March: Dive Into Reading Display

During the month of march my school has a two week Interim. The students all go on exciting trips around the world as well as participating in unique activities. This year a few of our trips focused on water: scuba diving, surfing...... so the idea for this display was easy! Dive into reading!

I cut out the waves, fish and title using the Silhouette Cameo. Because Interim is all about the activities that the students will be experiencing we like to make a display with books on each topic. I used the Silhouette Cameo to print out the name of each excursion on a fish and then cut out that fish. I place each fish under the corresponding book on the display.

We had lots of fish! The display turned out really cute. You could easily take this same idea and just leave the fish blank!

October: Halloween Slime Display

It's Halloween time and the library has some awesome displays this year! Our first display is covered in slime! I got this idea from Pinterest, it was easy to make and looks great in person.

I started off by getting a stack of lime green paper. I cut out five different variations of slime and then used those as templates to cut out approx 40 pieces of slime.

For the top three shelves I taped the slime of the inside top of the bookcase along with the outside edge. The bottom four shelves you couldn't see the inside well so I only did the outside.

I made a sign for the display saying "It came from the library." and I made a second sign for our website.

Cataloging: Genre-fying Our Fiction Collection (Part 2)

I am happy to say that we have now finished the genre project in the Upper School (High School), the process is still ongoing in the middle school, but we should be done next year. Here is how we went about finishing:

Once we had entered genres for about half of the titles in the catalog we put some parent and student volunteers on labeling. I printed out a new shelf list that showed the new call numbers with the genres on them. Started with "A" our volunteers began labeling. We played with the best way of completing this task. In the end having a cart available in the aisle and pulling books off one by one turned out to be the preferred method for the volunteers.

There are several choices for the labels on the books and we pursued each of them. I really liked the idea of using plain white labels or even cut pieces of paper and then purchasing colors label protectors. However, we did not want to have to reprint all our spine labels, we needed a solution that we could add to the books we currently had. I took the time to research pre-made genre labels from Demco and The Library Store. We came to the conclusion that most of the images on the labels fit elementary and middle schools more than high schools. I then chose to create labels myself using well known icons for each genre, yet when we printed them and tested them out on our current books, it covered up a lot of the title and/or the author. I then created skinny labels that just had the name of the genre. I used different fonts to try and portray what the genre was about (for horror I used a spooky looking text...). We then took the genre labels with the images I had made and the genre labels with just the text to our Library Advisory Board and let them vote. They chose the version with just the text. This worked out well because on the majority of our current books we could fit the genre label below the spine label and not cover more of the book than necessary.

I found some small, skinny labels from Planet Label. We went with a pack of Pastel colors and a pack of Brilliant colors. This gave us 12 colors to choose from (we only have 10 genres). I was also able to download the label template from the Planet Label website and then paste in the genre text image I had created. The labels we used are here. The colors we assigned to the genres are as follows: Adventure: bright yellow; Dystopian: lime green; Fantasy: raspberry; Historical: light yellow; Horror: greyish green;  Mystery: light grey; Realistic: greyish blue; Romance: neon pink; SciFi: neon blue; Sports: neon orange. Here are the text files if you want to use them for your project:

We decided to put the genre labels at the very bottom of the spine for each book. If an older book had a spine label that was too low, for the genre label to fit, then the volunteer would pull the book and I would reprint the spine label. This way when you look at a shelf of all one genre they line up with each other.

Moving the Books:
Once the cataloging was complete we moved on to moving the books. Before any book was moved I ran reports in Destiny. I ran an individual report for each genre so I knew approx. how many books were in each genre. I then went through the shelves and estimated each could fit 20 books on a shelf. I printed out a floor plan of the library and wrote in where each genre would go. It seemed like we would not have enough room so we made the decision to move where our graphic novels were located and that allowed us to open up an extra bookcase.

We then started by moving all the realistic books to the now empty graphic novel bookcase. Then we slowly pulled smaller genres off the shelves and put them on carts and a temporary bookcase that we rolled in for the moving process. Once most of the genres were off the shelves we were able to get the rest moved into their correct places and then add back in the ones we had pulled. We did run into a few issues when books just did not fit as we planned, but being flexible made the process go smoothly. With tons of help from the student volunteers we had the moving done in days!

April: Graphic Novels Display

We are spotlighting our graphic novels for the next two weeks with this fun display! Our library parent volunteer pulled as many graphic novels as she could fit for the display. Then it was time to decorate!

I created some signage using Photoshop and printed it out. I was inspired by several displays I saw on Pinterest.

Then one of our student volunteers cut out the graphics. She then used construction paper and cut out similar shapes slightly larger to put behind the graphics, it helped give a more 3D effect.

For the top of the display I cut out large ZAP letters. I first made up a smaller version in Photoshop and printed it out, then I traced around the letters on construction paper to make them approx 7" tall.

There are so many things you could do with this display, I just love how it turned out!

Please feel free to use any of the templates.

Cataloging: Equity and Inclusion ( E & I ) Project

    Currently we are working on genre-fying our fiction collection. At the suggestion of our middle school librarian we have also chosen to add equity and inclusion information to the MARC tags of each title in our fiction collection. The library is an important part of our school's commitment to equity and inclusion and we strive to grow our collection to mirror the needs and wants of our school community. Our hope is that by adding specific information on gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity and more,  we can help students, faculty and parents access books in our collection that may have been overlooked in the past. We started this project back in October and I have already found the information useful for displays, student research and summer reading recommendations. Once the project is complete we will run reports to find holes in our collection and take necessary steps to make our collection more complete.

 We use Follett Destiny and when we catalog we import records that are relatively complete. Our parent volunteers work hard to add specific subject-headings that correspond to popular topics and lessons. Along with all this information we are also adding a specific list of categories to better embrace equity and inclusion. 

We began by creating a list of categories we felt would help us and our students embrace equity and inclusion. The list was very long and we had to combine areas and cut areas that we felt would never be searched for. Here is the list of categories and information we decided on:

A. E & I Categories/Information:

A. Protagonist Gender

1. Gender: Male

2. Gender: Female

3. Gender: Questioning

4. Gender: Transgender

         B. Family Type

                                1. Family: Nuclear

                                2. Family: Single Parent

                                3. Family: Divorced

                                4. Family: Parent Died

                                5. Family: Adopted

         C. Family Type 2 (May not apply to all)

                                  1. Family: Same Sex Parents

                                 2. Family: Only Child

                                 3. Family: Orphan

         D. Sexual Orientation

                            1. Sexuality: Lesbian

                                 2. Sexuality: Gay

                              3. Sexuality: Bisexual

                                   4. Sexuality: Straight

          E. Race/Ethnicity

                               1. Ethnicity: Latino

                                    2. Ethnicity: Caucasian

                                    3. Ethnicity: African-American

                                    4. Ethnicity: Pacific Islander

                                    5. Ethnicity: Asian

                                    6. Ethnicity: Native American

                                    7. Ethnicity: Middle Eastern

                                    8. Ethnicity: Multicultural

                                    9. Ethnicity: Indian

                                    10. Ethnicity: African

           F. Geographic Location

                               1. Location: North America

                                    2. Location: South America

                                    3. Location: Asia

                                    4. Location: Africa

                                    5. Location: Europe

                                    6. Location: Australia

                                    7. Location: Arctic Regions

           G. Religion

                               1. Religion: Atheist

                                    2. Religion: Christian

                                    3. Religion: Muslim

                                    4. Religion: Hindu

                                    5. Religion: Buddhist

                                    6. Religion: Jewish

            H. Disability

                                1. Disability: Physically Disabled/Illness

                                     2. Disability: Learning Disabled

Determining which MARC tags to use:
Our library uses Follett Destiny. Before we began entering information into the catalog, I contacted Follett to be sure we were using the correct MARC tag. I also followed up with a few google searches to be sure I was not missing something with the cataloging part of the project. I determined that we should use the 690 tag. It was repeatable and searchable through Destiny. For the indicator we used 5. At the advice of Follett, on the second line we used our school code with the 2 indicator. (Follett said out school code would be useful when creating reports). For each category entry that the title contains we add a new 690 tag. (We are entering the information exactly as shown : Gender: Male, we are doing this for two reasons: 1. If you do a keyword search on Destiny and just type in Male or type in gender the book will come up, along with any other books in your collection (fiction and non-fiction) that contains the word Male in the title/summary.... 2. If you only want to search your collection for fiction books that we have determined have a male protagonist you can search in a keyword search "Gender: Male" and only those books come up (There is a slight flaw here that you could run across a non-fiction book that has the words "gender" and the words "male" in their summary, you could also do a keyword search for "Gender: Male School code" and then you will be positive only the books you determined were male protagonists are found.) You can also do a bibliographic report using Gender: Male and your school code to get the specific books you want as well.

Finding information for each title:

Please keep in mind that we are completing this project simultaneously with our genre-fying project, To add the genre information we are already editing the MARC tags. Once we have added the genre information we then move on to adding the E & I information. Once everything has been added we save the title and update the call number. We have been using Goodreads.com as our main source of finding the genre. Once we have searched for the title in Goodreads we also stop and read the summary of the book. We then pull any E & I information given in the summary and we use that to update the MARC tags. If we can not find enough E & I information on Goodreads we are also using Titlewave, Shelfari, Amazon, Library of Congress and anywhere else (such as our local public library). If all else fails we pull the book off the shelf and read the back cover.  Our goal is to get at least three categories of E & I information for every title. The more complete the better.

February: Blind Date With A Book

Love is in the air and it's time to create a Valentine's Day display for the library. Last year I made a "Blind Date With a Book" display (all our displays stay up for a two week period).

I found many ideas on Pinterest and from other library blogs. Here are a few that I used to gain inspiration: http://littlethoughtsaboutbooks.blogspot.com/2012/02/blind-date-with-book.html
http://storytimewithmissmollie.blogspot.com/2012/06/display-blind-date-with-book.html
I will be repeating the display again this year, and I will provide images/details in a few weeks.

To begin my display I choose approx. thirty four books. Our display shelf holds approx. twenty six books, but I was hopeful that the students would check out several books and we would need to be prepared to replenish the display frequently. I kept track of the books I chose using an excel spreadsheet. (I wanted to be sure that I did not use the same books when I repeated the display in the years to come). I also used the spreadsheet to number the books, list the barcode for each book and to add notes about what genre/topics the books represented.

With the help of our parent volunteers, we pulled all the books for the display. I then created "Rate your date" slips to put inside each book. The students would rate the book and then turn in the slip for a raffle at the end of the two week period. 

We then wrapped each book using different types of wrapping paper. To keep track of which book was which after it was wrapped we used the spreadsheet. Since each book was already numbered on the spreadsheet we decided to draw a large number on each book after it was wrapped instead of placing a temporary barcode on the book (as others have chosen to do). When the students checked out a book they would not be able to use the self checkout computer, instead we made a sign out sheet that they could write their name and the number that was on the book.

 I saw many ideas on Pinterest to entice students to pick a book. Some wrote summaries of the book or gave hints on the topic/genre. We decided to use both "genre" hints as well as "similar" books. For example: if the book was about vampires we wrote "for Twilight lovers" on the tag.

 I then created signs using Photoshop (signage ideas came from Pinterest and other library blogs). One sign explained the Blind Date process, one assured students that they could check out the books (I highly recommend having one of these) and one just because:

Once all of that was done it was now time for the fun part of decorating the display shelves. 
I found a tutorial on Pinterest teaching me how to make the heart chains that I used on the shelves as added decor. Here is the link to Strumpet's Crumpets:  http://strumpetscrumpets.blogspot.be/2012/01/valentine-paper-heart-chain-diy.html

I added the heart chains to the shelves and I also cut out paper hearts in different shades of pink and red. I folded the hearts in half and taped one side down on the outside edge of the shelves. It made the hearts really pop out and look great.

Overall the display was a huge success and we had many students checking out books. The raffle was held at the end of the two weeks and one student won a box of See's candy. I can't wait to see how this years display turns out!

Please feel free to use any of the signage/slips!

January: Dear Diary Library Display

January is National Letter Writing Month. I wanted to create a display based on letters and process of writing letters. However, in our collection, we had a very limited amount of books on letters and letter writing. I discovered, while searching for letters, that we had several diaries in our collection. They were overlooked for most of our displays so I chose to create a "Dear Diary" display to encourage our students to write.

The display was extremely simple. I pulled all of our diaries and showcased them on the display. I also added a couple of books on the writing process. For signage I made up a couple of signs in Photoshop that said Dear Diary (I used different fonts for each sign). I cut out one sign and taped it to the top of the bookcase.

To make the display more interactive and exciting I created a round robin writing game. I typed up four writing prompts:

If you are reading this...
Once upon a time...
I wish....
At this very moment.....

Above each prompt I wrote directions on how to play the round robin game (each student writes one to two sentences, adding on to the story/what was written before them)

I cut out each prompt and glued them onto four pages on a yellow legal pad. I then put the legal pad on a clipboard and hung in on the wall adjacent to the library display. I created two signs directing the students to the clipboard.

I tried to encourage the first student to begin the story for each new prompt. Once a student had written a sentence or two other students caught on fast. Not every prompt was successful, but we got a few good length stories out of the game! I was surprised at how many students stopped to look at the diaries. Another successful display!