Biking Peoria part 2

Last weekend I hosted a bike maintenance workshop at our church to help encourage people to get their bikes out of the shed and get them ready for summer.  While just a few showed up, it was still a great event. We invited local bike advocate Tim Beaney to share his repair expertise.  It was the first time I had met Tim and he left a lasting impression.  It was nice to meet someone who is so passionate about biking.  His passion has led him to open a self-help bike shop.  The Bike Peoria Coop is a place where you can bring your bike and rent space to use a bike stand and all the tools you would need to do repairs.  Used parts are available for purchase on site and volunteers are on staff to offer assistance.  To my knowledge, this is unique in our area.
Tim's love for biking doesn't stop at the shop.  His plan was to create a place where the biking community can come to tinker around, visit and talk biking.  While the shop is fairly new and just getting going, Tim shared that there have been many times where he saw that vision of people of many different lives coming together to work on bikes, share experiences and talk biking.  This also meets his third goal of the shop.  And that is to not only build a biking community, but to just bring community together through biking.

According to the flier that Tim gave me, the mission of the shop is "a cooperative organization of bicycle users whose mission is to educate and empower the community by providing a welcoming space to learn about bicycle repair, maintenance, practices and road safety through outreach and advocacy activities."

Congratulations to Tim for getting this vision into practice and continue to build and strengthen the biking community in Peoria.  I can't wait to visit the shop.  Jump on this link to the Bike Peoria Coop to visit their Facebook page.

Biking in Peoria Part 1

I was looking at my infrequent posts on the Cycling Librarian and discovered that one might think that the Cycling Librarian hasn't done much cycling lately.  While after the winter and polar vortexes that we have been through, that statement is true; however, I have done several cycling related stuff recently.

First, I thought I would share that my daughters and I got our first crash of the season out of the way early.  We were riding down a hill in our neighborhood, and she got tangled in the wheel of the bike carrier her sister was riding in and took all of us down pretty hard and fast.  That description makes it sound like it was her fault, but I have no idea what actually happened since she was behind me. The slightly humorous sight (now that the event is over) was seeing our three year old strapped in the trailer laying sideways just screaming yet perfectly safe.  I couldn't hear her though because one of the residents in the neighborhood was running his snowblower out of gas and it was loud.  So bruises and cuts are now mended and it made for a good lesson on why we wear helmets even on short rides.  We are ready for a good and safe summer.

Second, is our excitement at the new biking bridge going over Knoxville Ave, a busy route, that will open up our riding to new adventures.  The Rock Island trail now extends into the city.  This will definitely expand our options to where we can go and how we get around.  Can't wait to make the ride downtown to the main library, museums and the riverfront.  Also, we are going to work on more street riding to build the girls' confidence in rules of the road and to remind drivers that by law we share the road.  We cyclists need to stand up for our rights to the road and foster a safe coexistence on the road.

That's a middle school book in the high school library!!!

I've read some discourse over the last month on the library listserve regarding below grade level books in "upper" school libraries.  In my case as a high school librarian,  I often wonder if I should have Tim Green, Mike Lupica, Rick Riordan, Christopher Paul Curtis, Rita Williams-Garcia or Melody Carlson on the shelf to name a few.  These authors are poplular and kids have often read them by the time they have gotten to the high school, but I find that the titles are frequently requested and other students are constatntly recommending them to their friends who haven't read them yet.

In the back of my mind I have this phrase "college and career ready" that makes me think, "Jeez, these kids have already read these books or these books are written at a really low level for high school." so should I offer them to the students?  Is my library "Common Core?" Are Riordan or Williams-Garcia's books getting the students "career ready?"  I mean, they are just "kids books," right?

While that is all true (I guess), is there harm in reading something for fun that is "below level?"  Reading is reading, especially when the books are written by award winning authors and they are well written.  This is a problem I have when looking at schools that have tight Accellerated Reader reading rules for children.  I have heard numerous horror stories and have heard some from my daughter's school that students are not allowed to read anything at school that isn't in their exact reading level.  That is a shame.  I get it that students can read at home and that parents should be there to help choose books, but we all know happens in fewer households that we want to know.  I understand the basis of the AR rules but what a way to discourage a student from reading something that is exciting to them whether it is above or below level.  I do not  understand why a student can't choose something in his or her level to measure progress for the school and choose something that is of interest to them outside (above or below) their level.  If the book is out of the realm for a student, a teacher or certified librarian making suggestions if the book is way below or above with a comment like, "I see you want to read "blank" I think it will be to "hard/easy," why don't you try "blank? It is a lot like the book you chose." would be really effective.  However, if the student insists, the conversation ends with, "Okay, let me know what you think of it and keep this book in mind when you are finished."  I just don't see the benefit of taking a book a student is excited about reading out of his or her hands.

With that idea in mind, I proudly purchase a mix of reading levels (I do not label the books with reading levels by the way!) and encourage even the best and highest readers some of the "easier" books just because they are great stories.  And, who is to say an "excellent" reader might not enjoy the break of reading some "brain candy?"  Another benefit is having a collection of books kid have already read that empowers them to take ownership of the library by recommending good books to friends.  It gives them confidence in their ability to read and choose good books and strengthens their friendship bonds.  And, gasp, what if they were to actually talk about the book with their friend!  A travesty, I know.

If you have had the debate in your head of whether you should or should not put easier reads in your library, do it!  Go for it!  Your students will love you for it and be sure to shamelessly give a "simple" book to your best readers.  Also, challenge your readers with higher level reads as well.  College and career ready?  You bet!  Reading is reading, and if the kids are reading books they want to read in their free time, that is preparing them for life long learning.

Do you have any thoughts on this topic?  What are your thoughts on using AR in schools?  What do you think about offering "easy" reads to students who are capable for high-level reading?  Comment below, I look forward to a conversation.

Award Books 2014

So the American Library Association Awards were announced yesterday, and I am pretty excited about the choices they made.  I am really happy for the Michael Printz Award winner Marcus Sedgwick and his book Midwinter Blood.  I read this book over the Christmas Holiday on recommendation from popular book reviewer Michael Cart.  The cover of the book did not really make me want to read it; it looked a little "vampire-ish" and that is not something that really catches my fancy...thank you Twilight phenomena.  The book really drew me in, though.  It grabbed my interest in history as the book starts in the future, but then skips back in time with each passing section.  Admittedly, I kept waiting for a vampire relationship to jump off the pages and bite me, but it never happened.  The story, to me, was so much more about a special place on this earth with special people and magics, than it was about any one character.  I really recommend this book and I am pleased with the award choice.
I am also happy to see that Rita Williams-Garcia won the author award for the Coretta Scott King Award for her book P.S. be eleven.  I have not read this book, but I have really enjoyed other books by Williams-Garcia such as One Crazy Summer and Jumped.
Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina is a book that I have looked at several times and has intrigued me won the Pura Belpre Award. This inspires me to want to read the book that appears to have a theme of bullying and school related relationships.
Finally, I am really excited to read the Caldecott winner Locomotive written and illustrated by Brian Floca.  First, I love picture books and second, I have not been disappointed by a Caldecott winner in a long time, so I feel confident it will be enjoyable.
What are some of your favorite books from 2013?  Did any of the awards miss the boat in your opinion?  Let me know by commenting below.

First eReader in the Library

So it is official.  I have cataloged the first Kindle eReader for my library.  It has been a year-long effort that included researching different eReaders and book formats, talking to dozens of people about what they are doing, or not doing in most cases, and reading reviews.  More consideration has gone into it than may have been required, but it is done and I have a list of students who are interested in devouring books loaded on the devices in their two week checkout period.
Are eReaders the future?  I have no idea, but right now they are a great way to load dozens of books that are hot and up and coming.  They are cost effective compared to purchasing tablets or other computer devices.  I don't really have any concern of a student checking them out, walking away and damaging or losing them.  If they do, it won't break the bank and should be reasonable to replace.
The eReader of choice for my library is the Amazon Kindle.  I did not find any eReader that really fit what I wanted, which is a reader that I can load books on and tailor for a student then switch the books out and create a new set of books for another student.  That ability does not exist, at least not with the eReaders on my list.  I do like the Amazon Whispercast and the way I can group devices, but this won't be helpful unless there are books that I want on multiple Kindles.  Yes, I have to purchase multiple copies of a book if I want a title on multiple Kindles.  Speaking of purchasing books, I created an eBook order for the Kindles and my order total was $14,324.36.  Sticker shock!!  That was a "little" over my budget.  I discovered that Whispercast takes the order and puts all the books on to all the devices in whatever user group is choosen.   I chose the user group that had all my Kindles. I canceled that order, of course. The solution was to create a User group for each device and do a separate order for each Kindle.  Not a big deal, I guess, except the district office has to divvy out 20+ purchase orders each time I want to put books onto the Kindles.  They have been terrific about working with me, but I imagine it may get old for all of us real quick.  Time will tell on that.
A couple irritants that have gone along with this process is that every Kindle has to have its own email address, so my tech office had to create those.  I am still trying to figure out how to get the Kindles to remember the wifi security key to our schools' network.  Kind of a pain to reconnect constantly but it's not the end of the world.
Some reading this may think this wasn't a good decision.  My wife is in that camp, but she gets to hear all the frustrations.  There are several positives. First, Amazon makes contacting them almost a joy.  I have yet to wait more than 60 seconds to talk to someone and the phone operators know their stuff.  The representatives often didn't tell me what I wanted, but they gave me a straight answer so I could move on to find solutions.  They are even apologetic when a Kindle policy doesn't really work for me.  In these days of bad customer service, waiting on hold, and inadequate knowledge, this was a breath of fresh air.  Another positive, the Kindles are really easy to lock down so the students only have access to books and documents we put on there.  All in all, there isn't anything out there that does exactly what I want, but Amazon and the Kindle make it easy to make adjustments to put these into the hands of kids who want to read.  They even grab the attention of kids who aren't all that interested in reading but like the "gadgety" tool.
I can't wait for the first checkout of these to hear how someone took one of these and read until they couldn't read anymore.  Have you had experience putting a Kindle or other eReader into your library?  I would be interested in reading your stories.

Twitter, Television and Agents of Shield

Outside of watching sports on television, I don't watch much t.v.  It isn't because I am one of those who think everything on t.v. is junk, I just don't like to wade through all the content to find something I like.  Anyway, I have been anticipating Marvel's venture into broadcast television extending the Avengers story with Agents of Shield.  The excitement of the show kept me checking social media for any bits of information that I could get.  Through the updates I learned that there would be a live Twitter feed going during the first broadcast of the show.  I realize that this is probably pretty common, but it was the first time I really noticed a non-reality t.v. show having such a feed.  My impression of following a live Twitter feed during a show is that it would be terribly intrusive and break the suture of the show.  Nonetheless, I decided I would join in on the conversation.

It was kind of fun to read what others were thinking about the show as it proceeded, but soon after the first commercial break I got a little tired of trying to keep up with all the posts.  I also found most posts to be trivial and not interesting.  I didn't really care that some people were lamenting that they were missing another show while watching Agents of Shield.  I did like the posts where people repeated their favorite lines said by the characters.  I participated in that fun.  What I did find interesting, and would guess could make for some really interesting data for social scientists and marketers, were the trends in comments.  For example, I discovered that most people must not watch much television on their televisions.  Numerous posts were complaining how they had to watch the show on t.v. which I implied that most shows can be watched online before or in conjunction with the original broadcast of the show.  I have no idea if that is true or not.  Several tweeted that they were having a hard time dealing with the quality of the signal they were watching and wishing they could watch it online.  I'm sure other trends could have been pulled out of the feed, but it was interesting.  I don't know that I will follow feeds during shows often, but it was kind of fun.  

Oh, I did enjoy the show, and I definitely look forward to the second show next week.  

Blind Date with a Book

Love was in the air on Valentines, especially in the library during extended homeroom.  That was the culmination of the Blind Date with a Book.  A little more than 20 students took a chance and checked out a "Blind Date" book.  About 40 eligible books were covered with brown paper so students could not see the covers and 5 key words from the summary of the book were written on the back of the book.  Students could read the back of the book, but they could not open the book for any other details of what the book was about.  So based on the five word character profile, students checked out the "Blind Date" books.  Anticipating some unhappy readers, we created a "dumped" box with sayings such as "It's not you, it's me," "It's just not working out," and "We can't even be friends anymore" written on it, so as we met "post-date" to discuss our dates students could throw the "dumped" books into the box.  Surprisingly, out of the 13 students in the post-date meeting, only one books got dumped!  Students discovered new authors and new types of books that they came to like.  Several students reported having a rocky start to the date, but it got better the more chances they gave their date.  One successful couple received a box of chocolates to celebrate with and the one dumped date also received a box of chocolates to drown the sorrows.  All received a kiss...a Hersey's Kiss, that is.
In all seriousness though, one of the best parts of the "Blind Date with a Book" for Valentine's day was that over half the students reported that they read books they never would have checked out if they could have seen the covers.