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Commoncraft Video: Libraries in the Internet Age

The wonderful folks at Commoncraft love libraries and they’ve produced one of their wonderful explainer videos called Libraries in the Internet Age for anyone to freely share with their community, on social media or embed on a website, blog, etc. Better yet, if you work in a library, see if your community partners might embed it on their website!

 

To embed it, just click on that embed button under the video, copy the code and paste it where you want the video to appear. And voila!


(Via: Joyce Valenza on twitter)

Terrific “The Fault in our Stars” Readalikes Thinglink

Terese Brennan put together a terrific “The Fault in Our Stars” readalikes resource making clever use of  two free tools – SoundCloud and Thinglink.

Terese used SoundCloud to record short book teasers for readalike books that were in the school library collection. Then linked the audio files to book cover images in a Thinglink thing.  (What are thinglink things really called??)

From there she embedded it on the Cambridge (NY) school library’s LibGuides page.   And it was easy-peasy for me to copy the embed code to include it below. Nice work Terese!

 

 

Speak Up for NYS Library Aid

Take a minute to support NYS libraries

Libraries are essential

Libraries are essential

A minute! That’s all it takes to  send a message to support library aid to NYS Libraries.

Yesterday I saw stats on how many of these messages had been sent to each NYS legislator. I was astonished at how few!

I thought there would be a flood of letters. There weren’t even enough to account for a all of our trustees & library staff, let alone the public who use our libraries. Amazing.

Sign and ask someone else too. I’m guilty too, I didn’t even get around to sharing this with my husband. I will now!

Library Advocacy Day

one tenth of one cent

Library Aid is less than 1/10 of 1% of the NYS Budget – Support Fully Funding Library Aid (image scsdmshslibrary

Today was Library Advocacy Day in NY. The day when hundreds of library staff, trustees, supporters and many students travel to Albany to meet with legislators to talk about how libraries serve their communities. And oh yeah, they also talk about the state aid that NYS Education law requires and what the Governor’s budget actually proposes. No surprise, those numbers aren’t the same.

New York State Education Law requires library aid for FY 2015-2016 to be $102.6M. This figure is based on the most recent census data. The Governor’s flat funding proposal puts state library aid at $86.6M, equivalent to 1997 funding and $16M short of where it should be. (Source: Speak Up for NYS Library Aid)

The New York Library Association has a super easy way to send your support on their Speak Up for NYS Library Aid page.   Enter your name and address and a letter of support will be sent to your legislators.

New York State Performers and Programs Database

Performers and Programs New York State

An email query about how the New York State Performers and Programs project was built sent my memory banks into overdrive today trying to remember what tools we used to create the project back in 2004.

Taking a look at the site for the first time in a long time, I was so pleased to see that it’s still being used and updated with great new programs and performers.

The database is searchable by audience, topics, regions, costs and keywords. And includes over 800 programs that have been updated in the last year. The whole database includes over 2,000 programs.

If you know of a performer or program provider that isn’t registered, encourage them to do so! And do check it out to find some new program ideas.

 

New York State Performers and Programs

More information about the project.  The site is currently maintained by the New York State Library Dept of Library Development.

Sight Words Fun and Games

Sight Words Bingo Board

Lots of fun printable games from the Sight Words website. Customizable Bingo boards, matching games, dominoes and more. Use the provided vocabularly lists for Pre-K through 3rd grade. Or use your own words to customize.

Sightwords.com is a comprehensive sequence of teaching activities, techniques, and materials for one of the building blocks of early child literacy. This collection of resources is designed to help teachers, parents, and caregivers teach a child how to read. We combine the latest literacy research with decades of teaching experience to bring you the best methods of instruction to make teaching easier, more effective, and more fun.”

(via: 6 New Educational Web Tools for Teachers)

 

Technology Retreat for School Librarians

Coming up this coming weekend – a 2 day Technology Retreat for School Librarians with a great group of people at one of my favorite places, the beautiful campus of the Carey Institute for Global Good (formerly the Rensselaerville Institute) in Rensselaerville, NY. This wonderful ‘away from it all’ location in the Helderbergs is the perfect setting for lots of learning, sharing, collaborating and laughing to take place.

Jen Cannell and J’aime Pfeiffer have organized this weekend for their school librarians. Melissa Jacobs Israel, Lisa Rudd and I will all be presenting sessions. And I’ve heard rumors of some sort of evening talent show or competition? No doubt a good time and lots of learning will be had by all.

 

 
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