Book Fair Luau

If you missed it last night here are a couple videos of the Ukulele Orchestra's concert at the Book Fair!  Thanks to Dr. Edwards and the players and Ms. Jackson and the dancers!

Show Me The Awesome: An Awesome First Year

Banner courtesy of John LeMasney via lemasney.com

This post is part of Show Me The Awesome: 30 Days of Self-Promotion, an initiative by Sophie, Liz, and Kelly. To learn more, click those links or check out #30awesome on twitter. 

How To Have a Successful First Year in 10 Easy Steps:

1.     Get lucky- the first and most important step was to be lucky enough to have strong administrative support for new initiatives and wonderful students who were enthusiastic about everything

2.     Weed, weed, then weed more… no really you must weed

I cannot overstate the necessity of weeding in a school library.  If you have students who cannot use the library because of mold allergies, if you can’t wear black to work because of the amount of dust that clings to you, if you have no room for a single extra book on a shelf, you must weed.  Since beginning weeding this year, we have increased the average age of the collection by 20 years.  Because new things can come in and stand out on the shelves, we have had six times the number of checkouts this year than we had last year.

3.     Goals/greats- it’s important to know what you want to do and to remind yourself of things that are going well.  It can be frustrating when things aren’t the way you envisoned.  Having a notebook where I wrote monthly goals and “Greats” (things that I was proud of/things that worked) really helped me to see that great things were happening, even when I was discouraged.

4.     Communicate- I found that many students and faculty didn’t know the wonderful things that were happening, so I made it my goal to show them.  From quarterly full length newsletters to monthly “Mini-News” with new purchases, top checkouts, and who was seen in the library, to infographics about checkout increases, to announcements at our all-school assembly, to creating this blog, learning to tweet, and just generally annoying people by talking about the library all the time, I shared much and often and in many different mediums!

5.     Listen- I sent out surveys, talked to students, put up a requests board and tried to stay in touch with what was new and popular.   I tried never to say no to a reasonable request.  I wasn’t afraid to change policies that students didn’t respond well to.  For instance, DVD’s were not easily accessible to students and weren’t generally interesting to them.  I’ve worked to increase that collection and brought it out onto the main floor.  We had basically no Young Adult literature in August, but since I’ve increased that collection and given it special shelving, its’ circulation has increased seven-fold.  The physical space is more fun, with more collaborative areas and hang-out space in response to student requests.  Our renovated library will have a coffee shop and more enclosed study rooms as well.  It’s critical to listen to what our students want because they are the primary users!

6.     Have fun- The library has become a place associated with fun!  I held evening activities such as 80s Night where we danced to 80s music, dressed up and examined the 80’s books and magazines.  There were movie nights using the projector and white boards, Christmas storytelling by the giant book tree, a webcast with John Green, a Book Fair, and many other events just to get students in the library to see what we had going on.

7.     Get Help- I am a solo, first-year librarian with no paid clerical help.  The student assistant program has been an invaluable resource.  I give them lots of responsibility and train them in all areas of library service.  They help check out, catalog, do inventory, come up with the best ideas and bring their friends in to participate as well.  I love that this program brings me closer to the students and helps them to increase their sense of ownership in the library.  Who knows, there may be a future librarian among them?!

8.     Stay current/share ideas- Since I am a solo librarian in a very rural area, I have had to work extra hard to find library mentors and colleagues.  Luckily, I am a member of several professional organizations such as VAASL (Virginia Assn. of School Librarians), AISL (Assn. of Independent School Librarians) and AASL.  I am so grateful for the ways in which these associations, their listserv’s and conferences have impacted my ability to stay current in the field.  I am able to network with other librarians in similar situations and it is so nice to have new friends who love the things that you love!  Blogs, twitter and webinars have also become very important parts of my professional development now that I am on my own in the library.  It’s amazing what wonderful ideas you can find from your online peers!

9.     Be patient- I’ve learned that it is very important to stay calm and accept that it won’t all happen in a year.  There are many 2^nd tier projects and Year Two (and onward!) goals.  It’s important to realize that people need time to make decisions and that you need time to get to know the school and community in order to be effective.  This shouldn’t hold you back from starting off on the right foot, but it should give you comfort when things aren’t all going as smoothly as you had hoped.

10. Finally, enjoy the payoff- I am so looking forward to coming back to a new library in August and to seeing the kids’ excitement.  I can’t wait to watch teachers working in the spaces that we’ve designed and to hear from alumni who are happy with what we’ve accomplished.  

Do you have any first-year success stories?  What’s worked in your libraries?  Please share!

A Book Review from Robin!

An Abundance of Katherines

John Green

ISBN 978-0-14-241070-7

Critic written by Robin E. ’14

★★★★★

5 Stars (An Abundance of Stars)

And here’s why:

An Abundance of Katherines is the perfect summer read. Funny, easy, original this book is well worth reading. The book is the perfect balance of an easy read and a deep novel. It is not so dumbed down that you feel like your IQ is sinking with each page, yet not so intellectual that you wonder if school ever really ended.

Green’s witty side facts along with the ACCURATE math problems (and there are a lot of those) make for a quirky and fun book. At the end of the book, a mathematician explains how all the equations work.

The plot itself is brilliant and new as you follow Collin, a child prodigy, with a dating problem: his last 19 girlfriends have all been name Katherine. This 19th girl could be just what it takes to break this strange trend. After the breakup, Collin and his best friend head out for a summer long road trip filled with self discovery.

Anyways, this is exactly what a leisure read should be.   

A Book Review from Caitlyn

An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green 

Jump into the turbulent and rather tragic love life of Colin Singleton, a failed child prodigy, as he recounts the end of his 19th relationship with year another, you guessed it, Katherine. After being dumped for the 19th time, Colin and his friend, Hassan, decide to take to embark on a road trip with no set destination. These two seemingly "un-dateable" boys land in Gutshot, Tennessee to visit the grave of the Archduke Ferdinand and a mess of incidences land them there for their vacation, working with Lindsey Wells (a paramedic- in-training) and Hollis (her heavy-set, pink-loving, factory-owning mother). Colin's story unfolds as he begins to work on a Theorem that will mathematically represent his relationships with all of the Katherines he has dated and predict his future of "Dumpee" status. 

While I am not one for romance novels (no Nora Roberts or Fabio for me!), I have found that I do enjoy John Green's novels that include not only young love, but also self- discovery. His main characters are usually relatable and his writing style is hypnotic. Once introduced to his writing through The Fault in Our Stars, I bought and read almost every single one of his books. Most of them have the same general storyline: boy meets girl, girl changes boy's life, something drastically tragic happens (according to the boy), and there is some sort of epiphany at the end when the boy's world is suddenly illuminated and he suddenly understands his entire existence. Don't get me wrong. They are all well written, are sufficiently sarcastic, and each has moments when you want to slap the living daylights out of the main character (mostly because he is whining for a good chapter-and-a-half). 

Somehow, this book was different. The character didn't start off relatable. He was cold, very logical, and was probably the most frustrating main character I have ever encountered. However, this was successfully off-set by John Green's witty and sarcastic humor which was channeled by his supporting character, Colin's best (and only friend), Hassan. I could relate to Hassan. He is pretty much the lazy cat in all of us; he is taking a year off before college, sits watching tv and eating all day, and, really, just isn't motivated to do anything. Hassan wants to kill Colin just as much as we do and we immediately love him for it. 

One of the things I find the most interesting about this novel is the incorporation of footnotes. Every now and then (every couple of pages or so), Green places footnotes next to different words and phrases and uses them as portals to interesting facts, like math you didn't need or want to know or the history of WWI. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and for anyone who loves John Green, romantic comedies, or a hilariously sarcastic lazy bum who turns out to be a child prodigy's best friend, then, by all means, READ AWAY!!! 

-Caitlyn M. '14

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Subject Guides

Recently, I've been working on curating great links for various subjects taught at Chatham Hall.  Check out the Subject Guides below!  You can also find these under the Page labeled "Subject Guides"

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