Video Booktalks!

In previous years, we've been able to visit our local schools frequently for booktalks, but since our staffing level was cut we've had to rethink our approach. For the past several months, my staff members have been hard at work on creating video booktalks and we were able to send out links to our first batch this week!

Here's the full playlist if you want to check them out:




We decided to make separate videos for each age group that we would typically booktalk to. So for this first round, we have videos for 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th/6th grade, and 7th/8th grade. We made five videos total, each under 15 minutes long. Each video features five great books that kids and teachers can check out from our library. This is patterned after our monthly class visits where we would spend about 15 minutes per group and feature 5-6 titles each time.

We started getting organized several weeks before we planned to send them out. I asked my staff to sign up with titles that they would like to booktalk for whichever grades. Once everyone had a chance to submit titles, I went through and narrowed each list down to five titles, making sure to keep a balance between formats, genres, and to include diverse titles.

Then we all recorded the videos for our assigned books. We used our flip camera propped up on a book truck and the microphone on the flip camera was sufficient. I asked everyone to record a brief intro, which we showed at the very beginning of each video, and I recorded a brief ending message to encourage kids to stop by and check out these books from the library.

We recorded each booktalk as a separate video and then two of my staff members edited them together, so we were able to repeat some of the books for multiple videos without a whole lot of extra work. For example, Funny Bones appears in both our second grade video and our third grade video. This is helpful, too, if we ever wanted to put together booktalk videos on a certain genre. We could edit all our our scary booktalks into one video, for example.

To edit the videos, my staff members used Filmora, a video editing software that we purchased. The music in the intro comes from Filmora's library of music. The software allowed us to insert images and the titles of the books. There's a lot more it can do; we're excited to play around with it more.

Once the videos were edited, we uploaded them to our library's YouTube channel and sent out the link to our teachers. I sent the videos to each of the teachers we had been visiting with regular booktalks and gave them first shot at sharing the videos and requesting the books. Then a couple of days later, I sent out the video links to staff at each of our elementary and middle schools and asked our Marketing person to put them on our website and Facebook page, as well.

We're still waiting to see what the overall response will be, but so far they've each been viewed a couple dozen times. The real test will be to see if the books get checked out!

We're planning on sending out another round of booktalk videos before Winter Break and there are a few things we'll do differently:

1. After speaking with our Marketing person, he volunteered to film the next round with the library's HD camera, which may provide a better and more consistent quality of video. We also may look at purchasing an external microphone for better and more consistent sound.

2. We recorded this round in our teen office with the blank wood wall background, but I'd love to look into recording videos in our teen and children's rooms so that kids can see the areas of the library they'd be using.

3. We talked about making our presentations a little more uniform - each starting the same way, maybe making our intros more consistent.

4. We talked about adding a title screen with the season and grade on it to differentiate once we have a more extensive library of videos.

I'm not sure if it will be possible to offer these videos monthly at some point. We're going to start out attempting them quarterly and see what the response is. Compared to the hours and hours we spent driving to and visiting schools, repeating booktalks over and over to reach all the classes at a school, this is MUCH less time-consuming. I think we'll get better at it (recording videos, editing, etc.) as we get more experience, so it's possible it will take even less time as we continue.

So the question will be: are the videos decently effective at reaching our teachers and students? And time will just have to tell on that one. We'll keep an eye on how many times the videos are viewed and how the books check out, plus consider any feedback we get from teachers. Ideally, I'd love to also be able to visit the schools in person at least once a year and that might give our videos more impact. We'll see!

Have you ever recorded video booktalks? What tips and tricks do you have to share? Or what questions do you have about how we did ours?

Serial Reader

Have you heard of Serial Reader?

Okay, so first of all, Serial Reader is not paying me to say any of this stuff. I am telling you about it because I love it so much.

Serial Reader is a free app for iPhone and Android (strike that - Android's in the works, still! - edited 8/22/16) that brings you 10-20 minute snippets of classic books direct to your phone each day. If you, like me, find your experience with the classics, erm, a little lighter than you would like, this app makes it really easy to tackle the classics without giving up your other reading or getting bogged down.

(I have to take a pause here to say that the books I'm calling "classics" are basically British, European, and American writing that's now in the public domain. I don't know the app developer's exact process for inputting additional books, but you can make suggestions for titles to be added to the app. Okay, back to it.)

I first read about it on Book Riot and decided that it was worth a try, if only to find out what it was. I didn't think I would stick with it. After I went through that phase of catching up on classics during summers home from college, I have been MUCH more about NEW books than old books.

But it's been about a month and I am completely loving it. I look forward to getting my issue of Wuthering Heights each morning and I purchased the deluxe edition of the app ($2.99) so that I could read ahead and unlock other features of the paid app, which include creating a list for future reading and syncing your reading across devices.

Each issue is a manageable length while giving enough of the story that I don't feel lost each time I pick it back up. For me, it really helps make my morning phone time a little more productive. I generally spend 20-30 minutes each morning on my phone as I'm waking up and getting ready: checking Facebook, looking at Timehop, seeing what's happening on Twitter. Directing 10-20 minutes of that time towards reading classic literature is way more rewarding than aimlessly surfing the internet.

Even though I FULLY support the right of people and myself to read whatever we want without judgment, I do admit that it makes me feel smart to be reading classics that I never got around to.

So, if you're looking to insert more classics into your repertoire, Serial Reader makes it really easy. Go forth and download!

Homeschoolers Program

Last week we did a program for some of our local homeschoolers. We have an active homeschooling community in our district and we're moving towards offering more programs for them. (Instrumental in my understanding of homeschooling is Adrienne's book Helping Homeschoolers in the Library. If you can get your hands on it, do so! Also check out her blog Homeschooling and Libraries for valuable links.)

We had a fairly large group of kids ranging from kindergarten through 8th grade. We started by giving them a tour of the library. We tried to point out areas that would be helpful to them and since our circulation area recently underwent major construction, we demonstrated the new holds process and self-check machines. The tour lasted just about 30 minutes and then we split into two groups.

The younger group (approximately K-3rd) went with J and had a storytime and a craft project. The older group (approximately 4th-8th grade) went with me and had a demonstration of library databases and booktalks. We were very flexible about which kids went in which group. The only small issue we ran into was having the groups on two different floors. Some parents had kids in each group and were trying to go back and forth to get some of each program. It would have been easier if the rooms were side by side.

For our database program, I had set up a projector with a laptop. I demonstrated searching with the library's catalog (which most, if not all, of them were familiar with). I also demonstrated how to limit a search to the kids' area or to fiction or nonfiction and I demonstrated how to request books through Interlibrary Loan.

I showed them our booklists, including readalike lists, genre lists, and topical lists. Then I demonstrated several of the databases to which we subscribe. In each database, I showed them how to find the link from our website, how to access it from home, and how to search. I showed them World Book Online, Biography Resource Center, CultureGrams, and Student Resource Center. My presentation was about 25 minutes long and by the end we were all getting a little squirrelly. If I did it again, I'd try to make it a little more interactive.

When I had gone through all the databases, I handed out a "scavenger hunt" worksheet. Each question had a note about which database to use to find the answer. I gave them about 20 minutes to go through 8 questions and if they didn't finish I told them they could take it home and finish it.

To end the program, I brought them back into our story room and did about 15 minutes of booktalks. I booktalked the following:

Down Cut Shin Creek by Kathi Appelt
Love That Dog and Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech
Savvy by Ingrid Law
Seaborn by Craig Moodie
Secrets of a Civil War Submarine by Sally Walker
What the World Eats by Peter Menzel

Secrets of a Civil War Submarine was a big hit and that's one of my favorite books to booktalk. Savvy was also snatched up right away, as were the Sharon Creech books.

I was nervous about this program before we did it because I had never worked with this group before and because we were doing a lot. It went absolutely fine. Everyone was super nice and had a good time and I think we were able to give them a lot of valuable information. Homeschoolers are generally huge library users and it was so nice to get to know some of them a little bit more and to provide a program that was useful. I'm certainly looking forward to planning more programs for homeschoolers!

Twitterpated

As you can probably see from my new thingie in the sidebar, I'm giving Twitter a try. It's actually remarkably addictive, especially once I installed TwitterFox (a Firefox plugin that lets you update your Twitter and receive updates from the people you follow).

Besides knowing when my friends are going to work or eating dinner, there are two things I find really interesting about Twitter.

1. Some famous people have Twitter accounts! This makes it so much easier to be all fan!girl. For instance, I know that Barack Obama is doing an event in Titusville, FL. And Sarah Dessen loves her babysitter and is taking a nap. I just find it so interesting to get these little glimpses into people's lives. Much like having a MySpace page or a blog, this is another tool to connect people.

And that brings us to:

2. The possibilities for Twitter in your library. I know some libraries are already embracing Twitter, posting updates about new books, research tools, or programs. Imagine what a difference it might make if you could send a direct message to your teen patrons (for example) about a program you have going on. Or you could announce when you have the new Stephenie Meyer book in your catalog so they could start placing holds. Or you could point out that new health and wellness database your library just subscribed to. People can even set it up to get updates as text messages. "Oh hey, the library's having a pizza taste-off today! Let's swing by!"

I have to admit that I was skeptical of Twitter's appeal before I got started with it. It was the article in School Library Journal that made me really give it a chance. According to the article: "devotees claim that you have to give it an honest go before you can understand Twitter’s appeal". So I embraced it and I'm really seeing its appeal. The article gives some good tips on using Twitter and provides links to lots of sites that can help you understand it and make the most out of your experience.

Is microblogging here to stay or is it a fad that will fade in time? Beats me. But I'm having fun with it while it's here.