Friday, July 26, 2024
8 NEW Olympic PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next Articles LIVE Today, Friends! Check Them Out!
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Friends, Please Join Us At The PebbleGo Community! You Can Apply Today.
As shared on the new PebbleGo Community site,
Monday, July 22, 2024
Join Us For Back-to-School Special: Ask A Future Ready Librarian on August 14! You Can Register Here, Friends.
During this webinar, you will:
Gain insights into best practices from experienced Future Ready Librarians
Address challenges and opportunities in implementing the Future Ready Librarians Framework
Learn strategies for success and professional growth in library leadership roles
We encourage you to bring your questions or submit them beforehand to ensure they are addressed during the session.
P.S. Even if you can’t attend live, register anyway to receive the on-demand video as soon as it’s available.
P.P.S. Submit your questions to Lia Dossin at ldossin@all4ed.org
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Thinking About Genrefying Your Library? Here Are Our Top 10 Tips & Tricks For Genrefication, Friends.
Here Are Our Top 10 Tips & Tricks for Genrefication
1. ASK A FRIEND
My daughter, Brianna, who was a senior at my school at the time helped genrefy our collection along with several other students in elementary and middle school. It was great to have the feedback of our readers. After all, it is their library.
2. WEED
The first step when you get to your shelves, is to weed. Weed, and then weed again. When I genrefied our library, one of the best things about the process was getting my hands on every single book we had in our collection. As you are weeding and moving things around, you get to know your collection so well.
It’s super helpful to run an online collection analysis with TitleWise. You can then get a personalized report that shows the weaknesses of the collection, and also the strengths. This helps to plan an effective weeding strategy as you explore and sort the books in your collection, while looking for possible weeding candidates.
3. DEFINE
Next, define the genre categories you want for your collection. I like to call these the “book neighborhoods” in our library. You want to be sure the decisions you make when creating your categories or book neighborhoods help the students and teachers find books throughout the library and on the shelves. Are they helping them locate books? Does it help them find relatable books? Does it get them excited about browsing the shelves? I love how it gives them a “bookstore” feel and provokes conversations and curiosity.
Tag Explorer within Titlewave is super helpful. You can browse BISAC Subject Headings, Sears Subject Headings, and Follett Tags. This really helped us define the genre categories for our library.
4. CHAT
When we were defining our genre neighborhoods, I talked to our readers a lot. It’s important to listen to your students in this process. As we shared in the webinar, create special sections for the most requested and popular books, and even change these up throughout the year with holidays, award books, most popular authors, and more.
5. MAP
After defining the genre categories, it is time to lay out a map of where you want the genre neighborhoods to be throughout the library. Think about what makes sense to your readers, and to your teachers.
When we had our map laid out, we took sticky notes and labeled all of the shelves with the genre categories. I kept these up for a few days and moved them around as I thought through the locations and how we wanted them arranged.
6. TEST
It is now time to move books around into these genre neighborhoods. You don’t have to do the whole library at one time. You can make changes in small chunks.
Before I tackled our entire library, I tested it out first with graphic novels. I took all of the graphic novels and moved them onto a big shelf section that was located right where the kids walked into the library. I made a colorful sign that said, Check out our graphic novels! I watched and studied what happened to the circulation of graphic novels. Within a few days, the circulation of all graphic novels increased and our readers were so excited to see so many in our collection. So I then tried it with some of our nonfiction that was never checked out, and the same thing happened. Just by moving things around, we got our readers' attention. After that experience, I knew it would be a hit to genrefy our library. When our library opened that fall, it was ready for our readers.
7. LABEL
One of the most important things about genrefying is the signage and labels. It is important for students to be able to walk into the library and find what they need by browsing the signage and labels. In the webinar, we shared how important it is to use pictures and words so that all readers can find what they need on the shelves.
Follett Content has amazing custom genre label designs in the Do-It-Yourself Genre Kits in Titlewave. They include the spine labels, shelf labels, and posters. You can also use or even have Follett Content apply color coded protector labels to help define and label genre neighborhoods.
8. GET EXTRA HELP
When you need extra help, Follett Content also provides support through their Library Genre Services. These services are customized to meet the unique needs of each library. They can even help genrefy your book order with genre labels so you don’t have to do it yourself, and then ship your books shelf-ready and in genre order! And I love how our genres were even added to our Titlewave account, which makes it very easy for cataloging.
9. TAKE YOUR TIME
We worked on the project for about 8 weeks one summer. But that is pretty fast. With the help of our students using the library, we refined it throughout the entire school year
Genrefication is a slow process and it’s normal for it to go on for many weeks and even months! Take your time and work on one section at a time.
10. BE OPEN
Within all of these tips and tricks in genrefication, one of the best tips I have to share is to be open and prepared to continue to make changes and adjustments to your genre neighborhoods.
Even once our library was genrefied, we continued to make changes throughout the year. In fact, we continue to make changes every single year. That is one of the great things about genrefication. Be open to suggestions from your readers. Be open to suggestions from teachers. And remember, you don’t have to do everything at once.
Now that we have shared 10 Tips and Tricks for Genrefication, check out the webinar, Dewey or Don’t We? here on demand. You will also find the webinar slides and resources here.
Friday, July 19, 2024
The Perfect Mystery Series That Promotes Critical Thinking & Digital Citizenship Skills...The Cyber Sleuths Series From Capstone & ISTE!
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Be A Guest On Sesson 9 of the Future Ready Librarians Podcast Series, Friends. We Would Love To Hear About and Celebrate Your Work.
A New Follett Content Story Corner With Cedar Pruitt As She Shares Her Debut Book, Fire Flight, A Wildlife Escape.
In the special new Follett Content Story Corner, Cedar Pruitt reads her debut picture book, Fire Flight, A Wildlife Escape, published with Capstone.
This book is about the journey of a screech owl that fled the flames to ride along with a firefighting helicopter during the 2020 California Creek wildfire.
You will find this Story Corner choice board here. It includes the video of Cedar reading Fire Flight and a link to the book and Educator's Guide that can be found on Titlewave.
Join The PebbleGo Community, Friends! Applications Are Open Now Through August 16, 2024.
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Check Out These NEW Downloadables That Pair With The Upcoming Capstone Fall 2024 Books!
You will find all of these downloadables, and more, here on the Capstone site.
There are perfect to pair up with these amazing new books in the library, classroom and other subjects like art and STEM.
Check Out The Canva Design School Back-to-School Teacher Toolkit!
Friends, Join Us For The Level Up Village Community Fest....An Exciting Virtual Event To Bring Global Collaboration To Your School Community.
Join Us On October 19th for the Future Ready Librarians Summit At Arkansas Tech University, Friends.
This day will be an inspiring professional learning event designed to empower district librarians as catalysts for change. Discover how you can lead from the library and become a driving force for innovation in today’s ever-evolving educational landscape.
What to Expect:
- Dive deep into the Future Ready Librarian framework and learn how to foster 21st-century skills through your library programs.
- Gain insights into effective communication, collaboration techniques, and leadership strategies tailored to your unique environment.
- Explore opportunities to actively contribute to curriculum development and instructional design.
- Learn from successful collaboration models between librarians and other educators.
- Discover new tools and resources to enhance library services and amplify student learning.
- Utilize digital platforms to empower student voices and creativity.
AGENDA NOTES: Registration opens at 8:30 AM local time.The summit will take place from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM local time. There will be a 75-minute lunch break. Participants are welcome to explore the many dining options near the University or bring their own lunch.
Register today. Space is limited.
We hope you can join us, friends. It's going to be a special day to learn, connect and celebrate Future Ready Librarians.
Monday, July 15, 2024
Join Us For The NEW Follett Content Webinar, Reading Mash-Up: Ideas To Bring Book Joy To Students!
Friends, I am excited to invite you to the August Follett Content webinar, Reading Mash-Up: Ideas to Bring Book Joy to Students, with my special guests Allie Cornejo and Heather Fox.
As shared in the invite,
• New ideas and resources for bringing book joy to students
• How Titlewave® can be your “go-to” for finding and managing your collection, book lists, and ideas from other librarians and publishers
• How to use social media to promote book joy
• Easy and manageable ideas for a fantastic library
School Librarians: the Overlooked Ed-Tech Influencers...New EdWeek Article From Our ISTE 2024 Conversation!
At ISTE 2024, I had the honor of presenting with my amazing friends, Bill Bass, Carl Hooker, and Adam Phyall. In the new EdWeek article, School Librarians: the Overlooked Ed-Tech Influencers, the conversation we had during our presentation at ISTE is shared.