Interactive Sites

These are great resources to accompany lessons on a variety of topics!

http://interactivesites.weebly.com/

http://karenogen.blogspot.com/

Just for Kicks

Need a laugh? Awful Library Books is a site created by and for librarians who stumble across those books that...er...are better left unshelved.

Each post contains pictures of terrible, awful, no good, very bad books (like this one) and provide an explanation for weeding them. This site is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face...and some pretty great rationale for weeding as well!

Sounds Good to Me

Okay, I'm sure this is old news to many of you, but I wanted to share one trick I've recently discovered...constantly streaming music in the library. I found an old stack of classical CD's and dusted off an old player, and the effect has been outstanding. Without saying a word, I have observed numerous classes coming in to use the lab just automatically settle down so they can hear the music. Pods of kids who would normally need some intense supervision to prevent all kinds of naughtiness are just completely laid back and on task.

Even the teachers are calmer...and that's saying something for late January of any school year! :)

 It's such a small thing but truly has made a pretty amazing difference in my library. Give it a go!

What tricks do YOU have to share?

Offline Circulation

One of the coolest features of Atriuum is that even in the rare event that the network goes down, we can continue to manage circulation by using the Offline Circulation tool. This is an incredible piece to our circulation system because it means we never have to go out of the business of putting reading material in the hands of students and teachers who need them RIGHT NOW (isn't it always RIGHT NOW?)! :)

In order to use this feature, you have to download the application. To do that...

1. Log in to Atriuum and go to Administration and then click the link for Library.

2. Click Downloads, and scroll to the bottom section titled Utilities.

3. Click Offline Circulation Setup (Mac or Windows, depending on your machine). This is an executable file (.exe), so you will want to click Run or Open (not Save). From this point forward, I'll be listing directions for Windows machines, since that is what most of us are using. If you're on a Mac, well...a)You're awesome, b)You're on your own, and c)You can probably handle that. :)

NOT that all my Windows peeps aren't equally as awesome, of course! 

So anyway, up will come this installation wizard. Click Next. 

4. Select your installation destination (just click Next). 

5. Select Start Menu Folder (just click Next). 

6. Select your target icons. (Just leave everything as defaulted and click Next). 

7. You are now ready to install. Click Install. 

8.  Click Finish. 

9. Okay, just one more step and you will be ready to roll. Now you must configure your server settings. To do this, click File and server settings.  

Everyone's server name is the same: library.jefcoed.com

Your library name should be the extension you see in your Atriuum after library.jefcoed.com: (Ex: mine is library.jefcoed.com/norhes, therefore my library name is norhes) If you need help with this, I would be happy to assist you. 

Your user name is what you use to log in to Atriuum. 

Your password is what you use to log in to Atriuum. 

And Ba-da-Boom. You're in business!!! 

BLS Spring Fling

Burrow Library Services is having their annual Spring Fling on April 23, 2012 at the Bessemer Civic Center. Included in the day's events will be a luncheon with author Mike Thaler (of the famous Black Lagoon series)!

Contact Burrow Library Services ASAP to reserve your spot. Space is limited! 

Citation Aggregators

I don't know how in the world I made it through undergrad without a citation generator. Plugging a source was easy enough (and my pre-librarian consciousness willed it), but figuring out all that punctuation was sort of a nightmare at times..especially when one professor wanted Turabian, the other wanted MLA, and a third wanted APA style.

These days, students are well versed in all the citation generators available. CitationMachine, BibMe, and EasyBib are just a few examples of free websites that, given the necessary information, computes a nice and tidy citation to be copied and pasted into their References slide or page.

The difference between a citation generator and a citation aggregator is that a generator does just that...it pumps out a citation, given the proper information. An aggregator, on the other hand, is a collector. EasyBib is a great example of an aggregator because your students can create accounts and then save and organize their citations over time. That is immensely helpful to students collecting a variety of sources for assignments.
Zotero is another example. Many users enjoy Zotero because it has a plug-in you can install to your browser and it will automatically generate a citation (and save it) for whatever site you are reading/browsing/etc. Additionally, Zotero will input citations directly into your word processing software. Pretty nifty!

Kids today...sheesh! They have it made! :)

KidZui

For some of our students, learning to use technology tools even at a very early age, is second nature. By age two these kids ( mine being among them!) can use an iPhone or iPad better than most adults I know. For others, however, walking into the library or computer lab as a kindergartner is the first exposure they have to any sort of computer resource. Regardless of the skills they arrive with, it is our job to help all of them learn how to use technology resources.

Starting out right away with Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer might be fine for some, but for other young ones a more basic browser may be necessary. KidZui can help with that! It is an internet browser created specifically for young children. It requires a quick, FREE, download to each machine, which is a bit of a hassle, but is time well spent.

Once downloaded, you teach students to look for the orange "K" on the desktop. When they open the browser, it completely takes over the machine. Students can watch videos, play games, use favorites buttons, and practice navigational techniques like back button, forward button, and scrolling. 

If you use a seating chart, you can even preconfigure the options so that the games are targeted to boys, girls, certain ages, etc. Most of the videos stream from YouTube, which of course will be blocked for us. The games and other interactive sites will work beautifully, though. They key to KidZui is that even though children are consuming the same type of media as the "Big Internet," only these resources have been hand selected by parents and teachers. 

My two and four year olds love KidZui. I highly recommend it to parents of young children, because one of the features is that it emails you a chart each week they use it detailing how much time they spent on each area of the browser. I like it because my kids are learning how to navigate the Internet, but because of how the program works they don't have free reign out on the world wide web. Boundaries are good for children! 

KidZui comes highly rated by CNET and several other major tech media outlets. Check it out for yourself!