With very few exceptions (family Zoom calls), now that NCTE/ALAN is over, I'm staying away from my laptop and only checking personal email until next Tuesday, when we return to work. This tweet caught my eye, however, and I felt compelled to share: On a good day, I'm surviving. Most days, I'm struggling. And on… Continue reading Checking In
Professionally Developing
Every year I look forward to having the opportunity to learn from experts and peers, to hear about great programs and books and ways to doing the normal library thing that are different from the way in which I'm doing them. Of course, that in person learning and sharing simply isn't going to happen in… Continue reading Professionally Developing
Getting the news out
There's that old adage, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Since we can't effectively create displays for students or do in-person Readers Advisory, we've started an occasional newsletter. It's promoting our services as well as other websites and resources that we think our readers will find helpful/useful/interesting. This was what we started with: But that… Continue reading Getting the news out
Back to Basics
I don't know about any of you, but I love having conversations with people where I'm the least smart person in the room. Last weekend, a book group consisting of friends I've made on various book award committees met and as much as I read, I'm definitely not the smartest person there. Far, far from… Continue reading Back to Basics
Will our ebooks fly off the screen?
While at my last school, I was asked to present on ebooks and our school's experience. Porter's is a 1:1 iPad school and virtually all of the student's textbooks were digital, so when one third of the students responded saying they preferred print was not a surprise. Some of the answers why included that because… Continue reading Will our ebooks fly off the screen?
Getting a little giddy
In March, just after we closed due to COVID, the library's focus was on supporting our history classes doing research (around 600 students, all researching away... just a little crazy, right?). So we added EBSCO's Academic and High School ebooks collection, entering 3500+ MARC records into our catalog while encouraging students to search the whole… Continue reading Getting a little giddy
Am I the last to know?
Luckily for me, last week I was working on campus and so missed much of the Amy Coney Barrett hearings commentary. One thing, however, did cross my radar and got me thinking. It was this exchange with Sen. Hirono: “I have no agenda,” Barrett replied. “I do want to be clear that I have never… Continue reading Am I the last to know?
Making a sub-Prime list
People who know me know I'm anti-Amazon. There are so many reasons, from the way they treat warehouse workers and drivers to killing off mom&pop and Main Street businesses to not paying local taxes. I understand the people who say "but the discount" -- to which I say, "but your town and local employment!" Anyway,… Continue reading Making a sub-Prime list
The past five years in 21 slides
Ok, maybe not everything that's happened in the past five years, but this is a short distillation of the Really Big Project we've been working on in the library. One of the other librarians and I presented this today at the NELA 2020 conference. There's so much more I could say about the nitty-gritty but… Continue reading The past five years in 21 slides
Go!
A short while ago I posted Ready? Set? and so now, clearly, it's time for "go"! "Go" started yesterday, the first day of classes (remote) for the Upper School. Our Middle and Lower Schools are still doing some orientation work, but those students are on campus, getting used to the new spaces and pathways and… Continue reading Go!
