March Madness hits the library!
Feb 27th, 2013 by Cathy Jo Nelson
Here’s another great idea for a library display that goes along with March…or rather March Madness. I swiped it from a librarian friend of mine, Susan R. Meyers who works in a neighboring district high school. Of course she credits her intern for the concept. So go on over and read and see their set up.
Dorman High School Library’s March Madness 2013
It’s going to be a fun project. Here’s how I came up with our version of a Library March Madness.
In our Destiny Program, I ran a report for the Top Titles (Reports–>Library Reports–>Top/Bottom Titles). I adjusted the time frame to use one year as basis for the report.
Reading the report, I eliminated those titles I knew had inflated circulations due to in-library use with classes in the library. Once I had sixteen titles, I set out to create the brackets.
I found and printed the covers, seeded them (numbered them one through sixteen) and then worked out the brackets. Yes, I had to research seeds in a sixteen-team tournament, but luckily our library assistant is a high school softball coach (and middle school basketball coach) so she is well versed in tournament brackets and how they work. She sketched out the brackets and where to place seeds.
Our Tournament of Library Books will be decided using voting.
- For our “Sweet Sixteen” Week during week one, students will use a ballot to select a winning title from the paired books for each of the eight “games.” This will determine our “Elite Eight” that will compete in week two of our tournament.
- The ballot for the “Elite Eight” in week two will feature the four pairs competing in the quarterfinals, and students must select one from each pair, narrowing it down to the semi-finalist titles.
- Week three’s ballot will feature the semifinalists, aka the “Final Four,” and students will be invited to vote to narrow us down to the two books that will be squared off for the Finals.
- Week four’s ballot will only have the two finalists on it, and students will decide using votes which book will be declared our March Madness Champion.
Prizes: I haven’t really come up with a great plan to reward students, but I think during Week One, we’ll ask students on the ballot to predict the champion title, and then all who predict accurately get in a drawing at the end to win our school’s “Cafe Coupon” on “Cavalatte Coupon” and a free book of their choice. We’ll fund these with fine money–> twenty or so fifty cent coupons.
Want to know which titles are in our Sweet Sixteen? Head on over to the library blog Cavaliers Read to see.
Woohoo! I’m the intern who came up w/ the idea
I like how you decided on your titles. I just picked current award winners that I thought students would enjoy. I also thought of maybe next year when I have my own school to do genres/categories against each other; ex: mystery, sci-fi, romance, manga, etc.. Hope your March Madness goes well! And thanks for using my idea 
Well it’s a grand idea and i totally thank you for the inspiration!!
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