2012 Fascination Awards

I received an email that notified me of a nomination for the 2012 Fascination Awards in the library category. The nomination was for the post Mr. Dewey, I Bid You Adieu. I'm honored to receive this recognition. Blog posts are nominated for inspiring the audience and creating conversation. That blog post has received the most traffic and comments (positive and negative). If you would like to vote click the image below. Voting begins on February 27th.

Promoting State Book Awards

The South Carolina Association of School Librarians sponsors a book award program. The program consists of Children's Books, Picture Books, Junior Books and Young Adult Book categories. While we often have titles on the Children's and YA book list in our collection we focus on the Junior Books at the middle school level.

The past two years we have asked our county voting commission to bring voting booths in for our students to cast the vote for their favorite. The students really enjoy voting this way and we even got a little media attention. They are always happy to come because it promotes their mission as well as making a fun event for our students.

Our book award committees put together an activity guide and brochure each year that is shared with SCASL members only (a perk of membership). Last year they created booktalks for each title. I put them on our school iPods and used with my students. I visited our feeder schools and allowed the 5th graders to listen to the booktalks and we talked about the titles and our book club. They were really excited about library events and even though it was a year ago those kids still talk about that visit. One of our members created a Prezi of the titles, another created a Powerpoint that included the book covers and a short description of the books, I created a Glog of the titles including the booktalks, and Kristen Hearne and I created QR codes to be placed on each book that led to the author site or another related page.

This year I hope to duplicate these activities, but in addition Kristen Hearne, Monique German and I are working on two new projects. One project is to pair each book with a nonfiction title, website and book trailer if available. We shared the link to the Google Doc on our listserv in the hopes that others will contribute to the list. The second project is a total rip off from Cathy Jo Nelson. We are using Wordle and Powerpoint to create slides for each title that we can advertise on our digital frames or on a bulletin board.

I created the image above and a series of collages that I use to put into my picture frame mousepads (just $1.50). Feel free to snag those from Flickr and use as you wish. I'm going to really miss Picnik.

What types of activities or promotions do you use for your state book awards? I would love to add to my list.

Virtual Library Tour

I love visiting schools and especially poking my nose into the library to look around and ask questions. I get the opportunity to do this occasionally as part of the National Forum's Schools to Watch program, but not nearly enough. There are several libraries that I really wish I could drop by and visit in person like the libraries run by Joyce Valenza, Gwyneth Jones, Jennifer LaGarde and Tiffany Whitehead. Even though they are not far away there are South Carolina libraries I haven't been able to visit yet. Watch out Fran, Heather and Cathy. I hope to come soon.

So I had a thought that I could create a short video virtual tour to share. I wanted to show you around my library and talk about the programs I am most proud of. Not only could this connect librarians, but this can serve as an excellent advocacy tool. Students, teachers, principals, parents and legislators can see what a 21st century library program looks like.

This was my first time using iMovie and I realized I say "fun" and "popular" too much. I am going to continue to work on and add to my video, however I wanted to put something together to get the ball rolling. I know that the super creative members of my PLN can blow my video out of the water. I hope that you will consider creating one of your own and sharing. I can't wait to tour your library. I tagged the video with virtuallibrarytour and if you do the same we can search easily or you can share your link in the comments. Hope to "see" you and your library soon.

I'm a Nerd. It's Official

It's official. I'm a big geek and now that I am part of the Geek Tribe, I can say that I'm a card carrying member. I'm a nerd too and now I can say that with even more confidence because I'm part of the Nerdy Book Club. If you haven't heard of the Nerdy Book Club, what are you waiting for? You can join too. Any group that includes the inspiring Donalyn Miller is a group that I want to be in. She is going to be one of the speakers at our state library organization, SCASL, conference and I'm really excited to see her in person.

One fun thing about the Nerdy Book Club is that you can be a guest blogger. Fill out this form if you are interested. My contribution about Passive Aggressive Book Promotions will be showing up on March 2nd. I hope you'll check it out.

Meet Me On Facebook

A few months ago I was invited to speak at the Follett New Leaf in Learning Conference. I was honored. The best part is that they asked me to present with my library BFF, the one and only Mighty Little Librarian, Tiffany Whitehead. To say that I am looking forward to meeting her face to face is an understatement. I know we're going to have so much fun presenting and sharing ideas and laughs.

We have two sessions ready that I am really excited about.

Be a Next Gen Librarian, Today!: We will discuss the thirteen virtues of a next generation librarian from this excellent article. I created a topic on Scoop.it of our resources if you would like to take a look.

The Embedded Librarian: Connecting and Collaborating. We have lots of tips and strategies for taking library instruction outside the walls of the library.

One of the events leading up to the conference is a Facebook chat about the future of libraries. I invite all of you to come and share your concerns and thoughts on our ever-changing profession.

Here's all the details about the chat:

9:30 am EST, Wed. February 15, 2012- Next Generation Libraries

I will be dishing on this topic at the conference in March. Get answers to your questions on the New Leaf in Learning Facebook Page.

There are some serious names presenting at the conference including Shannon Miller and Jon Schumacher, Eric Sheninger, David Loertscher and more. I look forward to spending time with so many passionate librarians.

Hope to see you on Facebook or in Illinois in March!