LMC

=LMC=

- This journal had a lot of articles, advertisements, and had a whole section devoted to book reviews. I liked this journal and enjoyed reading the articles. One article I liked was titled, //A Few New Things//. The article listed and explained 15 new technology resources to use in a library. Some things mentioned were wikis, pod cast for book talks or book reviews, literature circles in blogging form, digital stories for storytelling, and many other ideas. The article explained a little about each other 15 new things and offered websites to learn more about them or see examples. I really liked this article because it gave me some ideas of things I could potentially do in a library using technology. BT

The issue of Library Media Connection I looked at was Volume 29 Issue 1 August/September 2010. I really liked the tips from your colleagues and other bright ideas section. My favorite idea was the “Are you smarter than a librarian” idea. This involves placing a question on the big screens throughout the school among other announcements for the day. This idea would get kids coming to the library to check out the answers and is a great way to advertise the library as a place to find information or answers. Themes in this issue included using data to drive the library program, if kids designed the library, economic hardships, kindles and Ebooks and technology in the classroom. I really enjoyed the article “Surviving Your First Year: Strategies and Tips That Will Get You Through Your First Year as a Library Media Specialist” by Katie Cerasale-Messina. I enjoyed this article because she stressed the importance of not trying to take on everything when you start your first LMS job. I found myself trying to do that and I got very overwhelmed. She suggests breaking everything up into quarters. Learn the curriculum and get used to lesson planning the first quarter. Once you feel comfortable with that you can move onto something like the website or automation system. I felt pressure to take on so much quickly because of the horror stories I heard about the previous school year. My goal was to get books out as soon as possible because circulation rates equated to 4 books per child for the entire school year. She also suggests ideas for keeping information organized. She uses a binder to organize the information about circulation rates, teacher projects, test scores and media usage. She also used this binder to present to her principal during the first three years to explain the need for her job. Katie Cerasale-Messina also discusses using library students and high school students to assist with check in and out and shelving books if parent volunteers are not available. Finally she discusses the need to talk up what you do. Many teachers think we are storytelling and reading books the entire time a class is in the library. She suggests displaying student work and creating blogs to let others know what kind of things students are doing in the library. Last year I had a bulletin board that displayed student work along with the Library Content Standards and NHA’s standards. Many were unaware that the library even had a curriculum. I would like to begin showing the connection between content areas. I enjoyed Library Media Connection. I like the versatility of the articles and the fact there seems to be more content rather than just information about books in the journal. I would say LMC was my favorite. -Jessie

I read the 2009 August/September issue with the main article titled "Teaching Safe Practices for Internet Use". I really enjoyed the journal and found there to be many helpful articles and ads for new books or products. I really liked the book reviews in the back and found myself writing down many of the books on my book wish list I keep for my classroom. I also liked reading the reviews for the higher grade levels since my knowledge base is limited to early childhood. I thought the layout of the reviews was great because they categorized the books into genres and then by grades so that was very helpful. One of my favorite parts about the journal was at the beginning they have a section called Tips and there are all these different people who write in with ideas that have worked for them. I wrote many of the tips down to remember for later use because they were such great things that I never would have thought of before. There was also an article titled "Twelve Steps to a Winning First Year" that I found very helpful and made notes about. It talked about learning how to order books, having good costumer service, pacing yourself, and getting volunteers as just a few of the things to think about. Overall I really enjoyed the journal and found it to be very useful for our line of work. I did feel there were a few too many articles to be a quick read journal but all the articles were well written and very informational. ~Kaelin

I read the October 2008 issue of Library Media Connection. The cover story, “Information Literacy and Early Learners” described how to teach basic information literacy skills to young children. One strategy mentioned was encouraging young children to plan and make their own choices. This teaches goal-setting and evaluation of sources. The author also discussed the Big6 and Super3 research models. I am familiar with Big6, but I had not yet heard about Super3, which is a research model for younger students. This model consists of three steps: Plan, Do, and Review. I think this sounds like a great way to help kids streamline their research process. I also like it because it is so simplistic that it can be used with any kind of research question, whether it is for school or personal information. The rest of this issue of LMC was enjoyable. I like how it puts an emphasis on making connections between librarians and teachers. I also thought it had a good balance of technology, book reviews, and helpful library information. It contained some ads but not so many that they were overwhelming. Overall, this issue provided useful info on a lot of great topics. -Michelle L.



I read the August/September 2008 issue of Library Media Connection. I felt this journal contained a wealth of useful information. I like how there's a section with tips from colleagues and another section with copyright questions of the month. I also liked how it includes tools that can be used (such as a booktalk evaluation form and a list of tactics for building influence with teachers). This seems like it is a very hands-on journal in which librarians can write in and get questions answered and a journal in which librarians can turn to for advice on how to deal with issues in their building that other librarians are also dealing with. To go with the topic of this class, I especially felt an article titled "Go Where the Grants Are" was important. The article discusses how to go about writing grant proposals and finding grants. It covers types of grants and resources to help find grantors. While the idea of dealing with finding and applying for grants seems pretty overwhelming to me, I am glad that I came across this article because it has given me a lot of resources to use when the time comes for embarking on this task. I have made a copy of this article to place in my resource binder, and I have a feeling that I will be coming back to this. Another article I came across brought a smile to my face. It's called "The Anguish of a Retired Librarian." It's just a silly article written by a retired librarian in which she discusses how she went through library withdrawal after retirement and found herself in situations such as going to the public library and shelving their books for them. I just thought that was a funny addition to the journal, and it makes it seem to me like this is a good journal to read to help battle the feeling of loneliness if you end up being the only librarian in your building or district and need some advice from other librarians. - Elyce