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!

Library Photo a Day

Most of you have heard of the Photo a Day projects and some of you may even be participating in one. The idea behind Photo a Day is to take one picture each day for a year to document your activities, travels, family and every day blessings. My amazing colleague, Kristen Hearne, suggested that we apply this idea to our library. I thought this was a wonderful idea and an easy advocacy tool. She created a group in Flickr and invited each of the 14 media specialists in our district to the group.

I love her description of the group on Flickr:

This is a place for the Anderson One media specialists to post a photo that you take each day of something that is happening in your media center. It can be ordinary or extraordinary! We just want to chronicle the year in our classrooms!

Now we can take a quick photo each day and share with the group. I'm using my iPhone because it is just so darn easy. The photos will provide us with images that we can put into a Photostory or Animoto video and share with our administration and school board.

Try this with your own library or with all of the libraries in your district.

Here are my first three photos of the year including one taken by a student so I could be in it.

Brother Reader

After seeing this article on Read Kiddo Read, I was inspired. The article describes the Brother Reader project. Brother Reader is a community service project started by Conor Davidson and Will McCord to "instill the love of reading in young boys". It is genius in its simplicity. The high school boys visit local elementary schools and read "boy" books to the boys in the class. Our boys are in dire need of more male reader role models and this is an easy, free, and effective way to meet that need.

I shared the article with our Gifted and Talented teacher and we talked about the logistics for starting something similar with our 8th graders. Luckily we have an elementary school right across the street. I contacted the librarian and principal and they gave us a time slot that worked well with our lunch schedule. I introduced the project to the 6 boys in the class and they were very excited about it.

I looked up lists of boy-friendly books, asked for suggestions from my trusted library buds, and looked at the Brother Reader blog posts for ideas. I checked out a big stack for the boys to look through for their first visit. I used my 3 year old as a book tester, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

My six boys includes one actor (he's an extra in The Hunger Games, super cool!) and at least one amazingly talented musical performer, but I wanted to prepare them for the performance aspect of story time. I found this list of excellent tips and ideas for wrangling youngsters on the Elementary Library Routines wiki. We looked through the books together, read the advice, and practiced for the first visit.

Our visit was so much fun. You can see what we read on this Goodreads list I created to help me keep up with our books. My students couldn't stop talking about how much fun they had and how cute the kids were. It was very sweet to watch them in action. The students would inch closer and closer as they turned the pages and they were truly happy to have us there. We are currently planning visits with two other feeder elementary schools nearby and will visit our closest school once a month. I'll continue to post about our project.

If you would like to start your own Brother Reader, check out Conor's suggestions and shoot him a quick email. If you have any boy-approved picture book recommendations we would love to hear them.

Wiki Work

I've looked on as others have created very attractive, helpful wikis that allow them to share resources with librarians everywhere, but never had one of my own. I'm very jealous of the Daring Librarian's wiki and the Mighty Little Librarian's newly updated presentation wiki. There is great potential for sharing on a wiki so I wanted to give it a try. I have two wikis that we use for professional development programs, 21 Things and our (so new it isn't finished) Gadget Virtual Tour. These two wikis have been a learning experience, yet we have kept the layout very simple. I claimed the Eliterate Librarian name on Wikispaces a while ago, but finally spent some time working on it today. You can view it here. It is nowhere close to the amazing wikis that I am inspired by, but it is a start. I have a lot to learn when it comes to graphic design and the ins and outs of working with code. To be honest, I'm hesitant to even share it because it isn't to the level I want it to be yet. I'm constantly urging other teachers and librarians to dive into new technology so it was time for me to practice what I preach. Promise not to laugh?

Edublog Nominations

I am very excited to see that the Edublog nominations are open again. I have found out about so many great educators by looking at the nomination and winner list.

Choosing just one person to highlight for these categories is very difficult, but here goes.

• Best individual tweeter-@SNewco aka Scott Newcomb. I always get the latest and greatest in mobile learning from him.
• Best ed tech / resource sharing blog- Richard Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers. I know he has won this before, but he is amazing. When I introduce other teachers to reading blogs this is the first one I share with everyone.
• Best twitter hashtag- #tlchat, This is the hashtag that I always check to keep a pulse on library trends and news.
• Best librarian / library blog- This is the toughest one for me because there are so many wonderful librarian bloggers, but this year my nomination goes to Jennifer LaGarde's Adventures of Library Girl. She has consistently inspired me with her creative ideas and passion.
• Best educational use of audio / video / visual / podcast- The Mighty Little Librarian's Tech Tuesdays. I love this series because it helps her teachers learn more about technology, improve their teaching, and advocates for her role as a tech leader in her school. All around a wonderful project.
• Best educational wiki- Daring Tech Wiki by Gwyneth Jones. Gwyneth is so generous with her materials and the graphics alone are a reason to visit this wonderland of visual stimulation.
• Best open PD / unconference / webinar series- TL Virtual Cafe- my source for all the latest and greatest in the library world

Good luck to everyone. I can't wait to see the nomination list and start adding to my reader.