FAME 2014: Connecting and Collaborating

FAME 2014 was an amazing experience. I got to present this year with a friend who is an elementary school librarian in Gainesville. We planned and created the entire presentation using Google apps, including hangouts and slides. I can't begin to express how much I love Google's collaboration tools. I'd be lost without them. We presented on creating programming to fill that niche where your interests meet those of your students. Check out our slides below.

Finding Your Niche: Creating Compelling Programming FAME 2014 from bevycoe

I was a very busy girl at this conference. Luckily, my presentation was during the first breakout session, so it was soon behind me (it went very well), and I could move on to the rest of the conference experience. I had several obligations this year -- between attending presentations and a meeting as a member of the Florida Teens Read committee and serving as a hostess for one of the authors, I was constantly on the go! 

It was a rewarding experience, however. This was the first year that I didn't feel like a newbie anymore. I felt like I was really part of the conversation, giving advice and receiving it, and sharing ideas back and forth with other great librarians from around the state. 

The conference also really encouraged interaction on Twitter this year, so I was able to connect with lots of new librarian friends this year, and I'm looking forward to connecting with my digital PLN and seeing where it takes me! I'm hoping to get involved in twitter chatting a bit more in the near future, because I met some really great people who are a part of chats like #tlchat on Monday nights.

For an author fangirl like myself, having four of the Florida Teens Read nominees present at FAME this year was a real treat. Of course, I made sure to get pictures with as many of them as I could. Jody Casella, author of Thin Space, was the author that I hosted, and I had a great time helping her out and chatting with her. I found out that she had done National Novel Writing Month four times, and since I am planning on doing NaNoWriMo along with a group of students, I picked her brain for advice. She even recorded a short video message for my kids, which was really cool!

Rick Yancey

Jody Casella

Matt de la Peña

DIY Shelf Signage: recycled magazine holders and repurposed shelf dividers

My media center has been in dire need of better shelf signage ever since I got the job. I don't know why it took me so long to get around to fixing such a simple yet vital thing. I guess I had been hesitant to spend a lot of money, and didn't really know what to do otherwise. While investigating my options, I came across a site showing shelf signs that sat on the shelves next to the books, rather than on the edge of the shelf. I realized then that I finally had a use for all of those old magazine holders that used to house the periodical collection. 

 

For my fiction section,
I measured the front of the holders, and created a page in Microsoft Publisher that was the right dimension. I used our school mascot and colors, and created the fiction genres world cloud at the top using Tagxedo, which gives a lot more customization options than Wordle.


I had one of my student assistants go around and place pieces of scrap paper in between the letters so I could see how far apart they were and judge which letters were best to combine. I'm pretty pleased with the end result here, and I feel like it makes the section much more user-friendly.

The nonfiction section is still not quite done. I've been working on it in phases. First, I used taller magazine holders to create divisions for the hundreds in much the same way I created the signs for fiction. I also wanted to create subdivisions of the tens so that I could put more specific headings on them, but I struggled for a while to find something smaller than the hundreds dividers until I stumbled across these old shelf markers in the back room. Instead of using the yellowed plastic signs that came with them, I headed to Publisher again to whip up some signs. I hit a bit of a snag when I realized that I couldn't but the dividers on the bottom shelves because of the clip on the bottom. I went ahead and made the dividers that would fit on the shelf, and the others are now sitting in my car waiting to have the clip cut off so that they will fit on my bottom shelves.

All told, the signage project took around a week to complete, the bottom shelf dividers notwithstanding. I'm proud of the end result. It's not a professional job, but it looks nice, and really enhances the user-friendliness of the media center. Plus, it makes it a lot easier when shelving because you can walk right to the proper section.

Starting the year off with Video Orientation

One challenge I have always faced as a high school librarian at a school of 1600 is how to provide Media Center Orientation for all students at the school. Last year, our school started holding grade level assemblies for at the beginning of each grading period, so over the summer I worked up a short video orientation that could be shown at each assembly.

The video was simple. At the beginning, I recorded an introduction so that each student could see my face and get to know their librarian. The majority of the video was comprised of my voiceover narrating the expectations and procedures of the Media Center over a slideshow tour of the Media Center. It wasn't anything flashy, but it was a way to be sure that as many students as possible heard about the Media Center, its services, and the procedures for visiting.

I'm not completely satisfied with the video. I think I can do better next year by making it more visual and less of a recorded lecture. My voice is fairly monotone -- I think I need to try to be more dynamic. However, I am pleased with the results. Right after it was shown, freshmen recognized me and we able to greet me by name the first time they entered the Media Center. Upperclassmen, now aware that the Media Center is open during lunch, started coming by to get lunch passes. The exposure definitely had a positive effect, and was a satisfactory solution to my orientation dilemma. I can say with 100% certainty that more students are aware of Media Center expectations, procedures, and services than have ever been in the past.