Surprise! Mediocre Books = Great Book Club Discussions!

Last week my small book club (one10th grade boy, seven 9th-10th grade girls) discussed James Patterson's The Angel Experiment, the first in the popular Maximum Ride series. The students and I loved the book - so much action, such great characters, such imagination! But we agreed that the writing wasn't fabulous, and the characters were sometimes unbelievable, like when one would suddenly and just in time realize she had a special power that would save the day. But now my students are fighting for the sequels and devouring the series.
 So, what made this a great discussion? We made a list on the whiteboard of all the characters, their powers so far, and if those powers were positive or negative. The hilarious discussion that ensued (like about the character Gasman - guess his special power), made my day. I often try to find literary, critically acclaimed books for us to read (Our next selection is The Book Thief). Now I know that sometimes it is great to dissect books that are really just fun. The conversations that arise about what makes a great story, or what makes a book literary (or not) are just as valuable when discussing a mediocre book as when discussing a masterpiece.

My First Slideshare: Creative Commons Attribution

This is the first time I have shared anything on Slideshare. I am presenting these slides as part of a presentation to my faculty about Creative Commons. I found while I was making it that there are so many options for attribution, really, but we need to come up with the best way for our students to do it and teach them that way. I am a rule follower usually, so I am leaning toward following how Creative Commons says it "is nice" to do (see recent blog post).
Pardon the sloppy transcript for the slides, by the way, I wasn't sure they would be posted! It is easy to update the slideshow, however, which I may do soon. I'm loving Slideshare so far. I embedded my slideshow into the LibGuide for our presentation - it looks great!

Creative Commons Attribution

View more presentations from elisabeth abarbanel.

School Librarian or Teacher Librarian

This is especially for Independent School Librarians:
Please read Cathy Nelson's blog post and comment - which title do you prefer? Why does it seem that most independent School Librarians like the term School Librarian?  Are our jobs and responsibilities that different? Are our goals different? I don't think so. It seems very important to many public school librarians to switch to Teacher-Librarian. We do need some consistency in this - where do you stand and why?

Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts » Blog Archive » What’s in a name? A discussion about identity & vision via kwout

Creative Commons Image Attribution

I put the following on my school library blog for the students, but I thought it might help some of you too. It took me a while to get the hang of using Creative Commons licensed images. I hope this helps you! Please send feedback and ideas; I will be teaching our faculty about this later this month.

If you find a digital image (or video or audio file) you want to use in a presentation or project, first you must discover if you are allowed to use it, alter it, or sell it. Creative Commons licenses take the mystery out of this aspect of your research.

The following picture I found on flickr using the Creative Commons portal, a great resource for finding images you are allowed to use in your work. Or you can search flickr: Creative Commons directly. On the bottom right of the flickr page for the image, in the Additional Information section, there is a link usually titled Some rights reserved. If you click on this link, you will find if and how you are allowed to use the image. It will also give HTML to copy and paste the correct attribution onto a site.

I added the title of this photo with a link directly to the photo's page, and the photographer's name in this attribution. The attribution sends readers to the photographer's site on flickr, and the second part links to  the type of license (in this case, non-commercial, share alike - meaning you also must allow the same licensing).

"Sharing" by Andy Woo  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wooandy/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I used Picnik to quickly and easily add a frame and put part of the attribution on this photo, and I added a heart as well, since I am allowed to make a derivative work.Although you will sometimes see only  this short attribution, the more complete one is preferred (note the language from the quotation from creativecommons below).

"Sharing" by evilpeacock 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/evilpeacock/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The next one I edited in Picnik as well. Notice that I can really adapt the work, as long as I give credit.The attributions within the pictures in this case aren't links, but the URLs are short enough to type in if needed.

"Hummingbirds Sharing a Flower" by cronewynd

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cronewynd/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

This is a derivative work of

"Hummingbirds Sharing a Flower" by cronewynd

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cronewynd/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

More information from the Creative Commons FAQ:

"How do I properly attribute a Creative Commons licensed work?

All current CC licenses require that you attribute the original author(s). If the copyright holder has not specified any particular way to attribute them, this does not mean that you do not have to give attribution. It simply means that you will have to give attribution to the best of your ability with the information you do have. Generally speaking, this implies five things:

• If the work itself contains any copyright notices placed there by the copyright holder, you must leave those notices in tact, or reproduce them in a way that is reasonable to the medium in which you are re-publishing the work.

• Cite the author's name, screen name, user identification, etc. If you are publishing on the Internet, it is nice to link that name to the person's profile page, if such a page exists.

• Cite the work's title or name, if such a thing exists. If you are publishing on the Internet, it is nice to link the name or title directly to the original work.

• Cite the specific CC license the work is under. If you are publishing on the Internet, it is nice if the license citation links to the license on the CC website.

• If you are making a derivative work or adaptation, in addition to the above, you need to identify that your work is a derivative work i.e., “This is a Finnish translation of the [original work] by [author].” or “Screenplay based on [original work] by [author].”

Library Day in the Life: Reflection

My Library Day in the Life is a bit different today. After three hours at work, my son's school nurse called me to tell me he was sick and I needed to pick him up. I suppose he has the cold my daughter had earlier in the week. Instead of writing about the work I didn't really finish today, the meetings I didn't have, or the fun things I missed this afternoon (a Patricia Polacco visit and making Valentine's Day cards with our amazing lower school librarian and Stampin' Up demonstrator ), I want to quickly reflect on  this daily blogging activity (so I can go to sleep and blog again tomorrow!).

I look at the past few posts and I think how lucky I am to have such a great job. I have written about good meetings with great colleagues, satisfying library and non-library tasks, and a supportive administration.

I realize that this week, since I didn't teach much, I had less interactions with the kids, but more interactions with the faculty. Both are very valuable and I enjoy being able to have the best of both worlds.

I never wrote of being bored - which makes sense as I am never bored at work (well, there was one boring moment, but it had purpose!). There is always something interesting to do or learn at my library.

Frankly,  I just enjoy being a school librarian. I love the community of the school, working with passionate, smart, and silly  teens, and being surrounded by books, technology, and nice people. Add  summers off, and I feel very lucky. It is nice to be reminded of that by this experience of blogging about my daily work! Thanks Bobbi Newman and Library Day in the Life!

Library Day in the Life - Calm

Day 3 of Library Day in the Life went by fast. My daughter magically got better around 3:00 PM yesterday, so she went back to school today. At work I organized, collaborated, and caught up on a bunch of smaller things.Today was a very calm and productive day.

• I started my day at the reference desk, astounding one girl with the amount of resources we have on Kurds, helping a student with Diigo, loaning a DVD of  The Crucible to a teacher, and having typically random conversations with students.
  
  
• After grabbing some Cheerios, I cleaned my desk, putting together working files and filing away old paperwork. Then I made a to do list. I am rarely without my little blue or purple pad of paper with my ongoing lists. I have tried many electronic list-making tools, but nothing satisfies me more than crossing items off my list with a pen. My address book is digital, my photos are digital, my lists are on little blue pads of paper from Office Depot.
  
  
• Next I collaborated with the Lower Division Librarian about  our approach to co-chairing the library chapter of the WASC accreditation report, which we have to start next month.
  
  
• I met with my Advisory group. Every week for about 25 minutes I meet with the same dozen teenagers. I have been with this group for almost three years now, and today we talked about our school community and if it upholds its stated value of caring. It was a good conversation, and we commented how different it would have been if they were in 9th grade (they are now in 11th).
  
  
• Next I hopped into the Educational Technology Specialist's office in the library and we met about how to better reach reluctant teachers and encourage their professional growth in the realm of technology. We also decided to formally meet on a weekly basis with the other Ed Tech guy as well. Very productive meeting.
  
  
• Today for lunch I made a nice salad at the salad bar and ate outside in the sunshine with my friends/coworkers. 
  
  
• Next I caught up on my email and Twitter (professional development at its finest), followed the tweets about the new  iPad for a bit (nice price!), and I discovered that my new UCLA mentor is just 1 degree of separation from me already - we were bound to meet even if I weren't her mentor.
  
  
• Then I took an Atomic Learning assessment about 21st century skills. Luckily I passed (I got a  B), but the test was mediocre. I took it as a favor to the Ed Tech guy, who was wondering if all the teachers should take it. My response was, "Only if you want people to talk about you behind your back." We agreed that test is boring and unimaginative, and really not a clear indicator of knowledge. If the school wants to assess our teachers in this way, we could probably design a better assessment for our community.
  
  
• Next I had to work on some non-library related committee work for about an hour.Fun, but nothing to blog about.
  
  
• Off to pick up the kids from school!
  

Library Day in the Life - at Home

It is Library Day in the Life, Day 2, and instead of reporting for duty at the school library, I am home with my daughter who has a low fever and a strong cough. What does a school librarian do when home all day?
First I had to negotiate with  my husband about who would stay home all day. I won. I get more sick days, and my library schedule didn't look too busy today. These sick days make it both hard and delicious to be a working mom. It is hard to call in and say I'm not coming, knowing it just means more work for the other librarians. Many independent schools do not hire subs for librarians. The day is delicious because my daughter isn't that sick, and we can just hunker down and try to enjoy the unexpected day off. Here is what we did.

• TV on (when sick, children love TV even more than usual, and I tend to let them watch).
• Checked in at work via email.
• TV off.
  
• Made breakfast.
• Made Valentines. 
• Made lunch.
  
• TV on.
  
• Added my library as a venue on foursquare - wondering who will participate.
• Blogged/facebooked about the above to spread the word.
• TV off.
  
• Finished Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson while daughter read Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Found out I am a mentor for a UCLA student and contacted her via email.
• TV on.
• Had the washing machine repairman tell me my washer is totally broken and too expensive to fix. 
• Fretted about the above. 
• TV off.
  
• Picked up son from school and dropped him off at an after school activity.
• Did laundry at my mom's house.
• Met son and husband at home to make dinner.
• Made and ate lovely dinner.
• Folded laundry.
  
• Wondered if I will return to work tomorrow. Check in tomorrow to find out!