Hello,
This week I am trying something new. I want to show you how to tape a paperback book to extend its life on your library shelves. I am also going to try to insert pictures to make this easier for those of you who are visual learners like me.
You may have a method of taping that works well for you and I am glad, but many schools do not tape the paperback books and may not realize how helpful it can be in the long run. Once you do a few, you can easily teach one or two older students to do this and they can take over the job of taping books for you.

First, you need a paperback book. I put the spine label on first so the taping will be the protector and I don’t have to use a separate label protector. You also need tape. I really like Scotch 845 Book Tape and I have found that the 2-inch wide tape is the best and most versatile. It fits all but the widest books and there are so few of them in paperback that it is just not worth purchasing wider tape for them. I just use two strips on the spines for those. You will need scissors to cut the tape and a bone folder to burnish the tape down. Fingers work OK, but having something hard to smooth out the tape is really best. You can probably find something other than the bone folder to use, but you can purchase one from Highsmith for less than $1.50 and it is just a nice tool to have.

















Measure out the tape visually so a bit extends on each end of the books’ spine.



















I sometimes put the book between my knees to center the tape visually before putting it down.










Smooth the spine with your finger, the burnish it with the bone folder.

























Carefully smooth each side down one at a time, smoothing with fingers, then the bone folder.
























For the edges of the cover, visually measure out the length again having a bit extend on each end. Place carefully so the center of the tape is on the edge of the cover. Smooth and burnish, then open the cover to smooth down the tape on the inside of the cover.



































Trim the tape flush with the book so no edges of the tape show. It may be that there is a small bubble of air under the tape. Often this can be pushed out using the bone folder, but if not, then make a small prick in the bubble and burnish it down.




















Now you have taped a book and have covered the parts that are used the most by children’s hands. Some people tape the entire cover, but I have found that this often makes the cover curl up and not lie nice and flat.

Here are the supplies I used and the approximate cost of them from Highsmith, the library supply source I use most often. I have found that one roll of tape will cover the spines and edges of approximately 20 – 24 paperback books. You might be tempted to purchase packing tape and use that since it is cheaper, but we have learned that the Scotch book tape is easier to apply and our helpers agreed it was worth the extra amount.

Scotch 845 Book Tape, 2-inch wide $6.34 - $6.80 each
Bone folder $1.44 each
Scissors


Please note that I am not being paid by Highsmith for promotion. I mention them because other teachers have asked me where they can get the supplies I use.

By the way, if you haven’t read the book I just taped, Dewey by Vickie Myron, it is an enjoyable story and would be a great read aloud for your students.

I hope this has been helpful for you. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Have a great week,
Audrey

Automating your Library

Greetings!
Would you like to automate your library? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a list of the books your school owns and be able to find them quickly and easily? Well, you can do it and for less money than you might expect. I sound like a commercial for library automation software, but it is nice to be able to locate books quickly and know instantly whether you have a book on a particular subject without going to the shelves and perusing them hoping to find the subject you need.

You may have read the Journal of Adventist Education Summer 2011 issue on Libraries. I wrote an article with the help of my assistant, Joy Palmer, on how to organize a small library. If you read it, you will have a good start on getting your library organized.

However, this post is focused on what kind of automation program would be best for your school. The NPUC has recommended two automation programs; Readerware and ResourceMate.

Readerware is the less expensive of the two programs. Readerware is easy to use and is cheap. The prices you pay are one-time fees. The database can hold between 10,000 and 20,000 items which is perfect for most of our small SDA schools. The program extracts reviews and cover art for most books. There is a free tutorial and they offer a free 30-day trial. The program uses either Windows or Mac. I could not find any information to find out if a bar code scanner is included in the purchase price. Three years ago when I gave this information out, each item was purchased separately, but the prices are changed slightly and it appears that the program includes a complete package with all items needed. There are three options for purchase.
1. Standard Edition $40.00 – this is a single user and includes all the Readerware features needed.
2. Client/Server Edition $90.00 – This version includes all the features of the Standard Edition and supports up to five concurrent users.
3. Client/Server Enterprise Edition $500.00 – Includes all the features of the Standard Edition but has no user limit.

If you choose to go with Readerware, I would recommend the Client/Server Edition because you will be able to have one computer as the data station that can be password protected so students cannot alter the data and you can have four other computers as the card catalog in use at a time.

ResourceMate is another automation program that you might consider. There are four options for purchase.
1. ResourceMate Regular ($195.00) has the following features.
a. There is no limit to the number of items.
b. It uses Windows.
c. It is easy to use. You input the ISBN and search for the book. You can get Dewey information and subject information. It is also easy to add information that your school might need. For example a teacher wants to remember the books he or she used for the rainforest unit they just taught. Type in ‘rainforest’ for each book that does not already come up with you search for the rainforest books.
d. A demo is available. You must enter information to access this.
e. Training videos are available. There are three videos. You must purchase these for $35.00 each or two for $59.00, or three for $89.00. (Schools may be able to share these or maybe talk the NPUC into purchasing these for check-out.)
f. Online training is available for $35.00 for each subject taught. Examples include cataloguing basics, printing labels and cards, etc. There is a list of subjects on the website. You choose the session or sessions you want and sign up for the particular class on a specific date.
g. Tech support – the first 3 months are free, and then support is about $70 - $110 a year. Tech support is optional. The NPUC also has a few other teachers who are using this program and might be able to help you with any problems.
h. A user manual is included.
i. Built-in reports such as author, categories, call number, circulation, etc.
j. Password protected so the computer can be used for searching and the information cannot be damaged by someone searching on the computer.

2. ResourceMate Regular Multi ($395.00) includes the features above plus
a. Multiple people (up to 3) can install the program on their computers and enter items there and the data can be merged to the main database. This makes it easy for volunteers to help with the automation process.
b. Bar coding – need to purchase the bar codes and a scanner
c. Inventory reporting
d. History of circulation activity
3. ResourceMate Plus ($395.00) includes the features of the Regular version and the Regular Multi version. There are some extra features as well.
4. ResourceMate Plus Multi ($595.00) – similar to the above with some extras.
5. ResourceMate School Basic bundle – ($1042) This includes the following
a. ResourceMate Plus software
b. 1 patron search license
c. Bar code scanner
d. Bar code labels (1000)
e. Extended circulation
f. Spell check
g. One package of 1000 labels (spine)
h. Level 1 Training video

If you opt for ResourceMate, I would recommend the ResourceMate Plus for $395.00. The Regular Multi also costs $395.00, but the Plus version seems to have some features that aren’t listed with the Regular Multi version. I am not sure why, but you can do more research on the website.

If you are deciding between the ResourceMate and the Readerware, I would recommend the ResourceMate simply because it is a more robust program, no limit to the number of items, and we have other teachers who can help with questions you may come across.

I hope you find this information helpful if you are considering automating your library. This post and all previous posts are available on my blog sdalibrarian.blogspot.com.

Have a great week!
Audrey

Oldies but Goodies

Greetings!
If your library looks a little like my library you have lots of great books that don’t look too attractive on the outside. You try to get your students to read these stories, but they naturally gravitate to the newer, books with clean, attractive, full-color covers. We understand since these books naturally appeal to us, too. But how can we get students to pick up the older stories and read them? I have a few ideas for you.

Clean the books that you can clean. I have found that the books with a shiny, but dirty cover can usually be cleaned fairly easily. There are products on the market you can buy, special cleaners and erasers, but I was not having much luck with them and tried a dab of hand soap by the sink. I had a damp rag and put a bit of soap on the rag and started rubbing. Then I carefully wiped it all off with a clean rag that was a bit damper and dried the book. It looked almost new. This worked with the books that have a protective sheen, NOT a cloth cover.

Cover books with a ‘new’ dust jacket. I have covered books using two methods. I found a nice color cover from a place like Amazon or Barnes and Noble and copied it in a Word document, then pasted it on a dust jacket that I cut to fit the book. I have a plastic dust jacket protector I use to keep the jackets looking nice. Other schools laminate the dust jackets or cover with clear contact paper.

Get students to do as much of the work as you can. I set up a small shelf that I labeled “Lonely Books” and acted very sad that the books hadn’t been read for a long time. Then I asked students to choose a book, read it and let me know if they thought the book was good enough to keep in the library or if they thought it was time to weed that title out. If they liked it and thought others would like it, then they made a dust jacket for the book. I learned that it worked better if I cut the dust jacket out and lightly sketched out the area for artwork, title, spine label, and blurb. Then I let them make a wonderful cover. I promoted the ‘new’ books and other students checked some of them out. (This would make a great book report idea!)

Go with the theme. When you are studying a unit, check out as many books on the theme that you can. Get all levels of books, picture books, informational books, stories, magazines. Display these in your classroom so students can browse through them. If you are the librarian, find out what units the teachers are studying for the year and make sure that there is a variety of material to support the unit.
I hope these ideas have helped you continue to make your library or classroom the fun place to be and read.

Have a great week,
Audrey

Inexpensive Shelving Ideas

Greetings!

This week I am going to tell you how to get stuff for cheap. Or at least I can tell you how we have been able to add furniture and shelving to our library for very little money.

When we moved into the new school facility seven years ago, I had little furniture for the library. The shelving along the walls was custom built shelving and exactly fit the space in the old school. There originally was some talk of taking down the old shelving and moving it to the new school, but soon we all realized that this was not an option. The school was able to purchase new shelving along the walls and two magazine units. I was very grateful. We chose a light wood to match some stand alone shelf units we brought from the old school.

A local retired carpenter was hired to help cover the old low bookcases. He put the old bookcases back to back and covered them with a new top. He also custom built two new cases on casters that exactly matched the old ones. These were built for much less that would cost to purchase them. We were fortunate that our builder was willing to do this for much less money that he could normally charge. I rescued four shelf units (approximately 36 w x 30 h x 15 d) that teachers did not want and brought them into the library. Two are in the library proper and two are in my storeroom space.

For a short while we had some brick and board shelving while we were waiting for new shelves to arrive, but this can pose some safety issues and is not recommended. The shelves could topple over and harm a child. Shelves should be affixed to the wall or made very sturdy to avoid this problem.

By having Scholastic Book Fairs, I saved enough points over a few years to purchase furniture that I wanted and I have four pieces this way. I have a four-sided unit that swivels, a wooden library cart with shelves, and a two-sided unit that has a slanted top on each side. We keep dictionaries and other reference books in it. I also have a rolling two-sided unit with a space for sharing books and small shelves. I use that at times for story time.

Over the last ten years our area has had two or three stores go out of business and liquidate their stock. Usually we think of the clothing or items that were sold in the store, but if you think of the furniture, you can get some great things for very cheap. We have gotten Lucite holders and stands, wooden furniture, and sign holders this way.

If you think outside the box, you can obtain what you need for not too much money. Do you have a retired carpenter in your church? It may be that for the price of materials he or she would be willing to make the items you need. At least you can get an estimate. Did you notice a display or a poster in your local bookstore that you like? When they are finished with the display, they might let you have it. Take a look at your local flea market or garage sales and see if there is anything that might work in your library. A little cleaning or paint can really spruce up an old bookshelf.

You can make your library space look nice without spending a lot of money. I would love to hear of the ways you have saved money in your library space.

Have a good week,
Audrey

Bible and Mission books

Greetings!
I recently got a question regarding the older Adventist mission books and where it would be best to place them. This is a great question since we all have these old books and many of them are treasures.

I then realized that most of us have quite a collection of religious books and probably add to this section regularly. Here is a breakdown of the 200 section of Dewey for the categories you will use most often and books that might be included there.

220.5 – Bibles. This is the official place for Bibles according to Dewey.

220.9 – Bible stories that cover the Bible - both Old and New Testament. If you want to separate the Old Testament stories from the New Testament stories, you can use the next two divisions.

221.9 – Stories about Old Testament characters and other Old Testament stories

225.9 – Stories about New Testament characters and other New Testament stories

232 – Jesus and His family. You may decide to put stories about Jesus in the 225.9 section instead, but if you wish to separate these you can do it here.

242 –Devotional books. If you wish to separate your daily devotional books from devotional books that don’t have a daily reading, you can put daily devotionals in 242.2

248 – Christian experience and life – I hesitate to put this category in, but if you decide to use this, I would encourage you to only put adult books here such as Paint Your World. (I would not put children’s books here even if they seem to fit because this section is often ignored by children. I would put children’s books in either the story section or the Everybody Books section depending on the reading level.)

266 – Mission stories. Put all mission stories here, old and new.

270 – Early church history. Books about the early church such as the Waldenses would go here.

280 – Other Christian denominations

286.7 – Adventist section. I believe that it is important to put the decimal for this section to separate Adventist books. The number 286 is for Baptist, Disciples of Christ, and Adventist religions.

290 – Other religions, non Christian

Now what do you want to do with stories like the Uncle Arthur Bedtime stories? You might be tempted to put them in the 248 section, but I have already mentioned that that section is likely to be ignored or overlooked. I would advise you to put stories in the 813 section. That is the section that most children gravitate towards and these books will be seen and more likely used if there are in with the stories. However, you could put them in a separate section for collections of stories. If you want a collected story section, use 808 for it. We put Uncle Arthur books there along with the Guide collections of stories, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul books and other books that have individual stories in them. Since we are already in the 800 section, here is a breakdown of that section for you as well. (If you have literature from countries other than America, email me for that category if you need it.)

808 – Collected stories
808.8 – Poetry
813 – Stories. (The official title is American literature of fiction, but we either call it stories or literature for our students.)

One new thing I have noticed is that our Adventist publishers are beginning to put decimals after the 813 on some books. For example, the new Serenity series by Kay Rizzo has the number 813.54. I don’t know what the decimals stand for since Dewey does not have any decimal divisions for 813. You don’t have to use the decimals after 813 if you don’t want to.

Well, I hope this has been helpful to you. I have readers who faithfully save these emails in a folder to refer to later, but you don’t have to do that. I post each email on my blog and you can access it there if you want to. Just go to sdalibrarian.blogspot.com and you will find all the posts from January 2009 and since.
Happy reading!
Audrey

Organizing your small library

Hello for the last time this school year!

I know you must be as busy as we are finishing school, cleaning classrooms, putting away materials and organizing them. Sometime this summer some of you may decide to tackle your library and organize it. Whether you work on your school library or your classroom library, I have help for you. The summer issue of the Journal of Adventist Education is the Library issue. With the help of Joy Palmer I wrote an article for that issue on how to organize a small library. If you follow the guidelines in it, you too can organize your library even if you aren’t a librarian.

As you work on organizing your library whether you do it this summer or another time, please let me know if you have any questions. I hope the article was easy to understand, but I want to know if there are parts that need clarification. I have offered to present a session at the NAD Teacher’s Convention next summer in 2012 in Nashville on organizing a small library and I could use all the advice and help I can get.

I hope you take time to be a little lazy this summer. Read, relax, restore. I will be back next August when school begins with more ideas and books for you. If you have any particular category of book that you would like to have me feature, please let me know.

I have enjoyed being your Resource Librarian this year and look forward to a great year next year.
Have a great summer!
Audrey

New Titles

Greetings!
This week I am giving you some great titles that are new and also ones that might be a bit obscure for you.

The first title is a picture book, but it is not just for younger children. There is a lot of information in Energy Island by Allan Drummond. The island of Samso, Denmark is a very windy place and over time the people have harnessed the energy of the wind to power nearly everything on the island. The drawings are a bit cartoonish, but still appealing to all ages.

Queen of the Falls by Chris Van Allsburg is the true story of Annie Edson Taylor and her planned trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The pencil drawings in sepia tones give a historical bent to this achievement. I only hope that children won’t read this and decide to try it for themselves!

Don Brown has written a story from history about the Gold Rush titled Gold! Gold from the American River! The cover of the book looks a bit like the heading of a newspaper. The illustrations are cartoonish, but the information is really for middle and upper grades. Younger children will enjoy the story too, but it is really intended for all ages. Coming soon in the same format and by Don Brown is the story of the day the Twin Towers fell titled America is Under Attack. The book will be available in August.

My Librarian is a Camel by Margriet Ruurs is a good book to share with students about how libraries work in other parts of the world. I read an article about a library in Kenya where books are brought by camel every two weeks to the nomadic people there and got interested in this. This book is one of the treasures I found in my research on that. You might enjoy the novel The Camel Librarian by Masha Hamilton also. I would call it a ‘beach read’, but not a book for our school libraries.

Young children lose teeth and usually put it under their pillow and find some money the next morning left by the tooth fairy. But what do children in other countries do when they lose a tooth? This next book Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions from Around the World lets us know exactly that. Anyone want to be visited by the Tooth Rat?! The back of the book includes information about teeth, also. Again, this is not just for younger children. Older ones will get a kick out of the different traditions. It might be something interesting to include in the study of the different countries.

Who Stole the Mona Lisa? By Ruthie Knapp. Can you imagine stealing a painting as famous as the Mona Lisa? What in the world would you do with it? This is the story of the man who did steal Mona Lisa in 1911. This would be great to include in a study of Leonardo da Vinci or portrait art or even just as a good story.

If you need books on the Iditarod, you probably have Togo or Balto. Now there is a new one called Painter and Ugly by Robert J. Blake who wrote Togo and Akiak. Painter and Ugly is about two dog friends racing in the Junior Iditarod race. Mr. Blake got the idea after he met a real dog named Painter whose best dog friend is Ugly. Ugly had been sold to a different team and Blake wondered what if Painter and his best friend were both in the same race?

I hope you enjoy these books. I may have more for you next week.
Audrey