The OLD Top Shelf

Wow – it’s been a while since I posted here. Things are really busy getting ready for TLA and the Strong Libraries Strong Scores conference, but that’s a topic for another day.

I have several blog postings, annoucements and resources that I’ve been wanting to share, so here goes:

In his blog 2¢ worth, David Warlick writes about 12 steps (a 12-step program?) we can take to become educators who are literate in the skills needed for the 21st century. I found it very interesting that several of his steps advocated the use of the web 2.0 tools that we used in our Learning Through Play program.

The Cool Cat Teacher summarizes a great podcast in her post, Envisioning the Future of Libraries, and posts a link to the original audio file. Doug Johnson and Joyce Valenza were the presenters. One of the most interesting things they discussed was the idea of the “invisible collection” which is the same idea we were all starting to kick around at our last librarians’ staff development. With the advent of this invisible collection, we are going to have to revamp our idea of what a “balanced” collection really is – especially at the secondary level. Give this podcast a listen! (BTW, Joyce Valenza will be presenting two programs at the TLA conference – you should try to go to at least one of them!)

Another post from 2¢ worth that I found fascinating is one in which David Warlick reports on a conference session he attended that was led by brain research guru, Patricia Wolfe. Pat points out that good teachers often do things intuitively without knowing why. While that’s great for the intuitive teacher’s students, the students in the non-intuitive teacher’s classroom don’t get the same level of instruction. Educators must start being aware of the educational research that is being done and using the findings to improve their teaching. In other words, teachers should know and be able to tell someone else why they are use the strategies they do. (Sounds like a TEKS student expectation, huh?)

Apparently we won’t have to worry anymore about whether we should still be ordering encyclopedias in print and feeling guilty when we find other ways to spend our money. The Blue Skunk Blog by Doug Johnson tells us that the New York Times has declared the traditional multi-volume encyclopedia to be the first casualty in the world of print. Read Doug’s post here.

Here’s another feed for your RSS reader: AASL has a new blog! The AASLBlog is intended to be a source of general AASL news, as well as a forum for important discussion on issues and concerns of school library media specialists. Recent topics include, for example, copyright issues and parent involvement in school library media program advocacy. Voice your concerns, share your experiences, and be a part of the broader AASL community on the new AASL blog! Visit the blog (and comment) at http://www.aasl.ala.org/aaslblog/.

April is School Library Media Month. Celebrate by giving your teachers a little “thank you” from the library, having a contest for students or hosting a special event. For other ideas, see the page on the AASL web site.

Julie Andrews, Academy Award recipient and honorary chair of National Library Week (April 13-19, 2008), shares her view on the value of libraries in a video available on YouTube. Library media specialists are encouraged to use the video on Web sites and blogs to promote National Library Week. Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieUD9vCeXu0

Now that I’ve shared these little items with you, I can go home and watch American Idol with a clear conscience!

Wow – it just seems like the days are flying by and we are all barely holding on by the skin of our teeth. There is so much to do and so little time to do it. Over at the 21st Century Collaborative blog, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach asked the folks in her personal learning network to complete this sentence: You might be too busy if…

The results are there in this funny blog post. How would you finish that sentence? Leave your responses in the comments!

Dallas ISD librarians have created a list of 20 excellent bilingual (Spanish/English) and Spanish language books for students in grades Pre-K through 3, called Luminarias. They have graciously offered to share their list by posting it on their web site. This is a great list of titles to consider when ordering books for this population. It might also serve as an alternative to the MISD Mockingbird list for campuses with a high bilingual enrollment.

I’m a little slow getting this posted – there’s lots going on. Hope you enjoy these sites and find them useful. They were selected by Marylaine Block for her Neat New Stuff I Found This Week site at http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html.

 19th Century Schoolbooks

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/n/nietz/

Searchable full texts of 142 American textbooks of the 19th century offer insights into what 19th century American students were taught about history, arithmetic, art, geography, and other topics.

•  100 Things To Do with Google Maps Mashups – gmapsmania http://gmapsmania.googlepages.com/100thingstodowithgooglemapsmashups

I believe that the future of reference service lies not in finding information, but in helping people understand it through visualization.

These Google Maps mashups demonstrate things like finding wi-fi hotspots, a public toilet, world hostels, webcams, etc., and tracking packages or US or Canadian flights in real time.

•  Access Newspaper Archive Institutional Version http://access.newspaperarchive.com/InvalidIP.aspx

“a new program that gives public libraries and K-12 schools around the world FREE access to NewspaperARCHIVE.com’s historical newspaper database. Students and library patrons can browse tens of millions of newspaper pages in our archive for free through your institution. This free version of Access NewspaperARCHIVE will allow users to view, save and print full-page newspapers dating from 1759 to 1977.” For obvious reasons, I wasn’t able to try this out, but it certainly seems worth the effort for school media specialists to download the application form and send it in.

•  Ballot Box

http://governing.typepad.com/ballotbox/

If you can’t get enough political news and analysis, check out this new politics blog from the experts at Governing.com who routinely track federal, state and local government.

•  Build a Network, Not a Destination – Readership Institute http://www.readership.org/blog2/2007/04/build-network-not-destination.html

This advice for news media on building websites that attract and retain readers would apply equally well to libraries’ websites.

•  Butterfly Lab

http://www.naturemuseum.org/online/thebutterflylab/index.htm

Lots of information, pictures and diagrams on butterflies and their anatomy, life cycle, behavior, and interdependence. Browsable by species.

Includes an Ask the Expert feature and suggested activities.

•  Government Information Online – Ask a Librarian http://govtinfo.org/ Sometimes the answers you need are only available in hard-to-find government publications, so if you don’t have a government documents librarian right at hand, you can use this “free national online information service supported by nearly thirty public, academic, and state libraries throughout the United States. Participating librarians specialize in finding government information sources of all kinds, and will try to answer your questions through chat or email.”

•  Hairstylesdesign.com

http://www.hairstylesdesign.com/

The hairstyle galleries may help you find young men and women find a great hairdo before a visit to the stylist. Choose from men’s or women’s, short, medium, or long, formal or celebrity styles. Also check out galleries from Oscar and MTV award shows. There’s not much here for older customers, though.

•  The Industry Standard

http://www.thestandard.com/

If you were in on the early heady days of the world wide web, you were almost certainly reading The Industry Standard for the latest news. It folded as a print publication, but still exists online here, as a source of industry news and predictions.

•  Movie Toolbox: 85+ Tools and Resources for Movie Fans http://mashable.com/2007/09/16/movie-toolbox/

Includes online catalogs, recommendation engines, master indexes, encyclopedic sources, review sites, free streaming video sites, and more.

•  Online Collections from the Wisconsin Historical Museum http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/collections/online/

The online collections provide hundreds of images of Children’s Clothing, Needlework Samplers, Quilts, Moccasins, and Dolls.

•  Top 25 Web 2.0 Search Engines

http://oedb.org/library/features/top-25-web20-search-engines

Engines that use Web 2.0 technologies to improve relevance. “Some offer functionality that’s slowly making its way into traditional search engines. Others further the attempt to traverse the invisible Web and index other previously unsearchable research sources.”

Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2008.

A six-months archive is available on the web site.

Region One ESC and the Region One Library Advisory Committee would like to invite you and your students to participate in the Tejas Star Book Award Program. The Tejas Star list includes bilingual English/Spanish books and books written in Spanish. The purpose of the award is to promote reading in general and for readers to discover the cognitive and economic benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism. Participation is free to all Texas schools this year.

The list of Tejas Star books is available at http://www.esc1.net/tejasstarbookaward . You will also find detailed information on how to participate and how to vote at the Tejas Star web site. Voting will take place during the month of March and the winner will be announced in April, 2008.

Here are the award winners from the ALA Midwinter conference 2008:

2008 John Newbery Medal
(for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature)

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz

2008 Newbery Honor Books

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

and

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

Randolph Caldecott Medal 2008
(for the most distinguished American picture book for children)

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Caldecott Honor Books 2008

Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine

First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís

and

Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems

2008 Michael L. Printz Award
(for excellence in literature written for young adults)

The White Darkness, by Geraldine McCaughrean

2008 Coretta Scott King Award
(recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults)

Coretta Scott King Author Award

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award

Let It Shine by Ashley Bryan

Pura Belpré Award
(honoring Latino authors and illustrators whose work best portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in children’s books)

Pura Belpré Author Award

The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Sean Qualls

Pura Belpré Illustrator Award

Los Gatos Black on Halloween, illustrated by Yuyi Morales, written by Marisa Montes

2008 Robert F. Sibert Medal
(for most distinguished informational book for children)

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís

For other award winners see the press release on ALA’s web site.

AASL eAcademy – Online Learning for School Librarians

AASL has entered into a cooperative arrangement with the University of North Texas (UNT) project LE@D to offer online professional development to school library media specialists. These professional development opportunities are offered as either self-paced or facilitated programs.

Registration for Winter courses is now open! Register today! This would be a great way to obtain the hours you need for certificate renewal.

For course listings and registration, please see:

http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aasleducation/onlinecontinuing/courses/courses.cfm

AASL Offers Its First Digital Institute

AASL has launched its first ever Digital Institute.

Available as part of the AASL e-Academy online offerings, the “Minding Your Students’ Future” institute offers a rich continuing education experience through multiple media, including podcasts, vodcasts, and video.

Focusing on the future of learning in school library media programs, the institute pulls together a variety of sessions captured during the AASL 13th National Conference & Exhibition in Reno, Nevada, October 25-28. It includes a session on the “Standards for the 21st-Century Learner,”

AASL’s newly released learning standards. Other topics explored in the digital sessions include teaching information literacy, research, podcasting, book challenges, and more.

Check out the clips of the Opening General Session with Dan Pink and register for the Digital Institute at:

http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aasleducation/onlinecontinuing/institute/institute.cfm

AASL National Conference Video

In this snapshot from the American Association of School Librarians 13th National Conference in Reno, Nevada, keynote speaker Dan Pink talks about his subversive high school librarian, keynote speaker Omar Wasow discusses how school libraries can compete in the age of Google, AASL President Sara Kelly Johns talks about the new AASL standards, and we are introduced to a project called “Sheet Happens.”

Teens Pick Books with Bite @ Your Library

More than 1,000 teens across the United States chose Books with Bite @ your library as the 2008 Teen Read Week theme, announced the Young Adult Library Services Association.

The theme was chosen in an online vote at www.ala.org/teenread during Teen Read Week 2007.

For the news release, please see:

http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2007/november2007/bite07.htm

The first Batman episode to feature Batgirl shows her working in the Gotham City Library! Enjoy…

<via Stephen’s Lighthouse>

From the AASL Hotlinks for  September 2007…

In August, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills released an updated version of its Framework for 21st Century Learning, which creates a clear vision for 21st Century student outcomes in the new global economy. It also defines how school systems can best support these outcomes by focusing diligently on 21st Century standards, assessments, professional development, curriculum and instruction, and learning environments.

AASL has been active in the Partnership since 2005.

Over on the Kids’ Wings web site, Suzy Red has some great links to go along with this year’s Texas Bluebonnet Award nominees.

Also, don’t forget about Tandem Library’s BookTalk site, where kids can read summaries of current Bluebonnet titles , get information about the authors, rate the books they have read, and get suggestions for read-alikes.

If you have other favorite Bluebonnet resources, please share in the Comments!