Splashing through the Schools

Good morning and happy Friday again.

Once again, I love irony. This last week has been one rainy or cloudy day after the other, and of course this is the week that we are promoting summer reading. As I’ve mentioned before, our summer reading themes for all of our age ranges are water related. To get the kids interested in our programs, I decided that I would look as ridiculous as possible, and hopefully the kids would remember the weird tall librarian that came in to promote summer reading. Toward this end, I was wearing my flip flops and swimming trunks, and I and a lovely assistant did a skit for the kids. I mentioned some specific programs that were coming up, and then my assistant dumped a bunch of water on me. After inquiring why I had splashed, my assistant told me that I had said the summer reading theme was “make a splash at your librarian.” I would then clear up the mistake saying that the theme was, “make a splash at your library,” not your librarian. Hopefully a little bit of water goes a long way in getting kids interested in our fun programs throughout the summer.

So we promoted summer reading through the skit to Bryan and Fernan Elementary, and this morning we promoted summer reading to the Title 1 program at Skyway Elementary. The Title 1 teacher set up a “Reading Café,” and invited all of the parents and children in the Title 1 program to enjoy some breakfast. After a book was read, Karen Yother and I talked a little bit about our summer programs, and handed out some free books.

Going back a little bit in the week, I attended a Webjunction Idaho workshop. Webjunction is a network of librarians from every state in the union, and Webjunction Idaho is a specific network within this network. This network was created, obviously through the internet, to share resources and get librarians connected. It is a separate entity from OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center, but is also closely related to OCLC. The workshop included some basic information on setting up an account, and then concluded with letting us explore some of the great content on the site.

Another exciting meeting during my week was getting the chance to talk to the middle and high school librarians. Jean Bengfort is the technology director for the CDA school district, and she meets with the school librarians every month. Jean was talking to John Hartung, our library director, and mentioned that she’d love to see what we were doing during the summer. Tuesday was their monthly meeting, so I popped in and handed out some information on what was going on. Thank you to the school librarians from Lake City High School, Coeur d' Alene High School, Woodland Middle School, Canfield Middle School, and thank you Jean.

There was something else I wanted to mention before I tell you what programs we have coming up, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until right now. This week was a short work week for me because of Memorial Day. Let us never forget those that fell so that we may stand.

That pretty much wraps up this week, except to say look up my blog post about, “Book Blurt” that I posted yesterday, and stop on by for Open Game Day this Friday. Open Game Day is just a really informal hang out time for tweens and teens to play video or board games and goes from 10:30 to noon every Friday during the summer. Check out my book review on Wednesday, and I’ll see you on Friday!