By: Teresa Walls,
on 6/14/2008
I’m thinking, unless I hear otherwise, that we don’t really need the categories assigned to individual bloggers. If you have strong feelings one way or the other, please comment to this post. If there are no objections, I will remove those specific categories by the end of the month.
Thanks!
Teresa Walls
ALSC Blog Manager
By: Teresa Walls,
on 5/29/2008
Back in April, I spoke to Denise Raleigh, Director of Marketing, Development and Communications; Faith Brautigam, Manager of Youth Services; and Betsy O’Connell, Manager of Information Technology; all of the Gail Borden Public Library District, about the StoryTubes, the national 2-minute or less video contest featuring students and their favorite books. (Voting for the fourth and final category - Facts, Fads and Phenoms - ends June 4, 2008.) This conversation was to be shared as a podcast, but due to technical difficulties on my end, it is an edited transcript of our conversation instead. Thanks, Denise, Faith, and Betsy, for sharing your time and thoughts with us!
ALSC Blog: This is the first year for the national StoryTubes contest. According to the StoryTubes information page, your library did something similar in the past.
Denise Raliegh: We had people talking about great things in the community and their favorite books. And the favorite book section had tons more entries than favorite things in the community. After it was posted we left it up there [on the website]. The views were over 40,000 on the original Storypalooza. We thought we were onto something.
We did a lot with U-46, the second largest school district in Illinois. We have a nice partnership with them already. We work a lot with their kids so that brought us the participation when we made it easy for them to get involved. We also had some homeschool kids that we filmed in the library and we also had some people who just filmed themselves. We didn’t exclusively deal with the public schools.
It really was a step from Storypalooza. Our intended outcome was just to marry new technology with, you know, timeless technology of books. Taking one, a timeless entity and bringing it into the YouTube age. It really is about storytellling. Telling a story or telling it differently. If you look at some of these kids and how the books have impacted them, it’s a chance to just really energize reading interest. StoryTubes is very much a similar goal that we had last year. We are just broadening it based on that experience.
We have a level of judging this year that we did not have last year. It was a fairly wild, wild west atmosphere. Bringing the notch up this year meant we had to bring the notch up technologically this year as well.
ALSC Blog: What was the most challenging?
Denise: Actually using YouTube. Perhaps we should have used a number of user-generated video sites because there are a few of the school districts who are a little reluctant to use YouTube. People have suggested we use TeacherTube. So, if we do this again next year, we will look at using more than one.
Faith Brautigam: Having the correct information for partner libraries ahead before they decided whether they wanted to be a partner was somewhat difficult because we hadn’t done it before in this way. They had questions to which, you know, we had to find answers. Each library had different kinds of questions and different kinds of needs. Some of them needed documentation to give to their staff. Working with each separate library was a challenge just in having the correct information for them so they could make a decision. Betsy will talk about the automation challenges.
Betsy O’Connell: Going into this, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to manage people because you’re dealing with multiple partners. We decided early on to try to make this process as easy to approach as possible instead of everybody trying to invent their own way to keep a list of entries and all of the participants. We developed a whole database, kind of hand built an entry management system, if you will, as far as when they go to review an entry, they bring up the entry and watch it and fill out the review online. We put a lot of effort to streamline the process because our feeling was we either make it really easy to use or we spend a lot of time explaining how to use it.
ALSC Blog: How long did it take to put that together?
Betsy: I really don’t want to think about that. but the groundwork is done. A lot was figuring out how basically the process would work, where it would be stored, what information would be stored, how we would do the reviews, how people could get to it, figuring out the process was a big part of it. We ran this really simply last year.
ALSC Blog: Beyond marrying two technologies and allowing kids to share books with other kids, what else do you envision from offering StoryTubes?
Faith: One of the things I had talked about a little bit when I was talking with partner libraries in the negotiation stage was just even to just hear the different accents. I think a lot of television that kids watch tends to show people with a homogenous accent and that’s not true of our country. And I think that there are a lot of children who haven’t traveled much and haven’t really seen kids their own age from other parts of the country talking in their ordinary accents and colloquialisms about books. Before it’s all over, there will be videos on there that have accents from widely different parts of the country. I think that angle is really cool for kids to be able to see that something that I do here is something that we all share in all parts of the country even though we speak differently. It is a different element than reading something that is written.
ALSC Blog: How were the contest categories developed?
Faith: We were trying to come up with categories that were very broad so that if you read any kind of book that it could fit, that there would be a category for it. And when we first came up with the categories, we weren’t entirely sure what the age ranges would be for the contest, so we wanted to make sure that they would work even for a younger child. Even the books that children grades 1 through 6 have picked are books that are aimed for children fairly young. We wanted to have something that would work if you chose a picture book or a fairly difficult novel. One of the kids had a video that we received on The City of Ember. It was a pretty big challenge to come up with something that works just as well for Skippyjon Jones as it does for The City of Ember or nonfiction or whatever. So that was something that we developed in our department. We would have added a few more categories if we had more sponsorships. We whittled down the categories to the ones we thought covered the most territory in terms of any book any child might want to talk about.
ALSC Blog: Selecting the videos to be voted on, how did that work?
Faith: The judges are determined by the partner library. Not every library is handling it the same way. The Northeast is using some remote judges in different states. Our library is using volunteers that are local. I believe the Northwest is using staff members because it is a large library system with a lot of branches. It just depends on the region. Each public library had the freedom to decide how they wanted to handle the judging depending upon their own priorities or what was available to them. We, for example, used some college students to view and choose. They were in a children’s literature class and did it for extra credit. That was a really cool partnership. They got to see what books children are reading. We got their help and they got extra credit from their children’s literature professor.
ALSC Blog: Sounds like there are many partnerships with StoryTubes.
Denise: The partnerships are essential. The idea is first for the kids to have a great experience and to get kids interested in other kids’ books. It’s also to make sure that our sponsors and partners on all levels get something out of this. The beauty of dealing with kids reading is there are so many winners.
We are interested in talking with a lot of folks. This year we shared with people we thought had an appetite for it. We welcome partners. We are so happy with what the library community has done with this.
By: Teresa Walls,
on 5/21/2008
As the current manager of the ALSC Blog, I attempt to check the comment queue at least three times a day. I am always delighted when a real comment is among the spam. Just moments ago, I went through 180 spam comments, mostly referencing fashion. (At least, for the time being, Paris Hilton seems to have moved by the wayside.) There was one comment, from Houston, the reference address screams “Spam!” but the text itself is thought-provoking. It is:
“Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn?t hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.”
While there is no source cited in the message, according to QuotationsPage, the phrase was penned by Hugh Elliott on the 2/14/03 post of his blog, Standing Room Only. I suppose it looks enough like a real comment to get approved as non-spam. I guess, in a way, it did.
By: Teresa Walls,
on 5/11/2008
Each week during the month of May, you have the opportunity to vote for your favorite of the reviewed StoryTubes videos in four different categories. Today is the last day to vote in the “Hair-Raising Tales” category.
I recently participated in a conference call with Director of Marketing, Development and Communications, Denise Raleigh; Manager of Youth Services, Faith Brautigam; and Manager of Information Technology, Betsy O’Connell; all of the Gail Borden Public Library District. We talked about the StoryTubes program. Our conversation will be the topic of the next ALSC Blog Podcast.
By: Teresa Walls,
on 5/1/2008
David Weinberger’s Everthing is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder was suggested here by an ALSC Blog reader. Thanks, afewsocks!
These Professional Reading posts aren’t book reviews, but rather my response to something that I read from the book. The following is an excerpt from pages 142-143:
The trust we place in the Britannica enables us to be passive knowers: You merely have to look a topic up to find out about it. But Wikipedia provides the metadata surrounding an article–edits, discussions, warnings, links to other edits by the contributors–because it expects the reader to be actively involved, alert to the signs. This burden comes straight from the nature of the miscellaneous itself. Give us a Britannica article, written by experts who filter and weigh the evidence for us, and we can absorb it passively. But set us loose in a pile of leaves so large that we can’t see its boundaries and we’ll need more and more metadata to play in to find our way. Deciding what to believe is now our burden. It always was, but in the paper-order world where publishing was so expensive that we needed people to be filterers, it was easier to think our passivity was an inevitable part of learning; we thought knowledge just worked that way.
First of all, this excerpt has made me rethink my contributions to the ALSC Wiki. Most of my contributions to the Wiki are fairly passive, pointing out links and stating a few things that are happening within my committee’s work. Weinberger mentions arXiv which allows for articles to be shared before being peer-reviewed. I’m still rethinking, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
Secondly, this excerpt makes me think of ALSC Blogger Roxanne Hsu Feldman’s post about her 4th graders and their wiki. What a powerful example of students actively learning.
Thirdly, I was reminded of ALSC Guest Blogger, Bradley Debrick’s post about tagging. Children developing meaningful tags for themselves would allow them to play within that metadata “pile of leaves.”
Finally, the book inspired me to revisit the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab web site where I learned of their work with Tangible Flags which “are designed to support and encourage children to concurrently explore, collaborate and construct digital artifacts while they are immersed within mobile, hands-on environments, such as field trips.”
If you would like to share any thoughts or comments about the book or about what I have written, please do. The book I will respond to for the May post will be A Place at the Table: Participating in Community Building by Kathleen de la Peña McCook. Please join in!
By: Teresa Walls,
on 4/18/2008
Today, my colleague and friend, Becky White and I were discussing podcasting for this month’s ALSC Blog podcast. We talked a bit about copyright concerns. After our conversation, I visited the American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy’s Copyright Advisory Network and read through the forum. While the forum is not legal advice, it is still very helpful.
By: Teresa Walls,
on 4/10/2008
April is full of all sorts of celebrations. While I celebrate poetry all year long, having a designated month is a nice way to share with others. The makers of Magnetic Poetry encourage kids to play with words online. Please share any poetry programs, books, and resources you have found to be fun.
By the way, this post’s title is also the title of a poem by William Carlos Williams.
By: Teresa Walls,
on 4/9/2008
Congratulations to Dr. Brodie! Here’s the press release. Dr. Brodie was one of my instructors when I was working toward my MLS at Kent State. She is a wonderful teacher and mentor. And an active ALSC member.
If you have the chance, check out the Virginia Hamilton Conference, an annual April event. This year it is taking place tomorrow and Friday. Dr. Brodie is a co-director of this conference held at Kent State University.
By: Teresa Walls,
on 3/31/2008
Angela and Dianna recommended these two titles in December at which time I commented that these books would be the March Professional Reading topic. Thanks for suggesting these titles! Both of these books offer wonderful suggestions in creating storytimes that will enhance the experience for children and caregivers.
Early Literacy Storytimes @your library®: Partnering with Caregivers for Success, written by Saroj Nadkarni Ghoting and Pamela Martin-Diaz, adds to the important information of Every Child Ready to Read @your library®, a joint project of the Public Library Association and ALSC. The first section of this book clearly explains the current early literacy research and why it is important for library storytimes to include speaking points about early literacy skills to the adults who are bringing the children to the library. As Ghoting and Martin-Diaz write on page 18:
Storytimes offer young children and their parents/caregivers exposure to a variety of skills, small and large motor development, social and early literacy skills. Through modeling, we offer adults an opportunity to observe how they can support their children’s early literacy development outside the library.
Early literacy enhanced storytimes take them a step further by explaining to the adults how the elements of storytime support early literacy. In this way, we can help parents/caregivers become more fully aware of the key role they play in the development of their child’s early literacy skills and the importance of early literacy as part of overall child development. In addition, adults learn specific ways to support their children’s continued development of these skills.
Ghoting and Martin-Diaz share a wealth of outlines of early literacy enhanced storyimes in the second section. Their kind and gentle encouragement in regard to talking to the parents and caregivers during the storytimes are particularly helpful to those of us who might be intimidated by the thought. The third section offers ways to evaluate and promote early literacy enhanced storytimes.
Ready-To-Go Storytimes: Fingerplays, Scripts, Patterns, Music, and More by Gail Benton and Trisha Waichulaitis offers exactly what the subtitle says. The “ready-to-go” is a bit misleading in that you will need to practice and gather (or make) props first. My favorite part is the “more” that the authors suggest. I simply love the idea of including matching games for children and caregivers to play together during each of the six themed storytimes. Benton and Waichulaitis encourage participation in all aspects of the storytimes; I was having fun just reading about them. I look forward to including their ideas in an upcoming storytime of my own.
Both books are geared to create storytimes that will offer much variety and a bigger impact for the youngest patrons we serve and the adults in their lives who want to help these children reach their fullest potential.
By: Teresa Walls,
on 3/29/2008
Listen to podcast.
This six-minute podcast begins with audio from the closing session of the Homeschool Sneak Preview, an event to inform homeschooling families about local resources available to them. This event was held on Friday, March 14, 2008, at the Allen County (IN) Public Library. Lou Papai, Education Programs Department Manager of Fort Wayne’s Science Central, is speaking.
Next, Mary Voors, manager of the Children’s Services department of the Allen County Public Library (ACPL) talks about the Homeschool Sneak Preview. Over 25 local organizations had informational booths set up from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., several of which also offered 20 minute presentations in the main library’s meeting rooms. Those offering presentations were
Finally, Janet Butterman explains her reason for homeschooling her children (refers to Greenfield Village) and shares her thoughts of the first Homeschool Sneak Preview.
The portable ice skating rink mentioned during the podcast is pictured on the ACPL Flickr account, as well as many other shared photographs of the event.
Episode 3
Homeschool Sneak Preview, A Collaboration
By: Teresa Walls,
on 2/29/2008
When I was working toward my M.L.S. at Kent State University in Ohio, I imagined myself completing the degree and finding a job as the one librarian wearing the many hats of a librarian/library director in a small library probably in Ohio. That isn’t the course that my professional life actually has followed thus far, but if it had, Crash Course in Children’s Services by Penny Peck would be required reading for personnel working with me in that small library. Penny Peck offers an easy to read “how to” book full of helpful tips to library personnel who maybe are librarians but didn’t complete coursework in materials and services for children, or more likely, library staff who haven’t had the opportunity to take such courses. It is also a good refresher.
This title was mentioned by Tina, an ALSC Blog reader, back in October. Thanks, Tina! I hope you have had a chance to read the book and have some comments to share as well. There are two specific items in the book that I would like to share.
First is what Peck calls the Five-Finger Rule. I hate to admit it, but too often I find that I don’t have what seems to be common knowledge. I have had children read a sentence or two in a book as we try to find something they might like as an independent read, but I hadn’t heard of the Five-Finger Rule. After reading about the rule on page 24 of Peck’s book, I found many references to it online and was charmed by this description on Book Nuts Reading Club. Anyway, I wanted to share that Reader’s Advisory bit for your consideration and commentary.
The second portion is about Book Clubs. I adore the idea of Book Clubs but my one attempt with a parent/child book club didn’t work very well. Saturday afternoons had too many other commitments for my few participants, and, more than that, the majority were parents dragging in their reluctant readers. I wasn’t prepared for that and before I could regroup, they had already given up on the program. In retrospect, I can think of much better ways I could have handled it, but that’s neither here nor there. On page 79, Peck writes about her book club experience:
I have been very lucky with our Xtreme Reader group, which is the book discussion group for fourth and fifth graders. From the beginning, we had as many boys as girls. I think part of the reason is the name: Xtreme Readers, like Xtreme Sports, sounds really cool and does not make you think of tea parties. The name was thought up by a boy who was a fourth grader at the time. His mother works at the library, and he was in the initial group. We put the name prominently on all our flyers, in a cool font and with a dramatic graphic of a person reading while skateboarding.
To kick off the club, we sent flyers with a cover letter to all the GATE (gifted and talented) programs in the fourth and fifth grades (both public and private schools), because we felt our target audience would be children who already liked reading chapter books.
The local newspaper published an article about the club too. After a half-hour of discussion, she had hands-on activities to bring the books to life. She includes a few examples of books and activities. As for questions, she mentions several resources including Multnomah (OR) County Library’s Talk it Up!
As with last month’s book, I found much of interest. For March, I will post about two books that have been suggested: Early Literacy Storytimes @ Your Library: Partnering with Caregivers for Success by Saroj Ghoting and Pamela Martin-Diaz and Ready-To-Go Storytimes: Fingerplays, Scripts, Patterns, Music, and More by Gail Benton and Trisha Waichulaitis. Please join in the discussion. If you have books you would like to recommend, please comment here or send an email to [email protected].
By: Madeline Smoot,
on 1/14/2008
Ah, the award season is upon us. And I don't mean the Golden Globes, Academy Awards, or any other silly low profile affairs like those. I am of course referring to the children's book award season that begins with the announcement of the Newbery and Caldecott and other ALA awards and culminates with the prestigious Bluebonnet award presented at the TLA conference in late March. For those of you who have possibly not lived in Texas (or The Center of the World as we think of it here), you may not be familiar with the Bluebonnet Award. You can familiarize yourself here.
This morning the feeding frenzy began when ALA announced the winner of all of their major awards. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, a book I've never heard of, won the Newberry. White Darkness won the Printz, and in what I'm sure will be a controversial move, ALA awarded the Caldecott for "most distinguished American picture book for children" to The Invention of Hugo Cabret, a mid-grade novel. Personally, I feel a picture book award should go to a picture book, but no one asked me.
And, that, I have decided, is the problem. Yet again I am unable to participate in all the non-stop discussions on these books because I haven't read a single one of them. I tried to read Hugo Cabret, but didn't make it past the first set of pictures. The other 2 don't really sound all that interesting to me, so I doubt I'll be reading them. I have read some of the Honor books, but that's not as fun as discussing the actual winners. So if one of the books has disturbing imagery, or controversial plots, or even uses taboo words like booby, I know nothing about it. I'm spending another year in the dark concerning the winners.
But, I'm determined not to miss out on award mania entirely. Since I can't join the talks about the "official" award winners, I just decided to present some awards of my own. So, presenting the first 1st annual 2008 Slushie Awards. (Play suitable theme music here.) From now until I lose interest, I will periodically be presenting a Slushie to a book I think worthy of notice and attention. I will be taking nominations for both book and category ideas. And since no award is complete without a seal, I made one of those too:
So as to not take away from the other award winners' special day, I will not announce the first of the Slushies until tomorrow. You'll just have to wait in hair pulling anticipation until then.
By: Kate Messner,
on 6/3/2007
Here is a picture of my fabulous husband cleaning out my kayak from the winter.
And here is a picture of the fabulously enormous spider that crawled out from under the seat.
EEEEK!! At least he was cooperative enough to hang around while we went to get the camera and a quarter for perspective. But still...EEEEK!! I can guarantee I would have leaped out of the kayak if I'd discovered him out on the water.
After a thorough check under the seat for this guy's friends and relatives, we went out for a lovely paddle on a calm lake before the winds picked up. Also got the vegetable garden in today, planted flowers by the mailbox, and finished reading TRACKING TRASH by Loree Burns and THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick. Both amazing and unique, in amazingly different ways. I'll post reviews soon, but I'm being summoned for a bonfire now. Virtual s'mores to my LJ friends!
I'll be up all night wondering what it will be.