Fantasy: Unbridled Fancy

The library window display for last month was fantasy, which one definition described it as unrestrained fancy. The Texan in me changed it to 'unbridled' fancy. I tried to unbridle my own mind and not think too hard about what I would include in the display other than using what materials I had on hand and trying to make it magical-looking or whatever strikes my fancy. It looks busy and cluttered-- not to be taken in and understood with a quick glance. There are layers and enigmas and oddities about it, much like fantasy stories.

So I used styrofoam packing materials, a lot of large rubber bands I've collected from our newspapers, window frames, vines created from twisted strips of bulletin board paper, a yellow brick road on the rubber mats from AV carts, and a lot of fantasy books to display including Frank L. Baum's Oz books (and there are more than just The Wizard of Oz), Kathryn Lasky's Guardian of Ga'hoole books, Tony Abbott's Secrets of Droon books, Erin Hunter's the Warriors books and other authors' books such as Tolkien, Potter, Barron, Lewis, and a number of others.

A book that is considered a fantasy has magical elements in it-- something that couldn't necessarily happen in real life-- talking animals, flying brooms, mythical creatures like dragons or ogres, inanimate objects coming to life, etc. Fantasy stories can take place in the distant past or future, or even a contemporary or present setting.

Often fantasy and science fiction are grouped together, but there are differences between them. Sci-fi usually takes place in the future and could potentially happen when technology catches up with the story. Often sci-fi writers are in the science or medical fields and can draw on their knowledge and backgrounds to come up with believable plots. With sci-fi and fantasy both, if the story has extraordinary technology and magical elements, it still has to ring true somehow or the reader won't commit to it.

"Scales" by Vanessa Roeder, Used with permission

www.nessadeeart.blogspot.com

Some of the most prolific readers in my middle school are fantasy readers. The library has a large collection of fantasy books, and many of them are in series, which students love because the stories and the characters they've become attached to don't end after one book.

The Quilt System

The February display tells the story of how people used quilts to send messages to the runaway slaves traversing the Underground Railroad. For the sign, I used MS Word and went to the Insert tab, Clip Art, and searched each letter individually to create a quilt square look for each letter.

I brought two colorful quilts from home to use as the background and draped on a chair, as well as some quilted placemats and a table runner. I brought out all of the cloth from the supply room and filled every basket I had on hand to make it look like a sewing room.

I pulled books about slavery and the Underground Railroad to display.

#12 Reflection and Evaluation

It's happened again. Technology continually grows and changes and updates, and I'm finding again with Web 2.0 that I have to keep growing and changing and updating with it. I see the contrast very distinctly between two libraries I'm currently working with: my church library and my school library.

The church library has almost 4,000, but only 800 books and videos are less than 20 years old, and most of the materials haven't been touched in years. The collection is circulated manually, and few patrons visit the library or even know what's in it. It has some wonderful resources buried amongst the old. We had a good meeting last night and came up with some short-term and long-term goals, and weeding will be the first major project. I'm excited about working with this small library and coming up with ways to resurrect it, using the librarian's words.

Contrasting that with my school library, I felt like we were really up with the times-- we are automated, our catalog is online where students can use our resources from home, we participate in the K-12 Database program, we have wireless Internet access where guests can bring their laptops and work online. I collaborate with seven other librarians in the district and we work together to improve our collections and services. But now that I've gone through A Dozen Ways to Two-Step Web 2.0 Training, I feel like there is just as big a difference between my library and what it can do with new technologically as there is between my library and the church library. We can be doing so much more, and I hope the twelve steps will continue to remain online so we can refer back to them when needed.

I was most familiar with having a blog because I created one with my own Web site [http://www.donnavancleve.com/ and http://www.blog.donnavancleve.com/] because of the books I've written, but I've only recently posting regularly on library-related purposes. I think I will continue the Shelf Mouse blog and switch the library posts to that blog. As for technologies that I was unfamiliar with--especially using them for library services, just about everything else in the training was new to me, so I definitely benefited from this course. Please keep them coming-- this is such a great idea!

Illustration by Vanessa Roeder, http://www.nessadeeart.blogspot.com/ and http://www.etsy.com/shop/nessadee Used with permission.

#11 The Wide World of Podcasting

I don't know why I hadn't thought about me actually doing a podcast-- I guess I thought it would be too complicated. I listened to some of Nancy Keane's book talks-- she's very expressive and has a wonderful reading voice, and I listened to some of the high school library podcasts-- the students did a great job, and the results looked simple enough to add a podcast. Nancy's podcast simply had the little progress line on a blank screen. The high school students had pictures posted with theirs, which gave me a face or picture to focus on while I'm listening.

I checked out the Library Live Web site and listened to Patrick Heath's and Kathryn Sturtz's podcasts, both of whom I knew some years back when the library I used to managed was a member of the Alamo Area Library System, so I had a mental picture of who was talking. They had some good information for supporting the library by determining its value to the community and tools provided by AALS to put a dollar figure or return on investment library services provide. Great when meeting with those funding sources.

Podcasts are another inexpensive, simple way to share what you know in the library world, which ultimately benefits everyone.

I listened to a song by Lucinda Williams on the Texas Music Matters. Good sound. For the Discovery Exercise I visited The Educational Podcast Directory and looked at the listings, and from there I hit a link to OPAL and took a look at the listings for Information Literacy, and listened to the blog on the Picturing America selections. It threw me for a moment because at first, it seems like it's live-- it even posted a few entries on a text live chat box. And I could hear everything as well as watch the slides of the pictures in the grant that the speaker is talking about and describing, and I had control over the slides. We did get the Picturing America grant so I am familiar with the art work she's referring to. She also shared some ideas on how to use and promote the art with the Picturing America grant, for example, having a mother-daughter tea party in reference to the silver tea service, sending students out with digital cameras to take pictures of architecture comparing and contrasting the architectural images in the collection, or having children make Native American crafts.

As for ways I gleaned that our library could use podcasts, I enjoyed listening to the students' book reviews and the librarian's book talks. I can see our students doing that, and I can imagine me doing a book talk on a podcast when my voice changes to something sultry and expressive instead of sounding like the country hick that I do. I wouldn't want to torture my listeners. : )  I would love for TLA to provide free podcasts of the speakers at the annual convention that we didn't get to hear. That would be great, especially in these days of limited budgets.

At home I'm able to have iTunes on my computer so I practiced subscribing to three different podcasts there.

Illustration by Vanessa Roeder @ http://www.nessadeeart.blogspot.com/ and http://www.etsy.com/shop/nessadee Used with permission.

Method #10 This Wiki World

So many good wikis, and so little time. That's the biggest drawback to me for using all these collaborative Web sites. It's nice to see that some are attempting to link the good ones. Once I start clicking, it's easy to get so far in it's like a virtual maze, but I can always add them to my Delicious account and organize them to be able to find them again.

I was taught to consider Wikipedia okay for casual information seeking, but it was a major no-no as a research source because it was a collaborative online encyclopedia. I asked my nephew Kyle in college last year what he thought of Wikipedia and did he use it for school work. He told me that he uses it as a source for sources. When he pulls up an article, he looks at the information and then scrolls down to see the Reference List or Bibliography for that listing and has found some good authoritative sources that way. I thought that was a great idea, so I've passed that tip on to teachers and students.

Never before in the history of mankind have we had to deal with the magnitude of information as we do now. We have to wade through so much, and often keep re-inventing the wheel again and again when we could save so much time collaborating with others and their successful in best library practices. Huge, huge help for us in the information industry. Wikis play a big role in that; just have to make the time to investigate and use them.

#9 Chat and Instant Messaging

My first thought on chat and instant messaging was negative because personally, I don't want to be THAT connected. I don't want people to know when I'm online because that's usually when I'm writing, and I don't have time for impromptu chats interrupting my chain of thought (multi-tasking went down the drain years ago; I can't walk and chew gum anymore). And that's what bothered me about MySpace with the little neon sign proclaiming to the world that I was ONLINE NOW!! I'd prefer to be a lurker observing from a safe, private distance. Why do folks need the world to know the very moment they're brushing their teeth or when they're depressed or that they're living virtually in some farm or aquarium and trying to get everyone else to move there with them?

But from a librarian's point of view, especially in the role as a reference librarian, this is an awesome idea-- providing real-time help for virtual patrons. One of the major weaknesses I have observed among library users (and experienced personally in graduate school research) is the struggle with discovering and using the best search terms. Some catalogs and programs are user friendly in that they are more forgiving if the searcher doesn't spell the words correctly or get the title exactly right. The results will spit out anything remotely resembling the search terms. Unfortunately, my library catalog is very unforgiving-- if the spelling isn't perfect or the title exactly right, the search results usually register zilch, nada, nothing. And if we librarians don't catch and assist the "no search results" patrons, they walk away empty handed. Online users are even further removed from our help, but tools like Meebome widget can connect us virtually to patrons who need help searching.

The assignment said to initiate a chat from our Yahoo or Hotmail accounts, but I'd have to sign up for that service, and I'd prefer to be hidden on my personal email accounts. Our school does have that capability through its email account, and I have tried it, but the problem was since I'm the only one here in my library, I missed instant messages while I helped students, taught lessons, and shelved books. But I can see how a reference librarian who spent much of her time at her computer would find this tool extremely useful in helping virtual patrons find what they are seeking.

I did use the MeeboMebox while it said TSLACDL was online-- very easy to use; but somebody must've been away from the computer because no one responded during the time I was working on this blog. Love the technology, though. What an improvement over the automated phone messages where you never really get to talk to a human being.

Art from Feathers, written by Donna Van Cleve and illustrated by Vanessa Roeder; available spring 2010. http://www.donnavancleve.com/ and http://www.nessadeeart.blogspot.com/

#8 Social Networking

I have had a MySpace page (growing cobwebs from lack of use) for several years and more recently a Facebook page (to see what my kids were up to-- with a positive intent-- not hovering, spying, or with the purpose of blackmailing), but I hadn't thought about using Social Network pages for the library. The examples I saw were outstanding-- especially with the slide shows of pictures and embedded training videos. They definitely got the cogs to turning in my mind.

The MySpace pages that I viewed have a better look about them (really impressed with the Library of Congress's page), but the Facebook pages seem to be more user friendly. I would love to create an interactive social page for our library where students can leave reviews, recommendations, and ratings for books along with how-to's related to searching for information-- in the library and on the Net. I think the hardest part would be to get beyond the fear of letting students loose with technology, but we might as well train them here where we can monitor and teach them rather than leaving it up to them to learn on their own-- usually the wrong way. Talk about teachable moments!! Everyone's getting on board; our libraries need to be there to virtually greet them and show them the best way to use this technology.

My Web site:  http://www.donnavancleve.com/

My blogs: http://www.blog.donnavancleve.com/

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/donnavancleve

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/help/#/profile.php?ref=profile&id=1222644456

Art work by Nessa Dee - http://www.nessadeeart.blogspot.com/ Used with permission. See also http://www.etsy.com/shop/nessadee