Zombie Prom!

On a Saturday night after the library closed, a rare strain morphed teenaged patrons into brain-eating, make-up put oning, Thriller dancing zombies!

As everyone knows, zombies eat brains because they don't have any of their own, and a delicious way to do this is Jell-O. I took some foil, creased and folded it into a brain looking shape, and put it into a muffin tin. Just add some Jiggler recipe style Jell-O, and you're set.

Adding some red food coloring to pink lemonade makes a tasty blood juice, and dipping pretzel rods into melted chocolate with some almond bark at the ends make for some edible fingers =D

After some munching it was time to zombify ourselves! There were five effects we went for: whited-out faces, dark eyes, rotting flesh, messed-up hair, and blood.

If you buy some Ivory colored foundation and some dark eye shadow, you get some deathly looking skin with sunken eyes. For girls, tease your hair out, and for guys, mess it up!


You can do rotting flesh two different ways. Mix about equal parts of flour and corn syrup into a sticky paste, put it on your skin, and then press some toilet paper onto it. This becomes a "skin" you can tear, and also looks like rotting skin.

Another way to get the rotting skin look is to mix up flour, corn syrup, corn starch, and water, and apply it to your skin. Mix in the different ingredients until it starts to clump onto your skin. Start with your corn starch and if it's too runny, add some flour, or if it's too sticky, add some corn syrup.

Once you have all this "make-up" applied, add a generous amount of blood. You can mix corn syrup and flour (about two parts corn syrup to one part flour) with one drop blue food coloring and a lot of red food coloring to make a smearing, purplish blood, or use tomato paste for a clumping, red blood.

It wouldn't be much of a prom without dancing, and we thought Michael Jackson's "Thriller" would be appropriate. There is a whole series of YouTube videos that breaks down the dance step by step, and we used that to acquaint everyone with some zombie moves =D

This program was way too much fun and works well with the Summer Reading theme "Own the Night" and the upcoming Teen Read Week theme "It Came From the Library."

Playing Some Catch Up

Hello again everyone!

So, there have been quite a few things that have come and gone without me having a chance to talk about them, so this week, I am going to play some catch up. I know I’ve been mentioning that for a while, so I figure that I’ll actually follow through and do it today.

But before I do, I mentioned the Community Library Network last week, and said there would be more on it this week. Without getting into a long explanation, our library district (formally called Kootenai Shoshone Area Libraries) has brought on a new library (Post Falls) and has changed its operating name to Community Library Network. I won’t have time to go into some catch up if I keep going, but we’ll come back to this story in the future.

So here’s your catch up. I mentioned the Wrestlemania Reading Challenge for quite a while before Teen Read Week, and people actually participated which is cool! Around fifteen students turned in pledge forms, and I consider that I good start for what I hope we will be able to do next year as well. I also think it is cool that many of those students heard about the competition from one of our school librarians that partnered with us. I love having the opportunity to work with other educators!

The other big thing that happened during Teen Read Week was Airband Awesomeness (click the link for a fun recap video)! This was one of our most successful programs to date, which is, well, AWESOME! We had about 35 people attend, and even though they weren’t all in the tween/teen age group, they all had a great time. Two airbands performed, and the teens did a great job with choreography, lip syncing, and just having fun with it. But, I think the most successful part of the program was the fact that teens I didn’t specifically invite actually came and had a great time at the program. In the past, most of the teen programs have consisted of my family members coming to the programs. (Well, you have to start somewhere, and my family enjoyed the pizza, pop, and fun programs). But, it was really encouraging to see teens I didn’t know coming into the library for a program I put together. It energized me to keep learning from the programs I’m doing, and to make the programs I do in the future even better!

Teen Marketing

Morning everybody! I’m often accused of being too happy in the morning, but I figure that’s a great problem to have.

Anyways, I first wanted to mention that I didn’t get a book blurt post out this week. I think I’ve mentioned it a few times, but my senior research class is quite a bit of work. I had a huge project due on Wednesday, and I dedicated the day to putting the finishing touches on it. I know, that is probably an excuse, and I’ll try not to let that happen again. I’ll definitely be back on Wednesday with an update on what I’ve been reading.

Last Friday, Alysun Sanders dropped in for a visit. She told us a little about her book, Talli's Tale, how she got published, and also about her new series she's writing, The Hollow Series. It was cool to actually meet her in person.

In other news, I feel pretty important. As I mentioned last week, the Idaho Commision for Libraries is doing a Fall Youth Services training, and they are having me present about teen marketing in Coeur d’ Alene and Moscow. As some of you know, I am a communication arts major at Lewis Clark State College, and public speaking is one of my passions. I’m really excited to share what I’ve learned about teen marketing with my fellow librarians.

But, then I have to ask myself, what have I learned about teen marketing? First of all, that it isn’t easy. Getting people to come to the library is difficult, and teens like a really good program. So I’ll keep working in that direction. Secondly, get the word out to as many people as possible through as many different means as possible; facebook, blog, twitter, youtube, flyers, and ridiculousness.

Thirdly, I think its taking one step at a time, and not being discouraged when a huge crowd doesn’t show up at your event. We’re making progress, slowly, but surely. I hope that anyone who reads this blog or has come to one of our teen programs has enjoyed themselves, and I hope to see them again as we keep working toward bigger and better teen programming.

So I’ll probably share that and a few other things to my colleagues at the trainings. In addition to the public speaking opportunity, I’m also getting to work with other librarians from the commission and another library, which is always a treat.

Making sure that my job isn’t normal, I got to help out at some second grade tours yesterday. Hayden Meadows sent three classes walking over to our building, and Miss Cassie and I had a great time showing them our different sections. The bookmobile garage was a huge hit!

Lastly, Airband Awesomeness is tonight at 7pm! Airband is pretty much the end of our October programs (other than turning in the pledge and project forms for Wrestlemania), and I’ve had a great time planning, promoting, and actually doing the programs. I’m excited to see any performers that show up tonight, and even if you don’t have a song, please come down and enjoy some great performances. Myself, a good friend of mine, and our library director, John Hartung (who himself played in a rock band in high school) are going to be the judging panel.

Hope to see you tonight, and if I don’t, I’ll be coming your way on Wednesday with a book blurt.

Authors and Reading Groups

For the past couple of weeks, I have been planning programs; sending emails, taking phone calls, making posters, and putting stuff in the courier. All of this planning is basically coming down to the next two weeks. You might ask why this would be the case. There are two reasons. First, I am striving to have one teen event and one tween event every month. This means that a lot of my time is spent planning for said once a month program. The other reason is that October 17-23 is the national Teen Read Week, and we are celebrating it with some programs!

Tonight I’m super excited to hear Alysun Sanders speak. The program is technically for grades 5-9, but anyone is welcome. I had a chance to talk to Alysun on Monday, and she is really looking forward to coming down. If you are interested in writing at all, or if you want to support a local author, then come on down tonight from 6:30-7:30.

Working backwards, I went to Bryan Elementary yesterday. One of the fifth grade teachers and I are starting a Guys Read group at the school. Guys Read is a website that was started by author Jon Scieszka. There are Guys Read groups all over the nation, and we are starting one here in town. Every two weeks we will be meeting to discuss books that other guys will also enjoy.

Back on Monday, I had my monthly Ka-Boom Science Experiments program. This is something I’ll be doing every month on the second Monday from 4-5pm. This month, we did water experiments. Since our Summer Reading theme were water related, I figured that a water experiments were appropriate to start the fall as well. We got a chance to talk about density, the freezing temperature of water, and how boats float.

For the rest of the week, I was working on a promotional video for our Airband Awesomeness competition on October 22 from 7-9pm. Last Friday, Karen, Cassie, Connie, Emily and I got together to do some filming. It took us about two hours, and we were having way too much fun! You can watch the video on Facebook here. Hope you like it, and I hope you’ll join us for Airband Awesomeness on the 22nd.

In November, there is going to be a youth services conference put on by the Idaho Commission for Libraires, and I’ve been asked to present! I’m supposed to talk about teen services and ways to promote it. Now, I’m still working on better ways to get the word out about my programs, and I don’t think that I’m ever going to be an expert on it. But, I’m really honored to be asked to share my ideas with other librarians.

Hope to see you tonight or next week. Take care!

Books with Beat!

Well hello again everybody. Another week has come and gone, and here we are on Friday again.

The life of a programming librarian can include many meetings, and this week started with one. I had a chance to sit down with the secondary education librarians from the Coeur d’ Alene school district. We chatted about the Hayden library’s upcoming October programs and ways to support each other and stay in contact. I love meetings when everybody is on the same page and want to move toward the same goal.

Wednesday brought the Inland Northwest Blood Center bus to the library. The bus has been coming to the library for the past two years, and staff members and patrons have consistently donated blood. This blood drive was the third time I’ve donated on the bus, and the first time I’ve had any problems. The donating went fine, the standing up afterward went fine, the walking to the back of the bus to eat some treats and drink some juice went fine. What didn’t go fine was a couple minutes later when all color literally ran from my face and a snowstorm was playing in front of my eyes. Turns out that donating blood on an empty stomach isn’t a good idea. This is something that I know, but didn’t practice this time. But, the blood center has a few units of my blood, and I have my color back.

Last week, I mentioned a few programs that were coming up in October, and I wanted to expound on them a little bit. Alysun Sanders, a graduate from Lake City High School, has published a book called “Talli’s Tale.” She is going to be at the library on October 15 from 6:30-7:30pm. Although she only has one book published, Alysun has enjoyed writing and telling stories for her entire life. She is going to be discussing being an author, getting published, and writing.

The next Friday, October 22, we are having Airband Awesomeness from 7:00-9:00pm. October 17-23 is Teen Read Week, a national event put on by the young adult arm (YALSA) of the American Library Association every year, and the theme this year is, “Books with Beat.” We were scratching our heads looking for a fun program, and Karen remembered something hilarious that she did when she was in high school. She told me about airband competitions that were held at her school, and I thought that we had to try it. So, pick a song, divide up the parts (vocals, drums, guitar, etc.), and come rock out with nothing but air. My thought is the more you put into it, the more fun it is going to be. So go all out with costumes, hair, makeup, and the style that the band plays in. If you can’t tell, I’m pretty excited about it.

Something else to do with Teen Read Week is the WrestleMania Reading Challenge. This is an event put on by YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), Mattel, and WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). It involves students from grades 5-12 pledging to read five books between Teen Read Week and April 2011. It also involves students submitting a creative project about literary characters and WWE superstars. The grand prize is ring side seats to WrestleMania 27 in Atlanta! If you are interested come by the library to get the pledge and project sheets, and return them by October 25, 2010.

Don’t want to take up too much more of your time, so I’ll see you on Wednesday.

Wally World

How’s it going everybody?

Anybody else noticing that there was a chill in the air today? Kind of feels like fall is coming on, and I say that with the highest respect for summer I can. Guess we’ll have to hang on to the last weeks of summer and get ready for a great fall!

How have your school weeks been finding you? Back into the routine yet? I’m getting there. Even though we often look toward summer because it is supposed to be less busy, I often find that it is almost exactly the opposite. Why is that? We do get a break from our normal routines, but I found that I filled the time away from the regular routine with things that didn’t run on a routine, but still take just as much time. Needless to say, the last couple weeks of summer were very busy, and it is almost a relief to be back into the routine of school and work.

A few of you are probably wondering why this post is being posted so late. Turns out that I was at a Wal-Mart opening event today. There is a new Wal-Mart store that opened this week in Hayden, and Wal-Mart graciously donated grant money to Hayden businesses that were giving back to their communities. The Kootenai-Shoshone Libraries was one of the recipients. For this reason, we brought out the bookmobile and some foam photo frames and headed off to the Wal-Mart parking lot. Today was kind of windy, and kids were in school, so not too many people came knocking down our door. But, books were still checked out, someone got a library card, and we got to see some familiar library patrons. Not to mention that just spending time with library staff can be way too much fun!

The other big thing I’ve been working on this week is Teen Read Week, something that I’ll be mentioning until it comes from October 17-23. The Idaho Commission for Libraries is doing a statewide contest for promoting Teen Read Week. They called for libraries to submit a storyboard for a Teen Read Week PSA for a chance to win a digital photo frame. I decided to enter into the contest. I have also been a part of the Teen Read Week Coordinating Committee, and they were also looking for ways to promote Teen Read Week. They came up with the idea of committee members making a PSA, so I actually made the PSA, and I also submitted a storyboard for the same PSA.

Teen Read Week is going to be pretty busy with programs. Alysun Sanders is going to be joining us on the Friday before Teen Read Week, we are doing Airband Awesomeness on the Friday of Teen Read Week, and we are also participating in the WrestleMania Reading Challenge. Even though I don’t have time to go into details on those events now, just know that they are going to be awesome!

I’ll catch you on Wednesday for a Book Blurt on Andrew Klavan’s The Last Thing I Remember, which is starting off running, and seems to keep getting better. Blog you later!

My August in September

Hello again, everyone! This is Nick officially starting the blog postings back up. How were the rest of your summers? Mine was crazy busy but too much fun!

As I mentioned in my last blog post (which was last month, weird) I had a lot of things going on those last couple weeks of summer. That first week of August, I was finishing up my online classes that I was taking through Lewis Clark State College. Even though the fall and spring semesters are going to be easier because I’ve gotten some credits out of the way, I don’t like to do school work in the summer.

The second week of August I was up on Lake Pend Oreille at Inland Northwest Camp. I was one of the game staff, so I got to play games with a bunch of middle schoolers all week. It was a blast!

The third week of August I was supposed to have a surgery done to finish my orthodontic treatment. Turns out that it was actually going to be more expensive than I originally thought, and the insurance didn’t come through on it. Needless to say, I’m still waiting on the surgery.

The fourth week of August I headed off to the North Idaho Fair and Rodeo and then did a Karaoke night the following evening. Although the wind was really kicking, we made some fun cowboy and horse hats and gave away some free stuff. Our Karaoke night also went really well. We had people of all ages singing anything from “Beat it,” to “Life is a Highway.” Way too much fun!

So there is my August in a nutshell, and now on to September! The past week I’ve been getting back into the library groove; moving summer boxes into storage, updating Facebook, sending out emails. A big part of my last week has been getting ready for Teen Read Week, which is a nation wide event put on by the American Library Association every year. I have been a part of the Idaho Coordinating Committee for Teen Read Week, and I’m also entering a contest that the Idaho Commission for Libraries is putting on. The contest is creating a storyboard for a library PSA that talks about TRW. Although I’m not finished with it, I’m thinking it should be pretty cool when it is finished.

Well that’s about everything for now, so have a great weekend and I’ll see you on Wednesday!

Where did last week go?

Well my last blog post ended talking about my crazy week that wasn’t quite over, so I figured I’d tell you how my last week ended.

Just after writing my blog post I went over to Mountain States Early Head Start. Karen Yother has a day care that comes in once a month, and this time Head Start was at the same time. Although Karen would like to, she can’t be in two places at once, so off I went to Head Start. Obviously Head Start isn’t in my target audience of middle and high schoolers, but I still enjoy playing puppets with toddlers. We went over some colors, animal sounds, sang some songs; it was good.

Right after Head Start I jumped into our library van with some other staff members and drove over to Gonzaga University for INCOL’s spring workshop. Inland Northwest Council of Libraries (INCOL) does two workshops a year, and this workshop was on “Intellectual Freedom.” We had about thirty librarians discussing the Library Bill of Rights, Censorship, Freedom of Speech, Intellectual Freedom, the First Amendment, and obviously Intellectual Freedom. Once we got these overarching documents and principles, we got into the nitty-gritty of how these principles apply to libraries and librarians. As the Library Bill of Rights says, “materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation,” and “libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues.”

Well that was Friday, and the next day we had our award night for our Teen Film Festival that started back during Teen Tech Week 2009. Of our six entries, Ryan took first place with “Earth in Focus,” Josh and Daniel took second with, “We are the Earth,” and Matt took third with, “Life.” Congratulations again to our winners, and thanks to everyone who submitted an entry.

Well I’m already half way through my blog post, and I still haven’t talked about this week yet. My week started meeting with the Coeur d’ Alene School of Woodworking. One of our tween summer reading programs is going to be making wooden boats, and the shop said they would donate wood and materials for our program. Thank you to the CDA School of Woodworking.

I had my second meeting with the Teen Read Week Coordinating Committee. We talked about promoting Teen Read Week, and there were some really fun ideas that might get funded through the state. Stay tuned as October gets closer. Although I’m still new to the idea of meeting through the internet, I think its pretty slick that people from different time zones and from every area of Idaho can speak directly to each other through a pair of headphones and a microphone. Good stuff.

Two more quick things to mention. First, summer reading registration is coming up June 1 for all ages. So stop by the Hayden Library, or register online at ksalibraries.org.

Secondly, I’m going to be adding some new content to the blog every Wednesday, so be looking for my announcement.

Hope you all have a great week, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.

No Pain, No Gain

Here’s to our first week, and my first blog post, in May 2010. I always like to cycle through my week on Friday, and ask myself, what did I accomplish this week? Was I effective? Was I successful? Obviously, these questions are very subjective and self-analyzing, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Maybe if we took a look at what we did each week, we might realize there was so much more we could have done, and be motivated to complete so much more the next week. Maybe we could also appreciate the work that we did accomplish, and be encouraged by what we have accomplished.

Another thing on my mind is how easy it is to spend a couple hours watching a movie, and how hard it is to spend a couple hours reading a book. As young adult librarian, I’m trying to familiarize myself with young adult literature. Toward this end, I’m reading Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl and next week I’m planning on reading Pete Hautman’s Rash. I’ve found an hour or so already to read the book, but I find that there is always something else I could be doing. Why is that? I went and saw Iron Man 2 last night. Great movie! But, why was I so fast to spend two hours watching a movie, and so slow at reading a novel? Not that I’m not enjoying Stargirl, but maybe it’s just easier to watch something than it is to read something. The answer could have something to do with whether or not we are passive or active consumers. If we are passive consumers, we don’t have to do anything to our media. Iron Man 2 is an example. I just have to sit there and watch it. For Stargirl, I have to be an active consumer. I have to imagine what Stargirl looks like. I have to think about whether or not I enjoy Spinell’s writing style. I have to imagine based on what Spinelli is trying to get at, instead of just watching Iron Man stomp on the latest bad guy.

I find that sometimes the hardest thing to do is start something. Something that is sitting still doesn’t want to get up. Something that is moving doesn’t want to stop. There is absolutely nothing wrong with spending two hours having fun with friends and watching a good movie. But there are also a lot of benefits to reading, and we often don’t tap into those benefits because it takes effort to get at them. As the saying goes, “No pain, no gain.” Reading isn’t pain for me, but it is work. Like most work, the more you put into it, the more you will get out of it. Iron Man 2 and Stargirl are very different, and there are different reasons for doing both. But it seems like we spend a whole lot of time watching movies, and not so much time reading books, myself included. I’m going to work on getting both in so I can reap the benefits of both mediums.

In addition to a lot of thinking this week, I’ve also had a meeting with a statewide committee on Teen Read Week, a national event sponsored by the American Library Association’s (ALA) Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Teen Read Week isn’t until October, but we’re getting some good ideas flowing already. I also had a chance to meet with Tim Boal from Lighting Comics. Tim is going to donate the use of some of his video games for our game night, and he’s also going to do two programs for us. One is a comic book read-along for the younger kids, and the other is a Yu-Gi-Oh training for our tweens. Although there is always something else to do, or read, here’s to what was accomplished this week, and here’s to what we will accomplish in this following week.