Using Google Forms to Submit Book Requests

Students often want to make book suggestions, and keeping track of all of their ideas had become more management than I wanted to admit. Google Forms to the rescue!

Jennifer Carey, http://www.edudemic.com/5-great-ways-use-google-forms/

Now students may submit a book request from the library main page. The link will take students to a Google Form where they may enter the title of a book. 

You can also CLICK HERE to access the Google Form.

 Their responses are recoded, and when ordering time comes around, viola! Book suggestions are easy to access!

Having problems accessing the form? Just stop by the library, and we'll see what we can do to help. 

Pick Me! Pick Me!

There's a new library display! This time, the books featured all have a similar cover color. (Thanks to a pin on Pinterest from MEI Secondary Library!)

Some of the books include newer releases such as The Elite by Kiera Cass and Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony by Eion Colfer, as well as old favorites like Blood Fever by Charles Higson and Sabotaged by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Do you see any of your favorites with these colors on the cover? What books would you have liked to see included? Stop by and let me know!

QR Codes & the Iowa Teen Award Books

Each year language arts classes get a preview of the Iowa Teen Award nominees, and this year, students used iPads to learn about the 15 titles. Rather than sit and listen to a presentation about the books, students took control and moved about the library to scan QR codes linked to book trailers, presentations, and interviews related to the books.

The free QR code generating website Kaywa was simple to use and generated QR codes that could be screen-shotted and included on a document along with an image of the book cover and a permalink to  the code itself.

With each code/image/permalink was placed on a piece of card stock, and students were then able to move about the library to different tables to scan for information about the books. As they moved about, they were asked to make a few notes for themselves to track which books they found interesting.

At the end of our class rotations, nearly every 6th and 7th grader will have passed through the library to participate in the activity and learn more about our Iowa Teen Award books for the year!

Iowa Teen Award Nominees Presentation

Interested in reading one of the Iowa Teen Award nominees for the year? Check out this Prezi by an Iowa librarian:



As we have done in years past, we will vote for a building winner in March before spring break, and in mid-April we will learn which of these books is our state-wide winner.

Stop by the library to check out one of these great books!

Using Symbaloo from the Library Main Page

With Symbaloo becoming more and more popular, it's time we in the MS Library got on board! If you've visited the library main page recently, you may have noticed that some of the headings have a cleaner, more streamlined look.

No more long lists of links to take you to our research databases or to a variety of online reading resources. With one click, you'll be at our Symbaloos. Take a look below and click on the caption to see where you can go!

CLICK HERE to access the Research Resources Symbaloo.

CLICK HERE to access the All Things Reading Symbaloo.

Stay tuned for revisions and additions to these Symbaloos, and be on the lookout for more of them appearing on the library main page to make your library experience more user-friendly!

Welcome Back to School!

It's back to school time! To welcome students back to the library, two new displays await:

If you didn't get a chance to travel the world this summer, no worries! Reading can take you anywhere! Featured on the world map are books like The Lions of Little Rock and The Scorpio Races if you feel like traveling domestically. Want to break out the passport and travel internationally? Try The Outcasts or Prisoner B-3087.

Another display aims at helping students--and anyone else!--stay connected with happenings in the library.

Featured are the apps for Destiny Quest, Google Drive, Blogger, Instagram, Symbaloo, Google Hangouts, QR Reader, and Pinterest. What do they all have in common? Each of them is just another way we can share what's happening in the library or a way for students to find resources and books. Need to know more? Stop by to talk with one of us in the library, and we'll make sure you and your devices are ready to go!

Thoughts about The Giver

Lois Lowry's Newbery-award winning dystopian novel The Giver hits the big screen today (you can watch the trailer HERE), and with its release comes talk about why it's often a challenged or banned book in schools.

According to an article by Ben Blatt for Slate, The Giver ranks 11th among books "requested for removal" between the years 1990 - 1999; in the 2000's, the book still ranked 23rd on the list. The Office for Intellectual Freedom reports that just under one-third of the time was the book removed from the shelf.

Most requests to remove a book are related to sexually explicit content or offensive language; however, The Giver doesn't fit that stereotype. Instead, those who wish to see it removed from shelves say that the story is "unsuited for the age group," which typically means the story is too "dark" for the intended age of the audience.

In Blatt's article "Will The Giver Movie Prompt More Schools to Ban the Book?"we can see that The Giver is challenged nearly two times more often for its "unsuitability" than all other books challenged:

Have you read The Giver? Do you have plans to see the movie? With Banned Books Week just around the corner (September 21 - 27), you might want to do both and be part of the conversation!