Auntie Librarian

Teaching middle school students research skills can be like pulling teeth.  I worked with our Language Arts Teachers on note taking lessons recently. The lessons went well, thankfully.  The next step is the research project. I suggested different approach to the research project this time. Baby steps: before doing a big intense research project, try a "mini" research project. This will enable students to practice gathering and recording source information, taking notes and writing to inform. The finished product will be notes, one citation, and one paragraph of information. Once these are graded and returned and the teacher is ready for another research project, students can be required to submit more notes, more sources and more paragraphs. Taking a baby steps approach like this may lead to less frustration and more success for students and teachers and possibly a better view of research projects in general.


Check out this link to an idea page from the IRA/NCTE.
More ideas can be found here.

After reading some of my colleagues' responses to Travis Jonker's  SLJ article "Fine. I Got an Ereader. Now What?: A newbie to digital reading gets his first Kindle" and Doug Johnson's blogged response:  "Reactionary librarians aren't cute" I feel the need to confess: my school library does not own any e-readers yet. Buying e-books and e-readers is not absent from my list of things to do and I feel that e-readers and books are important.


It is incredibly important for school librarians to have a working knowlege of e-readers even if they do not make personal use of these devices and even if their library does not own any.  I personally own an iPad. I can show you how to use the Kindle app, use ibooks and I have purposely familiarized myself with other e-readers. In partnership with our State Library, I hosted a "Technology Petting Zoo" for my faculty. The "Petting Zoo" featured e-readers, iPads and cameras.


A few students proudly brought their new e-readers to school with them after winter break to ask me questions about their devices. Of course, their librarian would be able to help them with their new e-reader! A couple of my students were upset. "I got an e-reader for Christmas, but my family doesn't  have a credit card. How can I get books?" Another student got a Dell tablet, "How do I get books onto this thing?" she asked. Who else would a student ask? The librarian! We are now planning our first e-reader club. Students will bring their own devices and we will share tips and tricks with eachother. I regularly share free e-book titles with my students and faculty.


Budget and staffing challenges currently make purchasing e-readers and e-books something I am just getting ready to do. I am depending on the trailblazers to help me make the best choices in the near future. However, I know it would be a disservice to my students and faculty if I chose to remain uninformed about e-readers.

Each month I present my principal and assistant principals with a library data spreadsheet which provides comparative data on book check out, class use of the library, individual student use of the library, days of direct instruction and days of testing. I also provide a list of the month's highlights which includes book club meetings, promotions and other things I am doing.

In October, November and December book circulation has been abysmal. December's circulation was down 900 compared to last December. What is going on here? Is three months of low numbers a trend? What am I doing wrong? One major difference between this December and last is that we had Winter MAP testing in December this school year as opposed to January. This probably impacted circulation, but not by 900. Another variable is that we stopped date stamping books at check out. Is stamping the due date in the back of the book related to the decline in circulation? Who knows. We are now date stamping again! Just in case!

Thanks to my library gurus, I realize that book circulation is not what makes or breaks my program. However, last year, I was extremely proud to turn in an annual report that showed a 30 some percent increase in circulation. A decrease in book circulation is certainly not going to help me get a full-time library assistant either. I can only hope to "break even" by the end of this school year. I have been book talking like crazy on the morning news program.

As if the circulation decline were not enough, participation for my Winter Reading Program was awful compared to last year. I am beginning to think I have lost my Mojo.

"Oh dear." Winnie the Pooh would say.