Ode to Joy

Experimenting with Google Picasa: Buffy Unpacking First Box of Books

Originally uploaded by theunquietlibrarian

Whenever I start feeling overwhelmed by the upcoming school year, I like to look at this photo and remember the pure joy of something as simple as unpacking a box of books. I can honestly say this was one of the happiest moment in my career—this is me opening the first box of 8000 books when I opened my media center in July 2006! Happiness is a box full of books that you are about to unbox and put on the shelves!

Getting Ready to Have a Conversation About Avant Garde Cataloging 2.0!

I am honored and delighted to be a guest speaker this Saturday for Dr. Mary Ann Fitzgerald’s EDIT 6380 “Cataloging for Automated School Media Centers” at UGA/Gwinnett.  Speaking to budding school library media specialists is always a thrill, but this particular event is especially meaningful since Dr. Fitzgerald was my program advisor and has been a guiding force in my life since 2001; in addition, it seems like it was just the other day that I was a student in EDIT 6380 in the summer of 2005!

My resource bookmarks are available at http://del.icio.us/theunquietlibrary/7-12-08, and my presentation (which is more of a visual guide…I will be doing a ton of “show and tell” with our library blog, our library website, and other library 2.0 tools) is available below:

I am excited to share how I am using library 2.0 and web 2.0 tools in my media center to organize and deliver information to our patrons.  I can only hope that what I have to share will inspire others to join in the fun! 

Happy Birthday to My Blog!

Today is the one year anniversary of my blog, The Unquiet Librarian!  This last year has been a remarkable year of learning and growth for me, and I thank everyone who has been reading my blog and who has come along for the ride.  I am looking forward to another exciting year of blogging and reflection!  Thank you to everyone who reads my humble blog. 

Buffy Hamilton

Save the Date: Decatur Book Festival Is Coming, August 29-31!

 

The 2008 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival Presented by DeKalb Medical | Home

 Many thanks to Dr. JoBeth Allen from the University of Georgia Department of Language and Literacy for the heads up on this WONDERFUL event!  I plan to be there…Billy Collins will be giving the keynote address!  Here is the latest info straight from the festival organizers via email:

It’s hard to believe, but here we are preparing to launch the THIRD annual Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival Presented by DeKalb Medical. The festival has not merely survived its first few years. We’ve built on partnerships with artistic, educational, business, and governmental organizations not only from all over metropolitan Atlanta but from all over the nation. Hosted in the literary haven of Decatur, this festival has quickly joined the ranks of the largest and most talked about book festivals nationwide.
 
 Perhaps we could just keep doing what we’ve been doing and call that good enough, but where’s the fun in that? We’ve added plenty of new and unique programs to this year’s festival:
 
 We’ve had a Children’s Parade since the first year, but this is the first time we’ll be launching a new book at the parade. Not just any book: It’s the first new “Madeline” story in 50 years–”Madeline and the Cats of Rome”–written by John Bemelmans Marciano, the grandson of Ludwig Bemelmans. We encourage everyone to join Marciano in the parade, maybe wear a big yellow hat, sing your favorite French (or, for that matter, Italian) song, or just make some noise.
 
 Though we’ve had programs directed at teenagers from the beginning, 2008 marks the first year we will set aside a space exclusively for teenagers, called Escape. Escape will host best-selling authors for interactive discussions, an open mic and a literary salon. For those under 18, there will also be a quiz show called How Well Do You Know Harry? judged by Cheryl Klein, continuity editor for the last four Harry Potter books.
 
 In a historic partnership, Poets & Writers and Agnes Scott College are working with us to present the best DBF Writers Conferenceyet, with top national editors, agents, critics, publicists, authors, and screenwriters sharing their collective wisdom in a conference tightly integrated with the rest of the book festival. In addition, beginning this year, DBF will host the prestigious Southern Independent Booksellers Association (SIBA) awards ceremony. Many of the nominees will give readings at the festival.
 
 In 2006, we hosted the launch event for the first Atlanta Reads. This year, we’ll launch Atlanta Reads as well as the Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts. Atlanta’s Big Read will encourage the entire community to read and talk about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”
 
 Still not enough to fill your Labor Day weekend? Check out even more of the new programs that make this year’s festival truly unique:

 Brooks & Co. Dancewill perform a dance inspired by Shirley Jackson’s classic short story, “The Lottery,” set to the music of Stravinsky’s “Rites of Spring” and drawing on Ninjinsky’s seminal choreography to Stravinsky’s work.
 
 In a program called “Words from Iraq,” adult and young actors from PushPush Theater will present multiple perspectives on Iraq through readings of letters children have written to their parents in the military, blogs written by soldiers in Iraq, and a blog by a young Iraqi woman.
 
 In the spirit of the Java Monkey Local Authors Stage, we’re adding a stage for emerging authors just beginning to get their work out into the world, called the Emerging and Exhibiting Authors Stage.
 
 Author and former Olympian runner Jeff Galloway will lead a fun run Saturday morning of the festival, followed by a running clinic.
 
 Lee Smith, Marshall Chapman, Jill McCorkle, and Matraca Berg will all be onstage together to give a taste of their traveling musical–The Good ol’ Girls–about their friendship and the mutual influences of their books and music on one another.
  
 And that’s just the new stuff!
 

You know you can also count on us to bring you the nation’s top authors in our strongest, most diverse line-up yet. You know we’ve got you covered for good food and some of the best singer-songwriters in America. You know we’ll show the whole family a good time. So, come join us this Labor Day weekend for the best AJC Decatur Book Festival yet!    
   
   

 Be sure to check out our 2008 DBF web site,www.decaturbookfestival.com <http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=0010o9b8-G1lEKeg0HJ9PdUjGRNyOgyeblVgbcTsEt5PKylDahxzgliuFLJWKLt-zYIoc45cFGTjIsQlOObVGPCdF6Q_S1hyNoiVHSyZMw4GDtx6o-NqZyAj84pBZOFARsm> .

My Resource Page for Teaching Multigenre Research Papers

 

Multigenre Research Projects Summer 2008, Buffy Hamilton via kwout

It is a work in progress, and it will have to be moved in a few weeks as our district moves from FrontPage to Sharepoint (boo hoo!), but here is my current resource page on teaching the multigenre paper.

http://webtech.cherokee.k12.ga.us/creekview-hs/buffyhamilton/multigenre_research_projects_summer2008.htm

Here you will find:

• My handouts in PDF format
• Blog reflections from the students
• Sample papers written by real high school students
• My favorite resources on teaching and learning with multigenre papers

While I have dabbled with this project with short stories, this is the first full scale effort I have completed with a general research topic.  I would like to do a full scale project of this nature with a novel next year…it is just hard sometimes with my night school pumpkins, especially with the EOCT course, because of the time factor.  However, I am really pleased with my efforts this summer, and I already have ideas on what I will do again, and what I will do to make this project even better!

I need a few days to clear my mind, rest, and reflect before I write my final blog post about this research experience.  However, I can say that I highly recommend it!  I will be writing more soon on what I feel that my students and I learned from this research experience.

Looking Ahead: Teen Read Week October 2008!

Information for Teen Read Week 2008 is now available from YALSA!  This year’s theme is “Books with Bite”—how delicious!  :-)  Teen Read Week will be celebrated October 12–18, so now is the time to start planning ahead!

One terrific resource is the Teen Read Week 2008 Wiki!  This wiki is truly a gold mine of ideas and resources for celebrating Teen Read Week and ways to incorporate the theme, “Books with Bite”, into your festivities! 

Teen Read Week - YALSA

 Another fabulous resource is the Programming Ideas page at http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/teenreading/trw/trw2008/activities/index.cfm. Here you can read more about ways to incorporate podcasts, tech programs, a fim festival, a taste test, display contests, and more for your week of celebrations!

If you are a librarian, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/teenreading/trw/trw2008/registration/index.cfm to register now!  There are some great incentives for the first 100 registrants, including the following:

2008 Registration Incentives

1. The first 100 registrants to sign up for YALSA’s Teen Read Week will receive a free, unabridged young adult audiobook compliments of Teen Read Week Promotional Partner Listening Library. Teens at your library will enjoy hearing their favorites novels come to life on audio.
2. All new regular members of YALSA who join through the Teen Read Week Web site will receive two free paperbacks courtesy Promotional Partner Scholastic.
3. The first 4,000 registrants will receive one free paperback from Galaxy’s Golden Age series, courtesy Promotional Partner Galaxy Press.
4. Register by midnight on July 14 and you could win a free copy of Breaking Dawn, the latest entry in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, courtesy Promotional Partner Hachette Book Group USA/Little, Brown & Co. On July 15, we’ll select 200 registrants at random.
5. Twenty-five registrants will be chosen at random to receive a complete set of titles from Zest Books (about fifteen books total). The drawing will be held on Mon. Sept. 15, 2008.
6. One lucky registrant will win alibrary of Mirrorstone titles, approximate value $500 and based on availability. Five runner ups will win an autographed copy each of Sucks to Be Me and The Stowaway. The drawing will be held on Mon. Sept. 15, 2008.
7. All registrants can download YALSA’s pocket-sized, illustrated Books with Bite Recommended Reading Pamphlet, full of recommended titles drawn from YALSA’s awards and booklists and annotated by YALSA’s Teen Read Week committee. These trifold pamphlets can be printed on 8.5 x 11″ paper, cut to size, and then handed out to teens by the dozens.

 

“Granny’s Chiffarobe”: Poem Inspired by Kelly Bingham Poetry Writing Workshop

YA author Kelly Bingham is here in our library as I write!  She is doing poetry writing workshops with our English classes today….what an amazing poet!

Here is my poem from the list writing strategy she showed us today:

“Granny’s Chiffarobe”

Polished gleaming mahogany

Gold patina handles inviting you to open doors to the past
Lingering odor of fluffy golden biscuits mingled with Rose Milk perfume and musty mothballs
Former home to calico cotton dresses and floral aprons
         Your worn Bible and pearl-handled pistol
Bits of quilting cotton left as breadcrumbs to a time now existing only in my memories
The secret door to Narnia I never could find.

Draft 2, posted 12:55

“Granny’s Chiffarobe”

Polished gleaming mahogany

Gold patina handles inviting you to open doors to the past
Lingering odor of fluffy golden biscuits mingled with Rose Milk perfume and musty mothballs
Former home to faded calico cotton dresses and floral aprons
         Your worn Bible and pearl-handled pistol
Ghostly tufts of quilting cotton left as breadcrumbs to a time now existing only in my memories
The secret door to Narnia I never could find.

 

Draft 3, posted 2:10

 

“Granny’s Chiffarobe”

Polished gleaming mahogany

Gold patina handles inviting you to open doors to the past
Lingering odor of fluffy golden buttery biscuits mingled with Rose Milk perfume and musty mothballs
Former home to faded calico cotton dresses and floral aprons
         and your two weapons:  a well-worn Bible and a pearl-handled pistol
Ghostly tufts of quilting cotton left as breadcrumbs leading back to a time now existing only in my memories
The secret door to Narnia I never could find.

 

The Unquiet Library Celebrates “Poem In Your Pocket” Day!

 

The Unquiet Library celebrated National Poem In Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 17!  We created “pockets” of poems throughout our media center where our patrons can go and get a poem to read for fun!  We also gave each English teacher a pocket of poems for his or her classroom to help students celebrate this event of sharing poems.

You can come by the library and get poems for your pockets for the rest of the month!  Please stop by the media center and browse our pockets of poems, which are a terrific mix of classic, modern, and student written poems!  Several of our pocket poems were written by Creekview’s finest! 

Happy poem reading!

 

 

Shout Out: Dr. Mary Ann Fitzgerald Wins Outstanding Teacher Award!

Current and former students of the University of Georgia School Library Media program learned exciting news on Friday:  Dr. Mary Ann Fitzgerald, Associate Professor of Instructional Technology, has won the distinguished College of Education Award for Most Outstanding Teacher!

I think anyone who has had the honor of being a student of Mary Ann will agree that this award is *most* deserving!  I was fortunate enough to have Mary Ann as my advisor and to be her teaching assistant at UGA for a semester in addition to taking several classes with her.  When I think of people who have been “most influential” in my philosophy as a teacher and librarian, MAF is at the top of my list!  She has been instrumental to my development and growth as a teacher-librarian; I am so grateful that I was fortunate enough to be her student at UGA.  She sets the standard both as a model teacher and an individual.

I would like to extend my sincerest congratulations to Mary Ann!