Tips and Ideas

Hello,
I am sorry that I didn’t send a post last week, but I was out all week with a horrible upper respiratory infection. I made it to school this week, but still have some residual symptoms. Anyway, I am doing better, but this post will be blessedly short. Call it a Thanksgiving gift.

While perusing one of my library journals I noticed a few really interesting ideas. Here are some that may be helpful to you.

1. Inside some gift cards these days there is a little cell that can be used to record a message. You can use this technology to do ‘book talks’. Print a small cover of the book and place the cell with the recorded message behind the cover to make your own book talks. Students just push the button and hear a short book talk about the book. Or you could let students record book talks for books.

2. Signage for libraries can be very expensive, but you can make your own with a large coffee can, a yardstick, pebbles or rocks, spray paint, and paper. Spray the outside of the coffee can and both sides of the yardstick. Fill the can partway with the pebbles or rocks. Attach a sign to one end of the yardstick and stick the other end into the pebbles. Put these types of sign on table or shelving or wherever works in your library. These can be changed easily when needed.

3. Have a hard time getting your boys to read? Try what one school did. They took pictures of the adult males on campus reading a book and made a bulletin board titled “Real Men Read Books”. This really increased interest in reading and the boys began asking the men about the books they were reading. What if you are a small school and don’t have many adult males on staff? Use pastors, parents, or older siblings. I would advise that you have these males hold books from your library, possibly books that they enjoyed as a young person.

4. Encourage reading by using vendor’s catalogs. Cut out all the colored pictures of books that the library owns, laminate them and glue them to clothes pins. They can be used for bookmarks, genre sorts, library skills games or whatever you can think of. Don’t have vendor’s catalogs? Try using the book jacket. I usually cover the book jacket in plastic and affix to the book. But if you don’t use those book jackets, cut the cover off, then laminate and hang with clothes pins along a line in your library to call attention to the books and promote them.

5. One school had a Junior Prom Etiquette check day. Students were invited to bring their lunches to the library and different situations were reenacted such as introducing their date to their parents, table manners, and tips for awkward situations. We might not have the same situation, but our students can still profit from learning more about manners. Showcase books on manners and etiquette and have students act out etiquette tips and situations.

I hope these ideas were helpful to you. I was inspired when I read them and thought that you might be, too.

Have a great week and a very happy, safe, and warm Thanksgiving!
Audrey