Really Exciting News

I am so excited to tell you Nathan Smith, LMS at Jolliff, is the TOY for Secondary this year. Tomorrow night will be the official announcement at the TOY Reception, but the word is out amongst the librarians in the district now. Nathan has done a wonderful job on so many levels and he is very deserving of this honor but, he didn't win just for what he has done in the media center, he has won for all the LMS in our area. He has brought an incredible pride to our field and to borrow a phrase, in this economic time, this is huge! His expertise in the library is right out of the textbook. He colloborates with teachers, he is loved and respected by students, his admin depends on him and consults with him regularly. He is also involved in leadership roles at the state level. This is just wonderful news! I encourage all of you to keep collaborating, keep teaching and integrating library skills, keep encouraging the folks in your building to be up to date with information literacy and finally, keep spreading the love of libraries. It is sooooooo worth it!

Oh To Travel

Yesterday I mentioned the convention this weekend. Seriously, I could go to a conference/convention every season. There are so many things I am interested in and of course, I know there is a conference to match each one. They all have their own personalities even with the tweaks from year to year. VEMA is my top favorite but the National Geneology Conference I attended with my friend, Kathy, was amazing. It was filled with awesome speakers, tons of books and so many really friendly people. I even went to a postcard collecting session!. Awesome! And next month I will track down the speaker and look through the thousands of postcards in his shop in Florida! Having said all that, I have conferences on my mind because VEMA and AASL are in the same month this year. What a huge bummer! Now normally, this would not be so bad for me due to the distance involved in traveling to AASL. However, this year AASL, is in Charlotte, an easy drive. You can read more about it if you do a simple search for AASL conference 2009. There is a PDF file there with preliminar info all tied in to the racecar theme. If you find the file, be sure to scroll way down to the items covered under your registration fee. You can stay super busy without doing all the paid items. You will also see James Patterson is going to be there. He has a website for teachers and librarians called Read Kiddo Read, http://www.readkiddoread.com/home It looks like fun. In addition to awesome speakers and sessions, they always do special things. This year the One Book One Conference title is Born Digital. I have not read the book, but I will be searching for it on Amazon today. It is about our digital natives. I think I will find some awesome quotes to share with you on this blog. As you can guess, I am getting a bit excited about going to Charlotte. VEMA is in Roanoke this year which is also an easy drive. The hotel is beautiful, the sessions are held on the conference side which makes it very comfy. There will be fires in all the fireplaces and a cookie when you check in. The committee ( I'm on it) is hard at work getting great sessions and keynote speakers to wow you. I think I will have to apply to be a Walmart greeter though- might have to earn some extra cash for all these really cool library trips! Registration is open for AASL and before you know it, VEMA will be opening registration. Think about it, we would have an awesome conference experience and return with so many awesome ideas!!

Update

Oh, my gosh, I finished Frozen Fire. This was the YA book I mentioned last week. What a story! This was billed a psycho thriller and I do agree, but the book has a strong science fiction component. This was one weird story with lots of storylines! I do think upper high schoolers would read this book. What are your high school folks reading?
Debbie sent a comment about her author visit, check it out, but I did tell you I would check the spelling of the author's last name. It is Nyikos.
One of my followers emailed me today with good news. Her school system has changed the filter and is now allowing..... blogs and youtube! I am so excited. I know due to our public school status we are required to have filters for the feds, but I also know schools have punishments in place for students who break the rules. They can have their internet priviledges taken away from them. Let's punish them and teach them how to access appropriate content!!!
I have a new story for you. Several years ago I was the President Elect/Conference Chairperson for VEMA. My conference ( date and place selected years ago) was in Richmond at the same time as the Richmond sniper!!!!!!! Yikes. Here's the story part- I am currently President -Elect of my sorority and..... have you read about the murder at the Homestead? They haven't caught the murderer yet. Well, that is where 6 of us are headed this weekend. So okay, I won't agree to be President-Elect for any more organizations!!!!
Lastly, please forgive all errors, especially the typos- I hate my glasses.

Technology Thursday

When I was a librarian, I used to have Technology Tuesday in my library about once a month. Well, that was a long time ago, but it came back to me today for this entry so I changed it up a bit! Honestly, I just love technology and miss being a librarian because I got to teach folks about the latest and greatest. But since I am retired, I have a lot of technology freedom. I mean I can twitter whenever I want, I can facebook as often as I want, I 've got this cool blog and wait for it.... I can visit any website without getting doinked!!!!! So for Technology Thursday, I hope you can visit some of these websites. My friend, Charlie, told us about a cool website at a meeting on Saturday ( yes, I still have meetings to go to). It is surfaquarium.com. It is written by an IT guy she knows and it is very good. But I love http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ This is a comic maker. I just had a ton of library research ideas for this one. You could make a storyboard foldable with http://www.pocketmod.com/ using research from the library and then make a comic! For my library student readers, I recommend http://www.internettutorials.net/. Need a list of search engines go to that website. Need a list of metasearch engines to really show the power of searching use that website to introduce the concept to your students! Lastly, I just love Doug Johnson, a past VEMA keynote speaker, he has a great website and a very interesting blog --http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/ Check it out.

Reading, Writing, and that's it!

Wow, the author visit at CRE was so worth the trip to town!! LOL Her name is Stacey Nygio ( I will double check that spelling for us) and she is from Oklahoma. She did a great job connecting reading and writing. Her presentation was fresh and she really held the attention of all the students. I had such a good time. Debbie and I are wondering how to get her to VEMA! Debbie did a great job organizing and making her feel welcome. There was a banner and a special lunch and CRE t-shirts! I had some great memories of when I was in the classroom and Debbie and I teamed up to have Elaine Marie Alphin ( author of Ghost Cadets) come to our school! Well, along with the great library fun, I spend some time with Ed, their computer guru. He was working on TimeLine with some second graders. I got to see some terrific social studies work and they were 7 and 8 years old! Ed is really terrific, a real kid magnet. Thanks Ed for all your help with my GK! I also read about Jerry Palotta's visit to another LMS friend of mine. How can you not love, love, love libraries and librarians??? Technology talk tomorrow!

School libraries - exciting, intriguing, always new

Today I am off to Debbie's school for an author visit. Earlier this month I got to eat green eggs and ham at my friend, Terri's school. And in January I was reading aloud to classes at Donna's school. I taught Donna in the 6th grade, then I had the honor of having her in my library studies grad classroom. Our lives continue to criss-cross. I digress, sorry! All of these ladies have vibrant libraries where children love to go, read books, listen to stories, and see the best of what LMS have to offer. I just love a school library!!!

Books for Little People

Years ago when I taught elementary school and before we had to teach by the standards, I did these very cool thematic units. Anyone remember those days? One of mine was on penguins. I fell in love with penguins and I made sure my students did as well. I had this great librarian, named Debbie (some of you guys know her) who helped my kids do lots of research. Those were the days! Well, all these years later, Debbie sends over this very cute book called......... If You Were a Penguin by Wendell and Florence Minor. This is a slightly larger picture book with up close and personal artwork of different kinds of penguins. I just loved it! She also sent over Duck Soup by Jackie Urbanovic. The illustrator really showed a sense of humor with these pics. I would love to read this aloud. The voices are so strong the personalities shine through. During the day I use one of the Suffolk libraries, they let non-residents checkout their books and the North Suffolk Library is really, really nice. I found Big Chickens Fly the Coop by Leslie Helakoski. This one is pretty funny as well. Lastly, one for those of you with little ones. How Do I Love You? by Marion Dane Bauer is just a very sweet board book ( guess who has already heard this one). "I love you as the bird loves a song to sing." From me to you, tell someone you love them tonight!

YA BOOKS

Last summer I read tons of YA books and had some great conversations with others who love young adult books. However, since I retired I wanted to read a adult books and then again, I have been very busy reading books for my primary book group ( our next meeting is this Saturday in C-ville). Consequently, the YA books were left behind for awhile. Now the book in my bookbag right now is Frozen Fire. Has anyone read it? This book was listed in "Booklist" magazine as a book for 9-12th graders. What an intriguing first chapter! Actually, the first line will grab those young adult readers right away with "I'm dying". I will let you know how it goes! I finished Marley last week. You are probably thinking, " Why is she just reading that now?" Just a bit slow on this particular bandwagon. Another quick read is a YA book about women in the Civil War. Talk about interesting! Lots of first person information, pictures, and great research. It was written by Anita Silvey, an author known for her reference books not for YA. Here is the website for ALA Best YA Books. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/bestbooksya/09bbya.cfm
Take time to read every day!!
Roxanne

Books, technology and libraries

What a great day! It was very rainy here. The kind of day folks say, I just want to lay around and read!! I did a little of that ( I needed to get my book titles ready for a meeting on Saturday) but I also got to see two really good videos showing library media students teaching others how to use a non-book resource. Both were great videos and I enjoyed them because they hit all the particulars of the class rubrics, but they really made me think once again of the awesome responsibility we have in the library. We need to promote good and great literature, we need to turn students onto books and we also want to encourage our staff members to venture into the world of social networking!! It is the future for our libraries. I also graded two virtual reference interviews. They were both totally online!! Hey, who out there is ready to do virtual reference in school libraries. The books being published right now are awesome, and the new technologies are really a big wow!!!

The Beginning

In the beginning I said to my friend, Debbie, maybe I should start a blog! Debbie listens to all my ideas, rants, and musings and she is always so supportive. Since I have retired from my actual office job, I miss talking about school libraries and the future of school libraries with my friends and colleagues. I hope this blog will be a way for me to connect with all of you out in cyberspace.