Thursday, March 29, 2012

Yes, I'm still breathing!

Oh, I have not been the best blogger, I admit!  I am in the final forty calendar days of my master's program, and final forty work days of the school year.  Deadlines are coming at me fast and furious from both graduate school and my teaching gig, so blogging has taken a low slot on the to-do list!

Just so you know I've been reading....this was my Spring Break:
 An Automation Primer for School Library Media Centers and Small Libraries

220 pages of technical information about library automation systems (you know, the computer systems that let you scan your book to check out, lets your librarian know when your book is overdue, and does a jillion other really cool things regarding collection management) and how to implement and manage a project team if you need to initiate, upgrade, or change out such a system.  Being that I consider myself to be a digital immigrant (versus digital native) the first half was VERY hard for me to read.  NOTE TO STUDENTS:  EVEN TEACHERS READ AND REREAD TEXT THAT IS VERY HARD FOR THEM!!!  I must have read chapter one three times, and I know half of that information didn't sink in.  Thank goodness for highlighters and the open book test at the end of that unit!

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us AllSince then, the two books that garner what little time I've got to read these days is Brain Jack by Brian Falkner (yes, still reading it, though now I get to read during my language arts block at school!) and This Book is Overdue:  How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson.  The former is a great read, just as my 7th grade son said it would be--good suggestion for young adult "computer geeks" or scifi fans.  The latter is just plain funny:  a nonfiction book written by a nonlibrarian who became fascinated with librarians, and spent a lot of time in their company to research everything from activism and intellectual freedom to blogs and Second Life. 

I can only read for 10-15 minutes at a time/ per day, but hey, that's about 3000 words a day, right?  So if I can do it, so can you--Keep on reading!  Oh, and I'm experimenting with adding media to my blog--here's a book trailer for Brain Jack, from Book Trailers for All on SchoolTube: