The Obsessions of a Crafty Librarian Guider.
You are currently browsing the Library category.
Now I love the festive season and any excuse the decorate the library so I opted this year for a Christ-moose (or a Merry Moose-mas?)
The baubles hanging from the antlers are book wishes from staff – the poor moose became quite heavily laden by the end.
I also made a wreath for the door out of paper. (You cut a circle out of cardboard the size you want the wreath to be then cut out the middle so you have wreath shape. Next staple holly shaped bits of green paper onto it – work round the circle in the same direction. To finish cut some circles out of red, group into threes and spread amongst the holly).
The pupils decorated the tree and then I wheeled out the paper snowman making. I’ve done this before and giving pupils three increasing sized circles, a orange triangle and paper sticks always results in fun. This year I had a bunch wearing hats, smoking pipes and even one throwing a snowball. However I also had a pupil who reminded me of Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) who made a Siamese twin snowman and another snowman holding a firework who was going to blow them apart plus a snowman on fire who was melting. Free reign of ideas is worth thinking about carefully!
Anyway his somewhat worrying snowmen inspired me to replicate the Calvin and Hobbes snowmen that I love so much (see last years tree decorations). So the main notice board got the bowling snowman and the rest were scattered in amongst the pupils creations.
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago. Add a comment
I have been busy with library displays but kept forgetting to get the photos home to post. I’ve done three displays since I last posted. Hallowe’en is full of photos of the pupils so I can’t post them but we did a haunted house mystery where the pupils had different characters and library users were challenged to solve the mystery. All very Scooby Doo 
Next I had my Remembrance Day display. I try and change it every year and last year had a WW1 emphasis so I decided to go with the current war in Afghanistan as this years. I typed up a list of the UK military personnel who have died since we started the conflict including job and age. Simple but very effective.
Then we had my LGBT display. Now this was a result of a staff challenge. At the last in-service day we were challenged to do things that would make LGBT lifestyle accepted (i.e. the same way skin colour and religion have been accepted). I opted for authors who have written great books but happen to fall into one of those categories for the display. I think the funniest thing about this one was that the depute head sent me an email saying we’d have to discuss this as we don’t want to ‘promote’. Needless to say we never had the talk but I love the idea I have that power – now if I could only make them read!
NB: four pupils have come out to me as a result so the aim of making it an accepted thing in the library worked – none of them took a book though!
The slogan was an adaptation of one I’d seen on the Curmudgeoy Librarian Superstore which had it going ‘into the stacks’ but there was no way my pupils would have understood that.
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago. Add a comment
Another fortnight another display. This time we have Rodents Rule – featuring a carefully constructed paper version of a Banksy rat.
The books include Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, The Amazing Maurice and His Eductaed Rodents, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Depford Mice trilogy, Redwall, Maus, The Tale of One Bad Rat and Firmin.
Posted 6 months ago. 3 comments
A week off work so I set myself a book a day challenge – and I nearly managed.
Monday and Tuesday – 
Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death by Giles Brandreth
I rather liked this. I’ve no idea if it is historically accurate but it was fun and used lot’s of Wilde quotes in the text (apparently Wilde did ‘try out’ phrases with friends prior to their appearing in his work). Wilde has Sherlock Holmes-esque observational skills and uses these to the full to solve the murder and like all good crimes I got to the end amazed by the solution but sure that if I read it again all the clues would be staring me in the face.
Wednesday – Library Confidential : Oddballs, Geeks and Gangstas in the public library by Don Borchert
It claims to put the Shh! in shocking. I’d say it is a pretty accurate of life in the public library and in my own experience with toy gun fights before 8:30am, stolen pot plants and massive arguments over a 15p fine I’ve experienced a very similar range of adventures during my library career so far. Though I dare say for those who think the library is a quiet place it probably is a shocker. Worth reading since it was quite amusing but mainly assured me that my experience is only to be expected.
Thurs
day – The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor.
This was excellent! Very much a teen book so easy to read but brilliant. It’s a reworking of Alice in Wonderland – less full of drug induced weirdness but much darker and bloody. I loved the way the various characters are re-worked I loved the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat! The sequel ‘Seeing Redd’ has just been moved to my must read book pile.
Friday – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
This has been moved on and off the read pile for a while but it’s one of seven books I’m challenging myself to read by February. I really liked it. I dare say I’m missing the deeper meanings but I loved the description of the opulence and glamor of Gatsby. I really liked the tragedy of it all and the idea that time is always moving forward, never letting you return to the past. I loved the line Meyer Wolfshiem says near the end;
“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”
Posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago. 2 comments
First display of the year is books beyond Twilight. Vampire theme they include Dracula and The Historian. There are some of the recent reprints of past girly vampire books but there is also ‘Parliament of blood’ by Justin Richards , Vampirates Series by Justin Somper, Piggies by Nick Gifford (this one is all about what if Vampires were the norm and humans kept for food) and Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber (Manga version)
The poster is the official ALA one I got it through Gresswell, the table cloth a Halloween one from the supermarket bats and lettering are my own The apple poster is promoting my new book group – I got the image from Office clip art.
I saw this at Central Station in Chicago. I assume there was some form of basketball themed party planned. The quote is “Basketball doesn’t build character. It reveals it.” Not sure what my past pitiful attempts at the sport revealed – possibly just that sport was not going to keep me in clothes.
I did think this would be a cool idea for a sports evening or even library display.
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago. Add a comment
It is my intention to try and read some of the pile of books by my bed rather than just balance cups of tea on them so I’ve set myself a few targets.
The first was to read ‘The Outsiders’ by S.E.Hinton which Tom had said was a must read. It is, he was right. Given it was written by a teenager in the 1960s I was expecting something that felt much more dated. I was surprised to discover that the only thing dated was possibly the hair styles and clothes and that you quickly accepted. The themes are universal and timeless – disadvantaged because of who you are and where you come from.
‘Course this has also made it onto the ‘banned books’ lists over the years produced by the ALA due to the drinking, broken homes and lack of adults (it is also pretty violent with three deaths though parents who demand books to be removed from libraries rarely seem to do so because of violence). As always you are left wondering why anyone would feel teenagers shouldn’t read this – it is a very powerful read but very much for the forces of good.
Given the width of topic and quality it’s going on my Int1 recommend list and a possibility for my book group. For more details Spark notes are available online here
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago. Add a comment
Posted 7 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
My head library monitor is off to new adventures so as a thanks I gave her this little guy. His foot pads are purple (colour of uniform) and has JYHS on one pad and a thistle on the other.
Posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
More and more I am reading Teen books (mostly thanks to being a High School Librarian). The latest lot to take me was the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. So you can expect crafty goodness related to that coming soon – including t-shirts.
I’ve been reading on a bit of a Vampire theme recently including ‘Sucks to be me: The all-true confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe)’ by Kimberly Pauley (a nice twist on the Vampire story and in diary form) and of course the classic Dracula by Bram Stoker (an interesting read with the various documents and sources gradually pulling the story together) .
I also read ‘The Historian’ by Elizabeth Kostova. Written in a similar way to Stoker’s classic I was hoping for a good read. Alas not as good as I hoped. In it’s favor it has a nice link to Stoker plus plenty of mythology on Count Dracula. It has a rather slow build (c.600 pages) so you feel it must be going somehwere exciting. It was but the ending is so fast and over so quick I felt I’d been cheated. If Vlad really was so easy to deal with it makes you wonder why it took them hundreds of years to get rid of him.
