Minnesota Historical Society

(This is a catch-up post.  The now-in-progress renovation and related construction kept us too busy to post events as they came and went.  We'll try to make up for it and post regularly throughout the rest of the school year.) 

One of the highlights of this year was our first quarter field trip to the Minnesota Historical Society with three sections of sophomore U.S. History classes.  The goal was to help the students do archival research on a local topic of their choice so they could physically interact with their primary sources.

Inspired by the Historical Society's US-Dakota War exhibit honoring the 150th anniversary of the war, one of our Social Studies teachers assigned her classes a local history project.  The classes came into the library for a tutorial on searching the museum's online archives to request the materials they wanted before the field trip; topics ranged from Sister Kenny to Eugene McCarthy to gangsters to Vietnam War veteran art therapy.  The librarians at the Historical Society's archives were extremely helpful in organizing this field trip and making sure there was a a box of primary sources waiting for every student.

A student pours over newspaper clippings about gangsters in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

We provided document cameras so students could record sources for later study.

A few students were even brave enough to try the microfiche machines.

They also, of course, got to explore the museum's exhibits and generally pretend to be gleeful little kids again instead of surly, too-cool teenagers.

Students pretend to be farmers plowing fields...

...and coal miners down in the mines.

Students document references in the US-Dakota War exhibit.

After the field trip, we conducted a survey of the students to gauge their experience with archives and primary sources.

We were THRILLED.

Click here to see the data in more detail.

Student papers were vastly superior to previous years, and the students showed a real and lasting interest in their topic over the course of their research and throughout the writing process.  Physically handling their primary sources, seeing original documents in real life and working directly from the sources made a big difference for most students.  Hopefully, the success of this field trip means we can do this every year.

Make Reading a Hobbit

(This is a catch-up post.  The now-in-progress renovation and related construction kept us too busy to post events as they came and went.  We'll try to make up for it and post regularly throughout the rest of the school year.)

For our winter break program, we capitalized on the new movie adaptation of The Hobbit and went all-out Tolkien.  With renovation deadlines looming, The Hobbit wasn't quite as extensive a program as The Hunger Games or Harry Potter, nor is The Hobbit as popular as those more modern adventures, but we had an extremely clever tag (we thought) line for this program:  Make Reading A Hobbit!  We also appear to have an H-theme going on, so bully for us!

Our Hobbit program contained the same sort of passive program that's been so far successful for us--quizzes, trivia, coloring contests (using J.R.R. Tolkien's original illustrations as inspiration), and drawings.  We had, as always, great fun buying prizes thanks to the plethora of Hobbit merchandise available for sale.  We also utilized our whiteboard for some Hobbit fun:  "What's your worst hobbit?" (we love puns) and a Gollum-drawing contest.

Gollum drawing winner (we were really impressed)

Tuesday's tutorial featured a riddle contest, using the famous riddles from Bilbo Baggins' show-down with Gollum as well as a few old chestnuts gathered online.  There was a small turnout for the riddle contest (mostly our Library Club members) but that allowed us to really let the students take their time in thinking out the answers to the riddles (they are clearly not used to thinking so literally!) and then to shower prizes upon them.

Yes, that is Elvish on the whiteboard behind our Riddle Contest winners.

Thursday's tutorial featured a "Second Breakfast" (with starving students hovering impatiently around us while we laid out baked goods and little oranges) and a showing of the 1980s animated Hobbit.

Where's the Library?

Wow, we haven't posted anything since October!  That just goes to show how busy we've been this year.  Our library is undergoing a major renovation and the entire school year up until now has been dedicated to preparing for construction.  We've had countless meetings about shelving, about what the new reference desk is going to look like, about how the new media classroom will be used, about how we want the cabinets in our new offices to look.  We've debated endlessly the best way to pack 10,000 books into boxes, and where to store them for the summer, and how to arrange them when they're unpacked again.  When the construction deadline was moved up from the end of the school year to spring break, we sprang into high gear with a solid month of weeding, desperate pleas to return books, inventory, the physical packing of the 10,000 books, and the packing and moving of our offices from our spacious library to an itty bitty conference room.  Whew!

Takin' out the trash; gettin' stuff done.

 Our biggest project, of course, was the actual packing and moving of our collection.  We closed the library completely to students and staff and dedicated a week for packing.  We did this ourselves, with the help of parent volunteers, using boxes provided by the moving company that was also packing and moving the science wing below us.  We divided the library into sections--graphic novels, fiction, nonfiction 001-399, nonfiction 400-899, nonfiction 900s, reference desk materials, yearbooks, and magazines (we have large bound editions of LIFE and American Heritage magazines from the 1940s and 50s).  We packed the boxes in shelf order to make it easier when we unpack.  Filling the boxes was occasionally a tricky problem, though--book sizes, especially in the arts and history sections, vary greatly!  We worked in three-person teams:  One person removed the books from the shelf and handed them to person number two, who made sure the box was filled completely and in shelf order.  Person number three taped and moved the boxes as we went, and made sure empty boxes were labeled properly (with color-coded tags reading "fiction box 5" or "400-899 box 23") and close at hand.  Using this method, we packed almost 10,000 books in less than three days.  Our final breakdown was as follows:

• 10 boxes of graphic novels
• 32 boxes of fiction
• 6 boxes of yearbooks
• 28 boxes of magazines
• 57 boxes nonfiction 001-399  
• 75 boxes nonfiction 400-899
• 100 boxes nonfiction 900s
• 1 box reference
• plus an additional 10 boxes of various workroom materials and odds and ends (board games, workbooks, books that were returned late that will need to be shelved when we unpack, etc.)

Lizz and Sean pack the fiction collection

When all the books were packed, we had a big room full of empty shelves with stacks of hundreds of boxes lining the walls. 

The boxes were moved to the gymnasium, where they will be stored until the new library is completed in the fall.  

While we packed out offices, the movers took down the shelving, removed all the furniture, and stripped the library bare.  The library's last official act took place the day before spring break, when we used the space to collect the laptops from the freshmen and sophomore classes for repairs and reimaging over spring break.

Now, with break over and school back in session, the construction company has put up a wall where the hallway to the library used to be.  

We won't see our library until school starts again until August, when it will look very different and be much improved!

School Starts with a New Look

Books are circulating. Students are running around carrying laptops and huge athletic bags.  Sure signs that the school year is under way--in fact, the first quarter is almost over already! The library got a bit of a reorganization over the summer, and it has been received well.  Students now have ample room to spread out and work.  It is stunning how uncluttered a space can feel with just a few shelves shuffled and removed.

The view from the front of the library to the back.  The big difference from last year:  tables have been reoriented and our central unit of shelves has been removed.  The space is feels bigger, airier, and more unified.

The stacks:  all the books are on the same side of the library now, with two short shelving units replacing three tall ones that we passed on to teachers over the summer.  We have a clearer line of sight to this side of the library now, and the short shelves serve as our new book display space.

This rear area of the library was cleared of all its shelves, including the large unit built against the back wall.  Tables were moved into this space to create a "classroom."  It's a bit separated from the rest of the library, and we can project against the white wall, making it easier to give instruction to visiting classes.    

How did we do it?

1. Combine little collections: Yes, it makes sense for many institutions to have a professional collection and an oversized collection and loads of other collections.  But the statistics show that this model does not work for the students here.  Rather than getting rid of all these resources we just changed things up a bit.  Now the non-fiction collection is home to reference, oversized books, and all of the other smaller collections.  In time this will show if the materials were not being used because they couldn't be found or because they do not match the needs of the curriculum. 
2. Give prominent space to things we want students to find: The last three summers the fiction has moved.  From the shelves below windows where students were forced to pitifully crawl and search for the perfect novel, they originally moved on to a real wall with room to grow. But this year, fiction has been honored with the best wall in the library.  With the reference not needing space, the fiction collection now is right next to the reference desk.
3. Take the advise that your boss gives you: Right before school started the director of the school requested that we move a shelf that has been in the middle of the library forever.  For classes it provides a physical division of space.  The plan was to move it for workshops, then have it back before school starts.  That was until it was moved.  Suddenly the library felt twice as big, and a teacher took the huge shelf to his room the day before school started.  A win for all.  

Almost a full quarter into the school year, students are still trying to figure out how the library got bigger over the summer, and the librarians are so happy with how the space flows and is being used.

Harry Potter Revival Week

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published in 1997, a whole year before most of our current class of freshmen were born.  Our students have therefore lived most of, if not all of, their lives surrounded by the  Harry Potter phenomenon, and so they are born fans of the boy wizard.  And now that J.K. Rowling has a brand new non-HP book out, we figured it was an ideal time for a Harry Potter Revival Week.  

Along with signs and posters, we made a video using the website xtranormal.com (robot-like animated versions of Napoleon and Queen Elizabeth debate the finer points of a Harry Potter book vs. a non-Harry Potter book) to promote our HP Week and its various activities:

Monday's tutorial featured Harry Potter Jeopardy using a site we found online and our new Eggspert device.

HP Jeopardy participants examines their prizes of Bertie Bott's All-Flavor Beans
(actual flavors include grass, earthworm, dirt, vomit, earwax, and boogie). 

Our Harry Potter Jeopardy winner brandishes her new pen-wand.

On Tuesday, Lizz brought in a lovely little golden snitch that she had made which we hid for a "seek the snitch" challenge.  It took interested students two whole days to find it; now it hangs from the ceiling in the library to enchant anyone wise enough to look up.

The dedicated students who hunted down the hidden golden snitch.
Their rewards were Hogwarts House bookmarks.

Wednesday's tutorial was devoted to our Hogwarts classes program.  We recruited several teachers to play Hogwarts professors and instruct students in Divination (tea leaf reading using astrology charts), Care of Magical Creatures (looking at the Greco-Roman origins of the mythical creatures in the HP books and debating which creature would win in an imaginary battle), Charms (translating Latin-based spells), and Potions (chemistry).  We also had a Sorting Hat, selections from the Hogwarts library, and a Bertie Bott's All-Flavor Bean tasting station.

A new Hogwarts student is thrilled to be sorted into Gryffindor. 

Hogwarts House buttons, generously provided by a new teacher who held a
 Harry Potter fundraiser event at her previous school.

Two student prepare to duel with wands and Latin-based spells.

A Divination student tries on Professor Trewlaney's glasses during tea leaf reading.

Which would win in a hypothetical battle:  chimera or sphinx?

Downstairs in the Potions classroom, colorful fires burn.

The Hogwarts library includes the Marauder's Map, catalogs from Borgin & Burkes and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Harry's acceptance letter from Hogwarts, and the program from the Quidditch World Cup--all contributed by the same wonderful teacher who brought the Hogwarts House buttons!

Thursday was the last day to take our Harry Potter O.W.L. exam (pen wands were awarded to those who received a grade of "Outstanding"), and Friday we promoted Harry Potter read-alikes such as Lev Grossman's The Magicians which features a fantastic "Harry Potter goes to college, parties like a rock star, and discovers Narnia" storyline.  All in all, Harry Potter Revival Week was a magical success (Get it?  Magical?  Hee hee).

A few days later, we received our two new copies of J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy; they were checked out almost as soon as they were cataloged.  We're very eager to hear what Harry Potter fans think of this completely Muggle-oriented new book!

Wands and beans--our Harry Potter shopping list

Book Bags for Summer Reading

Lizz and I spent all year promoting recreational reading and promoting library programs.  We didn't want to stop just because school was out for the summer.  So we initiated a new summer books program:  Book Bags for Summer Reading!

For the first time, students and staff were invited to check books out for the summer.  We made themed bags based on genre or subject and invited people to custom-make their own bag.  We aimed for five or six books per bag; some people (our favorite people) took ten or twelve books--or even more than one book bag!

Bags were reserved with the name of the student or staff member on book bag tags that I made in PhotoShop.  Tags also showed what the bag's theme was--science fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction, books by a certain author, books in a series, etc.

Lizz and I spent an entire day putting themed bags together, and had a wonderful time and got completely carried away.

We ordered something like 200 bags.  We didn't use them all, but that was not for lack of trying!

Books for the Steampunk Book Bag

Books for the True Crime Book Bag

Books for one of the Mystery Book Bags

We allowed students and staff to browse through the bags at their leisure and to pick and choose from multiple bags as they built their own book bag.  We even took it upon ourselves to make bags for a couple of our frequent library users who didn't come in on their own.  We promoted for two weeks with signs and a stop-animation video that we made, and had of week of actual check out.  We kept careful records of who had checked out what books, and made sure everyone knew that books were due during the first week of the 2012-2013 school year, and that fees would apply if books were not returned.

Science fiction and fantasy were very popular (especially dystopias--we had four bags of sci fi dystopian books) and a lot of our newest arrivals went out the door for the first time.  The Game of Thrones series was also frequently asked for; we even went out to Barnes and Noble and bought another set!  We made a few very specific book bags that were reserved almost immediately:  "Classics and Classic Spin-Offs" (Pride and Prejudice with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and the like), "The Plague!" (fiction and nonfiction books about plagues and diseases), "Books with Titles that Relate to Food," etc.  We had an almost equal mix of students and staff--just a few more students.  Building bags on the fly based on personal interest of the reader turned out to be relative easy, since making the themed bag had provided us with an excellent refresher of the books in our collection.  By the time all the students and teachers and staff had gone home for the year and the building was empty, we had checked out over 200 books in nearly 50 book bags.  That's a lot of summer reading, and we were pretty damn proud of ourselves.

Tagged, bagged, and ready for summer reading!

Weekly Displays: Bee Books

We have bees!  Recently, one of our grade deans came up with the idea to purchase beehives for the school.  He recruited a student, who spread the word to a math teacher, who spread the word to a teacher in our department, and then we became completely obsessed--more so when the hives were installed right outside the library windows!

The Environmental Science class helped build the hive enclosure:

The Environmental Science class at work with the library wing in the background.

See that globe in the window behind the students?  That's one of the library windows!

Interested students and teachers (and Lizz) were on hand when the hives were delivered:

They delivered the bees at night because that's when bees sleep!  Who knew?

And now, nearly every day, one of us is likely to be seen peering through the enclosure and watching the busy bees at work:

Lizz watches at the bees as I take photos of her through our very dirty library windows.

One of two beehives and a few of the 6,000 bees.

And of course we had to do a display of bee books:

I highly recommend The Beekeeper's Apprentice and the entire Marry Russell series by Laurie R. King.

Bees must have been buzzing in the school consciousness for some time; we had no problem putting together a display about bees, insects, and books with "bee" in the title.  And this wasn't even everything in the catalog:  Clan Apis, an educational graphic novel about bees; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire); and Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey were all checked out.  Other fiction tie-ins included The Beekeeper's Apprentice (a Sherlock Holmes spin-off) and The Secret Life of Bees.  We had four books additional books that focused on bees and the history of honey, and of course I couldn't resist adding an old VHS copy of episode three of David Attenborough's documentary The Secret Life of Plants called--you guessed it--"The Birds and the Bees."