Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

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Mar 23rd, 2011 by Cathy Jo Nelson

We head out to spring break for a week starting Friday afternoon. We return Monday, April 4th. So at this time the library staff is brainstorming and planning how to celebrate National Poetry Month and of course National Library Week. Is it evil or teacher librarian-sacrilegious to think the timing of spring break is throwing a big kink in our time to plan?

How dare me worry over time, when with all the tools I use, I will be able to come up with plans by brainstorming in my favorite networking places (SCASL.net, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)! I will manage. It’s so hard to one up the previous year, know what I mean?

So what’s in the plans? Well, thanks to my PLN, I’ll list what’s on the consideration table:

Spine Tales – Free verse poetry created straight from the books in the library. The picture above is my example (not necessarily an exemplar, and ooh so dark and brooding!)
Talking titles – Some great examples here! This one is a tad easier to do than the one above, and so it could be a lot of fun and very doable in a short mount of time. These two will be a contest of sorts. I will snap photos of the books and the composing author as well, and perhaps pull together a panel of judges.
Poem in Your Pocket – We will set up volunteers to cruise the lunch room looking for students who have a poem in their pocket. Those who have it on them will have their name entered into a drawing for a catered Papa John’s pizza luncheon (we will do 12 kids for each of the three lunches). Of those who have a poem to share–if they can recite it from memory, they will get a coupon for our in-house coffee/dessert cafe instantly redeemable.
And let’s not forget the ALA site and plans there to celebrate National Library Week! In house prizes under consideration here are prom tickets, a prom date dinner for two, and a limo ride to the prom. I better start begging for donations!