Stamping The Books

Making a screen recording was suspiciously simple to do with Screencast-o-matic. Just a few clicks and I was recording what I was seeing on screen and narrating. So simple, so brilliant. I have tried instruction videos before but this involved propping up ipads, positioning of monitors, sitting in strange places so I wasn't seen on screen, then recording the voice over separately. It did the job though it was so time consuming and awkward. This system is so much simpler, straightforward and will be a boon for recording instructions for using the library catalogue or guides for using specific software etc. I'll certainly be sharing this with my librarian and teacher colleagues. This also has got me thinking about how I could have used this in my previous life in the public sector with providing on line guides to using our catalogue and website, and simple commuting guides. These would be especially useful for people accessing the service remotely, and indeed would be a usefu...

Last night I linked into a webinar not expecting much from it, perhaps some information to share with the English Department. But how wrong was I!  The webinar from the New York Times Education section entitled   ' Write to Change the World: Crafting Persuasive Pieces With Help from Nicholas Kristof and the Times Op-Ed Page' , proved to a fascinating hour of information and explanation around the perennial High School essay - the discursive essay. As a school librarian I sometimes get the job of highlighting sources the pupils can use to look for ideas, sometimes with  a class, other times with pupils one to one if they are really struggling.  This webinar though has given me a real insight into how I can not just promote sources of information to the pupils, but also encourage them to look at other ways of approaching their essay - choose an argument or pick a fight with something. Start it with a real bang! It also highlig...

I encourage the kids at work to tell me about the books they have read and to do a review, and rarely do myself. So I relished the chance to do a review for the latest Sally Prue novel for Reading Zone which they have published. I actually found the process quite challenging especially as I struggled to engage with the novel at times, and I had to remind myself that this is a novel aimed at 8-11 year old children not adults. Also putting in negative comments  was a challenge to me as what i see as a negative other folk may not have an issue with, and is it just me not engaging with the book properly rather than a flaw in the writing! So I have a new appreciation for pupils at work who are tasked to do book reviews, and having struggled with this one, I think I need to get a few more done to hone my reviewer style! Sally Prue review

It's Banned Book Week this week and this is the basis of my book talk to my S2 class visits to the library this week. We're looking at why books have been banned or challenged, what do they think about the reasons, freedom of speech and to read and would they want to read a book if it were banned from the school library.  The graphic above was created  on an app called PhotoFunia, and was scarily easy to do. I like the professional look of the finish photo, and I look forward to investigating this app further to see what it can do! Watch out for the results. 

This beautiful image is of the  Strahov Monastery in Prague. I found this image by searching Pixabay.com for libraries. The site returned a wide range of images, which being licensed as Creative Commons means I could reuse the image guilt free! It was easy to search and download the image, though one negative is that the image didn't have the name of the library with it. I had to resort to a google image search to find the name and location of the library. Should I just stick to using google image search I ask myself? 

I'm going to be finding out about 'Floating Collections' tonight via an online webinar - ' The Ebb and Flow of Floating Collections' . I'm not really sure what floating collections are but I look forward to finding out! Join me by following this link: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1493901/866A8F74A911315DFE5DBBA1AD608028