The Petition Tornado

Photo Courtesy of wwarby

Wow! Who knew librarians could be so controversial?

If you haven’t followed this petition dialogue, let me give you a little background. Check out this post by Buffy Hamilton and this post by Doug Johnson. The hubbub is in regards to a White House petition. The petition was located here, but has now expired. According to the website, if a petition secures the required number of signatures, the president will consider the issue. Here’s the nugget from the petition that has everyone talking:

“Any school receiving Federal funds should be required to have a credentialed School Librarian on staff full time with a library that contains a minimum of 18 books per student. Failure to have a school library open to all students and/or failure to have a credentialed School Librarian to run that library should be punishable by a immediate withdrawal of all Federal monies.”

Of course this sounds like a no-brainer at first, right? But after giving it some thought....

Here are my two issues with the petition:

First, I have a problem with the knee jerk reaction to call on the federal government to solve local problems. We’ve seen time and time again that a federal mandate doesn’t solve problems, but create many more (NCLB). How can someone in Washington DC really have any idea what works best for a school hundreds of miles away. Each state, each city, heck even each county has its own set of issues related to schools. Shouldn’t the school districts and towns decide what’s best for them, not the bureaucrats in DC?

Okay, so maybe your local districts have issues. You can solve those by means that are appropriate for your students. But some districts are doing just fine. Perhaps they don’t require federal intervention, thank you very much. And if you can’t do what you need to in your own district. Go somewhere else. That’s the great thing about having 50 different states. We have such a variety of places to live our lives.

Second, mandates are too closely related to tenure for me. I know this will make a lot of people mad. But teacher tenure isn’t always a good thing. I’ve heard teachers say, “What can they do, fire me? I’m tenured.” Yes, I’ve heard that exact phrase. That phrase does not inspire confidence in me that a person like that will continue to learn, grow, and make learning better for their students.

In regards to librarians, I’m going to say something that you don’t hear spoken aloud too often in library circles. Librarians have a lot of freedom in the sense that they can choose to create a vibrant exciting program or they can do the bare minimum to get by. (or anywhere in between)

Each library program is a direct reflection of the librarian. Libraries vary widely in schools. Librarians have a huge spectrum of services they can offer. Teachers and administrators base their opinions of the position of librarian based solely on what their librarian is doing.  It’s every single librarian's job to advocate for themselves by showing their administrators, teachers, and communities what they can offer and why they should keep their jobs.

Doug said it perfectly here:
“I have absolutely no doubt that most librarians who figure out how their programs can support their schools' goals and develop a strong communication and advocacy program will not just survive, but thrive. Might some good librarians' positions be cut? Of course. But over all, those who remain will be great. And students will be the beneficiary.”

Finally, If you are advocating and you do all you can to create a thriving program and yet your school or organization still decides to cut you. Don’t talk it personally. There are many other schools or organizations where you will be appreciated. Maybe that’s harsh. But I would suggest you read Linchpin by Seth Godin. Be creative and make yourself indispensable.

Robison Wells. VARIANT

Benson Fisher has been tossed around for years from foster home to foster home. He’s never stayed anywhere long enough to make friends. He longs to go to a good school. So, when he’s accepted to Maxfield Academy on a scholarship for orphans, he’s thrilled. He thinks he’ll finally get the education he wants. Since it’s a boarding school, he’ll be able to settle in and make friends.

When he arrives at Maxfield, he realizes that it’s not exactly as the brochure promised. Right after the driver drops him off, the strangeness begins. Two of the students run out of the school and chase the car out to the gate. Later he learns that the two students were punished for running after the car. Then his orientation is lead by a student close to his own age, named Becky. You can imagine his surprise when Becky explains to him that all the classes are taught by students. In fact, the whole place is run by students. There are no adults in the building at all. But that doesn't mean they get the run of the place. Cameras are everywhere. Rule-breaking is still punished.

Benson asks to leave, but it’s too late. He isn’t allowed to leave. All the other students explain to him that no one ever escapes, and if they try, they die. Parents and family members aren’t an issue, since all of the kids are orphans and have no one to come looking for them. It gets worse as Benson realizes that he seems to be the only one who cares about escaping. But if his choice is attempting to escape and possibly dying or staying in the prison-like school, Benson feels he has no choice but to try.

What a chilling, marvelous ride! Every time I put this book down, I couldn’t wait to get back to it. Literally you’ll want to read this in one sitting. The suspense builds slowly throughout each page until the end where you will be SHOCKED!

Benson is a great character, and you'll definitely root for him. The surrounding characters are surprising, but curious. You'll wonder about them. The action is well paced and exciting.

Check out the author here. This is is first YA book.

Maureen Johnson. THE NAME OF THE STAR

I love, love, love Maureen Johnson's books, so I didn't need any convincing to read this one. Although, at first, I somehow thought it was historical fiction, because of the cover. And that felt odd, coming from MJ. So, anyway, it's not historical fiction at all. It's a murder mystery and sooo much more! (although it does have history in it.)

Aurora, or Rory as she likes to be called, is from New Orleans. Her parents are professors, so she gets to go to England with them for a year. Her parents go to Bristol, while Rory gets to go spend the year at a proper British boarding school called Wexford.

Rory is doing her best to fit in and learn British terminology and important stuff like how the United Kingdom and Britain are not the same thing. Also that the English will play hockey in any weather. (not ice hockey - field hockey). However, rather than fitting in, Rory ends up standing out when she is a witness in a murder investigation.

All of London is on the edge when a string of murders replicate Jack the Ripper murders from over a century ago. Police think Rory is the only witness to the murders, so they get close to her and learn all they can about why this man is interested in her.

I don't want to give too much away, because the story has so many delicious discoveries. But I will say that this book has all of the wit, humor and sheer awesomeness that all of MJ's books have. If you've read her, you don't need my convincing to read this one. If you haven't read any of her books, then this is a fabulous one to start with. My reviews of some of her other books are here.

This is the beginning of a series called SHADES OF LONDON. I will be reading the next one as soon as I can get my hands on it! Check out Maureen Johnson's website here.

Check out the trailer here:

Our Nook Adventure: Part 2 - Set up

Famous last words: ”I think I’ve figured it out...”

Now that I’ve configured the Nooks, I realize that my original plan of listing by the book title, rather than the Nook was misguided. Although, to be fair, all of my questions weren’t yet answered when I made that plan. I didn’t realize how the un-managed account would work. Since I have less than the 25 required for a Barnes & Noble managed account, I am managing the Nooks myself.

It’s all about how you register the Nooks. I had planned to only have 1 copy of each title. I had a bright idea of having genre Nooks. We’d have the science fiction Nook, the fantasy Nook, the realistic fiction Nook - you get the idea.

Then I began registering the Nooks. I realized I had two choices. This was explained to me by the very helpful digital rep at Barnes & Noble. You can register up to 6 Nooks at a time per email account set up on BN.com. So, he told me, you can group 5 of your Nooks with 2 different emails. Or, you can open up 10 different BN accounts. He said it was my choice. Um, well, obviously 10 BN accounts would be cumbersome, to say the least, so I went with 2.

I opened up the BN accounts to began registering the 2 groups of 5 Nooks. By the way, I had purchased a BN gift card to attach to the accounts to buy eBooks. Even with a gift card, you must also have a backup credit card. This is causing some concern for some schools. If your school has a school credit card, that works great. But my BN customer service rep had a great idea and suggested I purchase one of those VISA gift cards for a small amount and that will register as a credit card. There’s always the option of using your personal credit card as a back up. Most people don’t want to do that. Don’t worry, though, because you can password protect the Nooks, so no one can purchase from the store on the Nooks. We did password protect our Nooks. They can't even download samples, which is great!

At this point, I was still planning to put the books I wanted on each Nook. (according to the genre groups). I had already purchased a few free books to experiment with. As I registered the first group of 5, I realized that those free books were popping up on all the Nooks in that group. I went online to investigate in my BN account. There is no way to send specific books to specific Nooks. There is a way to do this with Kindles, but that’s another story. When I noticed this, I called my BN digital rep again to double check. Nope, there is no way to do that unless you have the managed account. Well, we’re aren’t planning to buy 15 more Nooks anytime soon, so not an option. Although, for other schools, you may want to note that they will count all of the Nooks in your building to add up to the 25. And it can be several months later. If you only have 10 now, but buy up to 25 later, then you can move to the managed account,

Anyway, I verified with my BN rep that I could not send books to specific Nooks, and that it was okay to have the books I purchased go to all 5 Nooks in a group. Basically, I have no choice but to do it that way. Note that my original plan was to have 1 copy of a book on a Nook, not 1 copy of a book on 5 Nooks.

Here’s where the “I think I have it figured out part...” was jinxed.
I could not catalog the eBooks by titles as originally planned, nor could I group by genre. Here’s what I ended up doing, which I think worked out just great in the end.

I have group 1 (Nooks 1-5) and group 2 (Nooks 6-10). In our catalog, I created two different titles in our library catalog; we use Destiny. In the first title record, I included all of the titles and authors of the books in that group in the “contents” Marc tag. I did the same with the second title. Then I added copies to each title. I used Nook 1, Nook 2, Nook 2, etc. as call numbers, rather than FIC or Equipment. This makes it clean and easy to know which Nooks are checked out and which Nooks are available. Plus, a patron can request a hold on a Nook and they’ll know which group of titles they’re requesting.

I love all the aspects of how the cataloging worked out, except for one thing. Since I only put the titles and authors in the contents, patrons can only find them in the catalog by doing an “everything” or keyword search. If you look Hunger Games up by title, the Nooks won’t come up. I suppose I could add the titles and authors under that section in the record, but it was going to get pretty cumbersome with 20 titles. Right now, it’s pretty simple to add new titles in the contents section, as I buy more titles. So, we’ll see in time. Since I also have an annotated listing of titles at the circulation desk, as well as on my eBook LibGuide, I’m not too worried about it.

Back to the BN account and how to load the books. I have our gift card attached to both BN accounts. I go into one account and purchase the titles I want and they’re sent automatically to all 5 Nooks in that group. Even if the Nooks are in patron hands, the books will appear, so you don’t have to tell it to fetch it or anything. They’ll just pop up.

What I like about having the same titles on all Nooks in a group: It’s easy for circulation. Right now several people want the new Steve Jobs book, so up to 5 people can be reading that.

What I don’t like about having the same titles on all Nooks in a group: Bookmarking. If one person makes a bookmark, all people in that group see the bookmark. Yep. That was interesting to figure out. I think it could actually be fun. Students can “race” each other to finish a book. I see possibilities there.

For now, it’s working great. I love handing someone they Nook and having them realize that they can read any of the 15 or 20 books on the it. If they begin one and don’t like it, they can choose another. Or maybe they’re a fast reader, so having a little library over the Thanksgiving break is awesome! My goal in the beginning was to increase reading for pleasure, since we have such busy students, who don’t read as much when they get into the upper school. I’m hoping to hook in students who wouldn’t otherwise pick up a fiction book.

We’ll see. I’ll know more as I conduct post reading surveys and get feedback from students and faculty. If the groupings don’t work as well as we’d like, then we’ll revise.

Please feel free to ask me more questions, if you’re interested in setting up eReaders in your school or library. I have research on Kindles too. Also, I'd be happy to show you our agreement forms and other documents I created. Or you can visit our LibGuide here. And if you'd like to know more about the BN Managed Account program, Buffy spells it out nicely here.

Will Allison. LONG DRIVE HOME

Have you ever had a day where everything was going wrong and you got so frustrated that you made a poor decision because you were angry? Maybe you lashed out at someone unnecessarily and had to apologize later? Hopefully all that happened was saying something mean. But what if you were having that kind of day and someone lost their life because you became short tempered and angry?

Glen Bauer was taking his daughter home from school and he witnessed several incidents that ruined his mood. He decided to put a little scare into a kid that was driving reckless. But the little scare ended in dire consequences. Even though the scare only took a few seconds, the repercussions reverberated throughout Glen's life for years. After the accident, piece by piece, Glen's family was torn apart. His wife lost faith in him, and his daughter lost her family.

Once I began this book, I couldn't put it down. I was devastated along with Glen to watch how one moment in time can change your whole life. If there was ever a time when you wish you could go back and have a "do-over," this was it for Glen. But unfortunately, life's not like that.

You will not be able to put this one down. You will be on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen next. You will wish you could talk some sense into some of the characters. Most of all, you will root for Glen and his daughter.

This is an adult book, but appropriate for older teens.

Check out Will Allison here.  LONG DRIVE HOME is his second book, but he's written short stories, as well. I think he's a bright new star in the publishing world!

Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl. Beautiful Creatures

Ethan lives in uncomplicated, boring Gatlin County, South Carolina. Things haven't changed much since the Civil War, or as the locals call it the "War between the States." Ethan figures things there will never be any surprises, and he can't wait to get out of there after graduation.
However, as he puts it,

"Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was a girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.
I never even saw it coming."

Now how could you not be intrigued with a beginning like that?
I was immediately drawn in by this multi-layered story. Ethan lives in a town with a rich history. People know their lineage back to the Civil War, some even know theirs back to the Revolutionary War. Ethan begins having mysterious dreams of a girl and an intense desire to save her but not being able to. He feels a strong connection to her, even though he has no idea who the girl is.

When a Lena moves into town, people aren't exactly welcoming. She's the niece of the neighborhood recluse. No one is fond of old Macon Ravenwood. They think he's crazy. So, in this small, close knit town, if you aren't just like everyone else, if you are a little different, you are not welcome.

However, Ethan is drawn to Lena. He isn't sure why until he begins to realize that she is the girl in his dreams. They have a connection. He begins to spend time with her even though his friends give him a hard time. The more he gets to know her, the more he realizes that she has some pretty big secrets. The secrets involve her family, his family and the history of the town.

I loved this book. The characters are rich, the setting is thick with texture, and the plot is quick and delightful! It literally kept me up many nights! There is a sequel and third book out too!
Check out the trailer:

What to do with those ole' Kindle books lying around...

So, you've had your Kindle a while and you have all those great books organized into collections on your device. You can just leave them there and peruse them once in a while. Or you can lend them...well, only to other people who have Kindles. Maybe you don't have that many friends who have Kindles. What if there was a way to connect you - Kindle Owner, with lots of other Kindle Owners? What if you could have a sort of "swap meet" with them.

Good news! There is. It's called Lendle. (Thanks to Carolyn Foote for the tip) After opening an account (it's free, of course), you give the names of the titles you own. There's a easy way to see which of your books are lendable.

If you go to your Kindle Library on Amazon, hover your mouse over the "actions" bubble. If it gives you an option to "loan this title," then that's a book you want to add to your Lendle account. The more books you add, the more you're able to borrow from others. 

The terms are simple and fair. You're able to loan a book only once. And you can only borrow if you have books available to lend. They don't want the community poached by people who only borrow and never contribute. It makes sense and I really like it so far. 

Also, there is a way to earn credits if you loan a lot of books. If you earn enough,  you can get credit with Amazon, where I supposed you'd buy more books! That's not really why I signed up. I like the idea of yet one more place where I can borrow books. So...between my own school library, my public library, eBooks on Overdrive, Lendle, and Amazon, I should be able to meet all my needs!

I hope you find it helpful!

Wow! Just as I was about to post this, I see that Amazon is also getting into the lending game with Amazon Prime members getting to borrow. Pretty amazing stuff!

Amazon.com: Kindle Owners' Lending Library via kwout

Our Nook Adventure: Part 1

I just picked up a set of 10 Nooks to circulate in my school library. I've read a lot about how other librarians are managing this new, ever-changing endeavor of circulating eBooks & eReaders. So, I've had time to brainstorm and plan.

I think I've figured out how to manage them...

I plan to catalog the Nook eBook and then make the call number designate that the book is on a Nook. My original plan was to catalog the Nook as equipment and add in the record which book or books were on the Nook. But after thinking about how we are using the Nooks, I realized a few things:

~I'm not circulating them as equipment, because that sort of implies that the Nook is a piece of equipment for them to "do things" with, like add & remove books. I compare it to the old days when we circulated VCRs for people to play different media.
~I'm circulating a book, albeit in a new-fangled format. However, it's still a book.

I realize that librarians have different situations that work for them, and some have less (or no) flexibility with their cataloging, especially those in a district. Fortunately, I have the flexibility to catalog the Nooks in the way that I want to work for our students. I think focusing on the book will work for my students.

I will also place "Nook eReader" somewhere in the record, so that if a student wants to search for just for the Nooks, he or she can do that, as well.

In addition, I'm following the suggestion of Buffy Hamilton and keeping a hard copy list of which Nooks have which eBooks on them at any given time. Some students may prefer to just come and ask. But I'd like to make it known to those students who may be perusing the catalog, as well.

As for behind the scenes, I have have a file folder for each Nook (also an idea from Buffy), where I'm listing which book(s) is on each Nook.

This is the blueprint so far, but I still have questions. And I'm sure I'll make changes and adjustments as we go along. But I'm thrilled to finally get started with the eReaders.

I'll update as we go this year. Let the journey begin!