Old Books

"It is a good rule after reading a new book,

never to allow yourself another new one

till you have read an old one in between."

~C.S. Lewis

Achoo! Discarding books is always an adventure with the years of dust and allergens, but it is fun to imagine the hands that have touched these books.

Some books were checked out when I was in elementary school.  Some were here when Steve was in high school.

Also, the library worker who used the small ID stamp really, really liked to stamp. I picture her having fun stamping lots of places in each book and I think she probably would have loved letterboxing!

Copyright 1953, dapper looking authors, VHS tapes, and other books are being withdrawn from the ERHS collection.
 

Now I'm going to find some Benedryl!  Achoo! Sniff, sniff!

23 Mobile Things - Thing 11 - Library & Reference

ERHS Media Center Welcome Display

Although I am familiar with ELM (Electronic Library for Minnesota) and have used their databases for years, I was surprised that I learned a few new things in Thing 11. One of the most basic pieces of information I gleaned was from the ELM Facebook page, which I have "liked" for a long time.  The ELM Facebook page is a great source for "on this day" type of information.  We have a "welcome" white board at the entrance to the Media Center where we display current events and things particular to the day.  This may not seem too spectacular, but help coming up with interesting information to display every day is very much appreciated!

As a refresher for ELM database searching, I used my iPhone to search Ebsco's Academic Search Premier.

ELM (elm4you.org) on iPhone

The search performed identically to my desktop computer.  It is good to remember that this in not an app, but rather the ELM website accessed through Safari, or any web browser (elm4you.org).

Academic Search Premier Search for Snowy Owl

Search Results for Snowy Owl

Article Found by Snowy Owl Search

My favorite excerpt from my search for "snowy owl," is:

"Harry Potter novelist J.K. Rowling cast a snowy owl as her orphaned hero's courier and companion.  That seems perfectly fitting: Swift, strong, beautiful, and dauntless in caring for their young, these winged icons of the Arctic are magically fascinating---to boy wizards and scientists alike."

The Elk River High School Media Center uses several apps.  DestinyQuest allows users to search our library catalog and Follett Enlight K-12 is our eBook reader app.  We also use Gale's Access My Library app to search our databases.

That's all I've got for Thing 11, but as you can see from the photos below, I am still having fun with Thing 9!

Out My Front Door

Tommy

23 Mobile Things - Thing 3 - 2014 Winter Olympics

As part of Thing 3, we were encouraged to learn about RedLaser.  One of the featured libraries had incorporated QR codes into a book display.  Since I was working on a book display for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, I thought I would add some QR codes.

Did you know that at this year's Winter Olympics, Minnesota has the second highest representation of Olympic athletes, behind California?  We have 19 athletes on Team USA, and 1 is a hometown boy, Paul Martin (Men's Hockey), from Elk River!  He is actually a neighborhood kid.  How cool is that!

For the display, I generated QR codes using QRStuff, a QR code generator.  I attached a QR code to a tag of each individual sport that links to the history of that sport, and codes for the Olympics schedule and opening ceremony.  I also created a QR code that links to a high school picture of Paul.  The display highlights Minnesota athletes and the sports they will be competing in.  A selection of Olympic and sport related books complete the display.

So, here is an example of how I am using the RedLaser app we learned about in Thing 3.

ERHS Media Center 2014 Winter Olympics Display

Opening Ceremony and Schedule QR Codes

2014 Winter Olympics Schedule QR Code

Curling Athletes from Minnesota

QR Code for History of Snowboarding

QR Code to Photo of Paul Martin as an ERHS Elk

Pop the Popcorn! Here comes Oscar!

The 82nd Academy Awards are this Sunday night (March 7, 2010). Check out some of the nominees that started out as books.

Check out any of these books in the ERHS Media Center!

February is I Love To Read Month

Here is what I've been up to this month...



Thanks goes to Trisha at Oh So Crafty for the heart garland inspiration! I think it works fabulously with I Love to Read month!

The Old-Fashioned Way Still Works!

This is my milk carton from lunch today. It was a neat reminder for me that we can find valuable information in lots of places.

The milk carton intrigued me, so I had to check out literacy.gov. This site is the Library of Congress' Lifelong Literacy site. There is lots of interesting stuff there. One of my favorite "finds" is in the Rare Book & Special Collections Reading Room. The LOC has digitized a collection of rare and classic children's literature. For each book, you have the option to use the Page Turner or view the entire book in PDF format. The library staff has scanned every page, including the covers and blank pages. The illustrations in some of these old books are fantastic! In honor of April being Poetry month, here is a picture of a page from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. The illustrations are by Charles Robinson and it was published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York in 1895. This poem is entitled "Rain."