A Fall Report on our Library

I just wanted to write up a little progress report on the activities occurring here in the library over the fall term. There’s been a lot and I’ve learned a lot. We have a lot to do still to keep building this place into a learning commons.

My Goal to build this library!!!

1. A welcoming, service-oriented, tech-rich environment that is open on a regular basis and that invites students in to find resources and services that support their work.
2. Comfortable reading areas that attract students to books and to developing the lifelong habit of reading.
3. Comfortable working areas that enable different groupings of students to work, from independent learners, to pairs and small groups to whole-class instruction.
4. 24/7 access to digital resources as well as a collection of dynamic print resources all supporting curriculum and reading.
5. An area that would invite teachers, and guests to work with a class or group, with the support of the teacher-librarian to present multimedia or other performances.
6. A place that would provide students and teachers with opportunities to learn more advanced technology skills and create more complex digital products.
7. A place that is available for teachers to work in groups in workshops/lunch n’ learns to build new skills or collaboratively develop new resources, tools, etc.
8. provide a multitude of literacy initiatives and reading programs

Total number of Forest of Reading Books - 160
Total number of students participating in Forest Voting - 194 signed up
Activities for Forest of Reading

• Book Club
• Award Design Contest
• Talks with Expert Teachers
• Voting
• Imovie for the blog

Library Helpers
Currently 17 students come to the library regularly to shelve and restock books and help with maintaining the library

Study Hall
This runs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - 99% of the time I’m full and have to turn people away


Total number of checkouts to date - 2971
grade 6 total = 567
grade 7 total = 847
grade 8 total = 784

Total new items purchased by year
2011 - 503
2012 - 788

Total number of items in the library
Books - 2594
easy read/picture - 246
Graphic novel - 210
Magazine subscriptions - 8
Prof reference - 334
encyclopedias/reference - 180

Age of Books
Average age of books is 11 years old by publication year
2004 - 1111 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction
2001 - 887 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction
2008 - 442 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction

Graph Age of books by Dewey system

Teacher Research/Collaboration

• grade 6 research for Biodiversity - students researched and created presentations using poster board or prezi or powerpoint
• group research on Aboriginal peoples - students created a presentation for class on a specific group of native people
• completed Dare Arts cards
• research for grade 8’s completed Island City project
• grade 7 french project to create comics using Bitstrips
• utilized Tumble books
• website creation with live reenactment utilizing twitter for confederation
• recording radio advertisements in french for restaurants
• utilizing ipads and screenchomp for explaining websites for a charity “Shattered” novel study
• utilize computers to work on gizmos for science
• utilizing Imovie to create TV ads for a French Restaurant
• utilizing Ipads to film skit for french
• research project on mixtures and solutions end product was powerpoint or prezi
• research project with students on Canadian Artists
• research project on famous musicians students create a presentation for the class, like Prezi, powerpoint, frames 4, or jeopardy
• research project for migration students are creating photo essays on push and pull factors
• robotics project
• collaborating with me to train students on premier

Upcoming Projects/Plans

• using both the cart in class and the lab students will do research for cells
• will use Imovie to create trailers for the book the Twits - we will split the class and do storyboards then alternate filming times
• students will research water then create children’s stories about water utilizing Storybird
• utilizing audacity to make podcasts in music

6 Teachers bring their classes for regular book exchange

Fundraising

• Book Fair - 250$ - store credit
• Chapter’s night - 400$ - gift card
• Dare Arts - 95$ - cash
• Adopt a School - 500$ - gift card

Major Expenses for library budget

• Purchasing Fiction titles appropriate for grade 6’s - 1500
• Purchasing Graphic novels - 500
• Purchasing replacement book tape - 150$
• Repair books - 195$
• Magazine subscriptions 275$
• Incidentals like barcodes, magazine racks and board games took up the rest

Lessons learned from this year so far

• I can’t let teachers book regular weekly periods for computer use. There isn’t enough flexibility to schedule around them in 4 period day
• I needed to purchase more than 8 copies of Red Maple for Forest - they’re very popular
• The cart is a huge maintenance issue - reliable students should be trained in September to help with upkeep
• Cell phones are too small for BYOD to be useful awkward for kids to read
• The cart needs to monitored every period to ensure everything is back
• If Ipads are constantly plugged in to charge the battery dies
• Netbooks must be shut down with each new user or you can’t get on the network
• Each Wi Fi hub has 30 logins
• The cart is heavy
• Not everyone knows that you can sign out books from the library
• Not everyone knows that they can bring kids to the library to do research and collaborate/team teach with me
• Many teachers aren’t aware of the need to scaffold research so students of all levels are successful
• I have a lot to learn :))))

Chapters Night

I'm very excited for next Tuesday night. Chapters will be hosting a fundraiser for us and helping to support us as we build the library collection. On Tuesday the 20th, the Chapters at the corner of Bovaird and Hurontario, in Brampton will host an artwork display by our students. Families are invited to visit the display and to purchase items from the store. 15% of the sales from that evening will be donated to Lagerquist in the form of a Chapters gift card. This is so important for us we really need to build up our collection. Here's the link to our adopt a school . This site gives all the information about our library collection, its age and our need to build the collection we have. Families can also purchase e-gift cards from the site that will also contribute to donations from Chapters.


Hopefully, lots of families will come out that night and help support the library and the work we're doing. I've been going over the artwork and it's fantastic. I'm sure parents will be impressed with the quality of work we'll put on display that night.

See everyone there!

The beginning of a new Blog

I wanted to start this blog for several reasons. The first being that I want the public to find out about all the great things going on at our school and to realize the value of a library. So many people see the library as just a place to pick up a book. At Lagerquist this isn't the case. Students at our middle school can do so much more in this space. Funding is tight I won't hide that but I have a supportive Principal who seems to trust me when I come up with different ideas for programs to run in the school. Not every principal would agree to taking 170 kids to view the movie, "The Hunger Games". Thank you.

As the librarian I work everyday to do more than shelve books and recommend books. I think it's time others knew this. Given our current political climate here in Ontario I think this is more important than ever. In a time and place when teachers are being seen as overpaid, and well a bit lazy because we do not work in the summers I think it's high time people know what we do. I mean what we really do. Not just all the report cards and pushing play on the video we're about to show.

To be honest I would be starting this blog even if I were in a classroom because I think it's important for everyone to know what we do. I believe respect is earned. We earn respect from the kids at our school, we earn respect from our peers, our bosses and of course the parents.

Hopefully, this blog will let all of these individuals see the value of the library and the amazing work our students do complete here at the school. We as teachers are here to guide and help and I won't take credit for the awesome stuff kids do. I just want everyone to know our role in its creation.

Annie Kidder put it best, (She's so much more eloquent than I am), she said "We need to re-embed the value of public education.... The deep value of it. Not just the facts in, facts out value but that it actually changes who we are.... It's not enough to close the (classroom) door and say trust me. That doesn't work ...... You (teachers) have to tell us. You have to let us (the public) know.... You have to help us understand what it is you do and why it's so valuable."

So that's my goal to show everyone what it that we do in the Lagerquist Library and the value of  it to our kids.