Wikipedia: Redefining Research

This is one of the most interesting things I've run across lately:


Via: Open-Site.org

98% accurate compared to college text books?!  And colleges helping create and maintain content? Color me impressed.  Let's just skip over the depressing statistics on library usage. 'kay. How this make you feel about Wikipedia?   If you hadn't already been won over/worn down by Wikipedia, I think this infographic makes it pretty clear we as librarians can't just reject or ignore it.  So  how should we be talking about it with our patrons?  Do we suggest it as a good starting place?  Do we conditionally offer it as a reliable resource in itself?  And as Wikipedia continues to develop, become more accurate and more accepted, will the database companies start to react?  When will we start seeing changes in format and accessibility?

Storytime Theme - Ellen Stoll Walsh

Storytime went really well this week.  Mice make such an easy theme.  My flannel board/game this week was one I call "Little Mouse, Little Mouse." We have about 9 different houses each of a single color and a little gray mouse that hides behind one of them.  It's my favorite kind of flannel board. We work on color recognition and the kids get to play a game where we try to figure which house the mouse is hiding behind.  Snaily Snail also worked on his color recognition, but he wasn't quite as good at is as the kiddos were - which they thought was hilarious.  Mission accomplished!

I read more books than normal, but it worked out okay with the group I had.  We read: Mouse Count, For Pete's Sake, Pip's Magic, and finished with Mouse Shapes which tied into our craft, which was to make mice out of basic shapes, just like in the book.  The kids seemed to get into the craft and some of the older ones even made their mice scary  - which is mentioned briefly in the book.  Colorful construction paper mice with giant teeth drawn in marker are pretty funny. And it was neat that they were paying that much attention to the story!

I'm pretty excited about our illustrators for the rest of spring: Jane Cabrera, Charles Fuge and Marcus Pfister.

On a non-storytime note, my social media committee and I have a Boopsie webinar coming up next week. Pretty excited to start considering mobile technology for our library system.  Does anyone have any experience with Boopsie or other similar technologies to share??

Storytime Theme - Don Freeman

Today's storytime was a little rough.  The group was a bit smaller than usual, and for whatever reason, they were less focused.  Today's theme was Don Freeman, illustrator of Corduroy.  Rather than using my regular puppet Snaily Snail, I brough Jelly Belly, my new baby black bear puppet.  She's a new puppet and I don't have her fully figured out yet.  She's very soft, so I invited the kids to come up and pet her.  One of the little boys was a little afraid, because "her claws are very sharp." It was so cute!  It took a few minutes, but all the kids worked up the courage to pet her and seemed to enjoy it.


We read Corduroy and Beady Bear.  The books are classics, but were too long - especially for my rowdy group of 2, 3 and 4 year olds.  I wouldn't have chosen this theme/these books  on my own, but the choice wasn't mine. I used the action rhyme "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear," our "Five Little Bears" flannel board and Raffi's "Shake Your Sillies Out" to break up the storytime.  The craft was a success at least- we created large corrugated bear stamps that we "inked" with paint and then we added single strap overalls and buttons.  Next week is Jonathan Lambert, which will be fun!

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Spring 2012 Storytime Themes

The storytimes at my library this Spring are based on different illustrators. The books feature their artwork and most of our crafts focus on experimenting with their techniques.  For a few, we're creating thematically appropriate projects. I've got to say, there have been some great weeks and some duds. It's been an interesting exercise to find illustrators who have remarkable or recognizable art styles that translates into a good craft project and has a number of titles to choose from, with 3-4 of those titles working for a preschool storytime.  We handout storytime sheets every week that include the stories we read and some fingerplays to do at home, for this session, we're also including biographies on the back.

A couple of our goals with this storytime series are to draw attention to various artists, highlight and discuss their artwork, and broaden the awareness of the children and parents who attend our storytimes. I don't know if these goals are really being accomplished though.  Do the kids really get anything more out these storytimes than any others?  Are the parents paying attention to what we're doing? Are they checking out books by these illustrators as a result of the storytimes? Are they discussing the artwork when they read books to their children?   Do you have any experience running a storytime series like this?  Who are your favorite illustrators?  Do you feel like your patrons are grasping what you wanted them to?

domain confusion

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm taking two classes this quarter for the first time since I started my program: LIS 660 Instructional Training Strategies for Information Professionals and LIS 530 Organization of Information and Resources. We're only 2.5 weeks into the quarter and so far it's okay, but I have serious doubts that this level of okay will last. I fear insanity will ensue in 3.5 weeks.

Despite warnings of metadata horrors I'm actually really enjoying my 530 class. As evidence, I'm actually doing the readings. Let me say that again, I am doing the readings. I almost never really read readings (hehe) for my courses - my gratitude to BSU for my B.A. in BS (aka English Lit). The topic matter is confusing, intellectually challenging (for once) and super interesting. I'm getting all excited about the possibilities FBRB and wondering what change is going to be effected because of RDA. Does this mean that deep in my customer service-oriented, video game-playing, people-loving, teen librarian heart lives a cataloger?!?

the beginning of something new

I was doing a bit of reading in preparation for my upcoming class "Information in a Social Context" and this is one of the things we had assigned. So great! Go read it! I'm actually getting excited for this class. So far all the readings have had to do with ethics. This class might actually be intellectually stimulating!? *shock* Here's hoping...

Why to be a Librarian

One of our local school's 8th grade came to the library this morning to do research on careers. While looking up info for a student on becoming a public librarian in our Internet Careers Database (love it btw) I came across this list of "pluses":

Pluses:

• Constantly learning
• Access to the latest technology
• Freedom
• You're paid to read
• Bright, attractive places to work
• Satisfaction of helping people
• Important public service

Hard to pick which is my fav - probably #4, though they're almost all fantastic LIES! lol. I just have to ask...where do they get their info from?? Don't get me wrong, I love libraries and working in them, but really people? Really?