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Learning Organizers

Written on: June 15th, 2009 in Learning Journeys

Annie here: We are pleased to announce our fourth learning
organizer, The Curious Life of Me:  A journal of
my child’s questions…and answers, for parents of preschoolers through 4th
grade or so.  The question journal
contains prompts for parents/caregivers to capture children’s questions and
nurture curiosity.  Learning organizers help individuals to
reflect and build on their learning, and also demonstrate the benefits that library use provides over time.

The bad news is, due to the economy
we’re not going to be able to publish it with a fancy binding like our first
tool, the learning journal.  The good news is, we designed it in pdf so that it can be made available to the world! Download DDL QuestionJrnlPgsRev8 6-10-09

The four organizers,
so far, are:

·         Growth Chart for preschoolers – designed, not yet
printed
·        
Reading Rocks – reading portfolio
for summer reading participants to collect reading logs and certificates
throughout their summer reading years
·        
Question Journal – contains prompts for
parents to capture children’s questions and nurture
curiosity
·        
Learning Journal – our original tool
– all participants who attend the Learning Journeys program receive a free
journal, but are encouraged to use the style of organizer that works best for
them.  The Learning Journal contains suggested prompts and includes space for
reading maps, etc.

It will be interesting to see if the
IMLS 21st Century Skills tool, to be released in July, is in alignment
with Learning Journeys
discoveries – Delawareans got a head start on this one!
 (Delaware
loves being First ;-) 

Still lots more work to do and
opportunities to explore on our
“self-directed learning path about self-directed learning;” please share if you’re
exploring a similar path. 

All things new this week

Written on: June 15th, 2009 in Reviews

Click on the links below to get lists of new items available from the DLC in various formats:

All New Items
New Audio Books
New Books
New DVDs

Weekend Book Reviews

Written on: June 15th, 2009 in Reviews

The Sunday New York Times Book Review showcased some very interesting- sounding titles this weekend:

• A Short History of Women, by Kate Walbert- interconnected short stories about the experiences of a British suffragist and her descendants- including one set at Dover A.F.B.
• Commencement, by J. Courtney Sullivan. The lives of a group of Smith College students in school and beyond- not quite as good as The Group, according to the reviewer, but “an affable first novel”.
• Three different reviews on books about the current financial crisis focusing mainly on J.P. Morgan and Bear Sterns. “Street Fighters” sounds particularly gritty.

Libraries in the (network) news

Written on: June 12th, 2009 in News

I’m a fan of nifty news-tracking tools, especially ones that have a strong visual component. Snapstream.com is a service that aggregates all the transcripts of network TV shows and allows users to search for specific keywords or phrases, and graphs the results. The graph above shows how often the word “libraries” was mentioned on network news for the year to date.

Summer Library Reading Program

Written on: June 12th, 2009 in News

Look out for this Public Service Announcement on local TV as Summer Library Reading Program (SLRP) events and activities take over Delaware’s public libraries for the summer!

SLRP is more than just a tremendously fun summer program for kids- it also provides a vital link to continuing literacy development through the school break and avoiding “summer loss”. You can read an article about the educational impact of programs that engage children with continued literacy development during the summer here (to summarize- children are at risk of losing a year and a half of reading development between Grades 1-6 if they don’t read during the summer).

The Division of Libraries and Division of the Arts also organize a performance series to enhance and promote library SLRP programs. You can see the full performance schedule at the Delaware Center for the Book website or at the DelawareScene arts and culture events listing website.

The Collaborative Summer Library Program provides resources to library partners for SLRP programs- you can visit their website for more information.

What you’re searching for this month

Written on: June 11th, 2009 in News

Recipe for a best-seller: A young vampire decides to leave the seminary in order to fight in a Delaware regiment during the Civil War. He’s injured, then falls in love with his nurse. And she’s telepathic!

Get me that James Patterson on the phone!

Check us out on Twitter!

Written on: June 10th, 2009 in News

The Delaware Division of Libraries tweets some of the interesting virtual reference questions it receives (they get far too many to post them all!).
http://twitter.com/askalibrarian

Other Delaware Libraries tweet news and events. Check them out!
http://twitter.com/MiltonLibrary

http://twitter.com/Selbyville_Lib

http://twitter.com/gtowndelibrary

Learner’s Block?

Written on: June 9th, 2009 in Learning Journeys

Kathy here: System shutdown; project offline;no data entered…I could go on…but what it comes down to is that my brain is full. Picture the file cabinet that practically spews paper when you open it, almost daring you to try and stuff one more sheet of paper inside. That's where I stand. Does this surprise you? Let me try to explain.

Some picture their lifelong learning as a hike, some as a climb. From my childhood, mine has always felt like a river. There are times when it is so wide I can barely see the other side; and others when even I – at 4'11" – can hop across it. There are times when it rages ahead, whitewater all round; and others when it babbles along peacefully. Then, there are those times when a tree falls across the flow; debris builds up behind; the water is gradually choked off from true forward movement.  Again, that's where I stand. My brain is full; my river is blocked.

The answer? I just need to pull out the heavy equipment I keep in reserve for tree removal. First, I acknowledge where I am and take a step back. I spend time in nature, pull out favorite quote collections, visit amazing photograph sites such as  Webshots or sit for a hour or so in the picture book section of my public library. Second, I recognize that 99.9% of the time when that tree has fallen, it relates to a disorganized approach to information overload. So, I'm spending the next few days with my figurative backhoe moving that learning I must do away from that I wish to do, removing rocks along the way and smoothing the surface of both.

Remember, that river wants to flow.

Your Reviews- new feature

Written on: June 9th, 2009 in News, Reviews

We’ve blogged several times (here and here, for instance) about how Delaware Library patrons can write their own reviews and have their reviews display in the online catalog.

We recently implemented a categorization feature in Library Thing reviews- you can now check a box if you want your review to be featured in a specific category- At this point you can choose to select from “summer reading”, “teen books”, and “learning journeys” (the Division of Libraries Lifelong Learning project). This means that if you’re involved in a library program, such as a book group, all of the reviews for that program can be displayed together on a web page.

Take a look at any of the review links to see what it looks like. You’ll have to view the full catalog record for a book, click on “see reviews/add a review” and select “review this yourself” to see the new options.

While you’re there, write a review or two…

There aren’t any obvious limits on the amounts of categories that can be installed, so if you are interested in having your book club or a program at your library enabled as a review category, let me know. The output to your website, blog, or facebook account is a snippet of HTML that is easily installed and is available from the review module.

Matt Denn’s Summer Reading List

Written on: June 8th, 2009 in News, Reviews

Delaware’s Lieutenant Governor blogged about summer reading today. You can read the original posting here.

Matt’s post is a “list for grown-ups”, featuring books that he has read recently and enjoyed:

So Brave Young and Handsome, and
Peace Like a River, Leif Enger
Thrillers by George Pelecanos
Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

As he says, you can get them at your local public library! Enjoy your summer reading assignment!