit. Students love when authors visit! You might also contact your local library to see if you could collaborate with their program director to see if they have funding that might be helpful. We had Lindsay Barrett George. Visit her at LindsayBarrettGeorge.com
The first steps are: funding and contacting the author. What funds do you have for payment? Parent group- Assembly funds- other funding perhaps from the community?
Make sure you have resources for payment. You may also need to provide accommodations/ transportation so get that in line also.
Contact the author, and make the arrangements. When will he come? You will want to speak with administration before hand to determine what day and time will be appropriate for you author day. You don't want to be in conflict with another program or a testing
date.

Then we start the promotion: What can you do to promote the program. Firstly, the students. Hopefully you will have ( or can borrow) some of the authors works! Then begin to tell and read to the students ( or have them read) some of the authors works. Put up posters or do a bulletin board about your authors visit. If you are allowed outside visitors - contact your local news media and see if you can send a press release or short article for them to publish/ present.

Another Snow day

We are officially out of snow days at our school - so now we are working on conference days and extra days we had at memorial day. So much for getting back into the swing of school days.
Yesterday was spent finishing up my monthly report where I update the administration about what we have done in the library.
Good News! I will have an article published in Library Sparks in October 2011!