Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

I am somewhat depressed today as I have been number crunching this weekend.  It is time for my monthly library report, so this month I thought I’d include statistics from our state book award program. Votes were cast at my school Feb 28-29, and all votes in the state had to be submitted via Survey Monkey to the SCASL Book Award Chair by Midnight, March 1. The big announcement on the winning titles per category (picture books, children’s books, junior books, and young adult books) will come in less than two weeks, Friday, March 16, at the Book awards Luncheon during the SCASL Annual Conference.

 

Just 25? You’re kidding, right?

My school submitted a whopping 25 votes this year. Each year we do it a different way, trying to figure out the best way to collect votes. This year we used our iPads and a Google Form.  We had a student library worker marching around wearing a body sized billboard reminding kids to vote during lunch, and we made announcements all during lunch about it—for two straight days—as well as the week preceding our election days. While our walking living billboard was unique and interesting, I think we had the worst participation ever.  Makes me sad!! Makes me MAD!! #FAIL.

 

Promotion-promotion-promotion. Yes, we did.

What is so strange this year is that we felt the books were a pretty good mix—something for everyone!  We set up a nice display in several locations and did activities and booktalks for the titles throughout the year. We had our bookclubs choose a title, and more often than not the books were shared during our occasional “bring your own book” book club meetings. We booktalked all the titles—even the ones we hadn’t read, and practically did cartwheels to get kids to read them. I myself had many, many conversations with kids who HAD read the titles, engaging in debates over what was good, what wasn’t, and why a title should or shouldn’t win—constantly reminding kids I really don’t have a say, as only students get to vote.

The digital frame ran some of these throughout the year, many of which are book award nominees AND created by students.
Anyway, as humiliating as this is, here is the data I mined today.

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Total number of votes cast on voting days = 25

 

Circ Data

DISCLAIMOR:  We had many kids read titles outside of school, so this portion JUST represents the circulation data for the nominees we had.

Total checked out nominees to date  - 406 titles

Most checked out nominee – Before I Fall - 42 circs

Least checked out nominee – TIE with 2 checkouts each:
Into The Wild Nerd Yonder
Rock and Roll Soldier
My colibrarian was one of the circs for The Wild Nerd Yonder; myself and one other faculty member–who I might add never took it beyond the front counter of school, where our school receptionist found it and returned it–were the sole patrons who checked out Rock and Roll Soldier) Sigh.

Circulation Breakdown by Title:

Title	circs
Before I Fall	42
Hold Still	37
Hate List	35
Shiver	34
Dirty Little Secrets	32
Purple Heart	26
Muchacho	25
Girl in the Arena	20
The Chosen One	20
Diary of a Witness	19
Once a Witch	17
Unsigned Hype	17
Angry Management	15
Brutal	15
Ghosts of War	15
King of the Screwups	13
Leviathan	13
Gray Baby	4
Into The Wild Nerd Yonder	4
Rock and Roll Soldier	2

To be eligible to vote students had to read three titles from the list of nominees.  Based on circulations, 22 students checked out 3 different nominees at our school.

Faculty and Staff Participation:

Department	Members reading	% Participating
Media	3	100%
Eng Dept	7	33%
Bus Dept	1	25%
Secretaries	1	10%
Admin	1	10%

Breakdown of faculty & staff (again JUST based on Destiny circ data)

Patron	Checked out
Nelson, Catherine	17
faculty member b	6
faculty member c	3
faculty member d	4
faculty member e	1
faculty member f	2
faculty member g	4
faculty member h	2
faculty member i	1
faculty member j	2
faculty member k	2
faculty member l	1
faculty member m	2

Reward the few!!

I’m going to have a “breakfast” for the students who checked out three or more.  I will make an invitation inviting the 22 students who did check out at least three.  I will have it announced that there will be a celebration breakfast for students who read 3 or more of the SCYABA nominees. Students who feel they have read three or more and would like to come (but did not get an invitation because they read the titles from off site and not from our library) should see one of us in the library to discuss titles, and at this one-on-one opportunity, we can decide to invite them. This is to ensure we don’t exclude those who read books from other places (i.e. bought the book at the bookstore or checked it out digitally or from the public library.)

Fellowship around books!

At the celebration breakfast students will join for some fellowship over books, and we will recognize our top patrons in this group—maybe with one of our book store gift cards, and allow everyone who attends to select a free books from our secret stash of new paperback books.

Hindsight

DANG! Why didn’t we do the book fellowship breakfast in late January or early February? Hindsight is always 20/20.  So anyway, I’m trying to figure out ways to increase our participation. I really believe MORE KIDS read this year than ever before, but our stats just dont support it.  Here is a listing of a couple of ideas.

• STOP calling it the SCYABA program.  There is no rule or guideline that says it HAS to be called the SCYABA program or nominees. The name alone is a mouth full, and let’s face it, not sexy enough to encourage kids to read.  Period. We need to create our own title—one that draws interest and participation. PUBLIC participation.
• Get more teachers promoting the program. We cannot do it alone.  We have proven this with this year alone.  Come up with some incentives for teacher participation.  Teachers can help promote books as easily as we can.
• Have MONTHLY recognitions — most circulated title, student who has circulated the most nominees, reading log/pages read??
• Battle of the Books??  I wonder of maybe we could pitch this idea to MSSC (our county media specialists professional organization) and have a county Battle of the Books on these titles??

Okay, your thoughts??

 

Tags: cathyjonelson, DormanU, SCASL12