Library Books2Go

Library Books2Go

 One week ago we launched our new Library Books2Go initiative, which is similar to curbside pickup, only it is a park and pickup system. More information on this can be found below. 

ABC LRC Book Pickup Service *Library2Go

 

The ABC libraries have worked very hard to put together a safe, efficient system for library book reservations, pickups and drop offs, which has been functioning for two weeks now. The booking and pickup service will be paused during the half term break but will resume again when we return to lessons again on Monday 2nd November. 

 

It is a system whereby our librarians will be available to check out books that students have reserved through the system, using the Hold It option. The librarians will closely monitor the holds each week, prepare student book bags and ensure that students who reserve books are contacted, as soon as their book bag is ready for pickup. Please do take a moment to read more about how this system works, here.

ABES Online Conference 2020-Supporting Schools and Libraries During Closure

Each year we support the Salvador Librarians' Week by hosting a conference, which focuses on sharing ideas, techniques, and tools for libraries and teachers. This year, due to closures and quarantine in the country we moved the conference online.

It took place using GSuites Google Meet, Slides, and Google Chrome and was a great success. We plan to pick up where we left off in September with a followup in preparation for the new school year.

Media From the Event

• The Invitation
• The Virtual Library We Built with Certain Attendees
• Group Selfie
• The Recording

The Presentation 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dKL7rFEtzBmhB5KLqGKAvA4VpDdokJ51Lx9sN8A7h1o/edit

Student Access to Online Reading Materials

Dear Parents and Students, 

The LRC wants to ensure that you have continued access to quality reading materials throughout the school closure weeks. In doing so we would like to remind the community about the various options we have available and clarify any concerns you may have.

Please note that during this time, the LRC Library System will not be generating late/missing book messages or fines. We have set up the system in such a way for the closures that this should not be an issue. Students and parents need not worry about this. 

The ABC through the LRC has invested in several options for online reading for students from KS3-IB. All of these are available through the LRC Website, which is easily accessible 24 hours a day 7 days a week through the Student Portal section of the ABC Website.

At the LRC we have been busily updating our website to include a great many online magazines, databases, and fiction collections thanks to the generosity of EBSCO, Gale, JSTOR, and Audible, which can be accessed during the school closure.

These can be accessed along with all of our regular resources from the home page.

We hope you will check back regularly and encourage your children to take advantage of this opportunity.

Regards,
The LRC Staff Members

Redesigning Our Spaces

At the LRC we often find ourselves redesigning and re-purposing our spaces to fit the growing needs and interests of our community. We are currently working on creating a dedicated 3D Centre, which will house our growing collection of 3D printers, 3Doodler printing pens as well as laser engravers and cutters.

While we love our XYZ da Vinci: Duo, 1.0 and Junior Pro, we have recently invested in a collection of CR-10 printers from Creality. These are very versatile machines and fairly simple to operate and maintain. They also use open source software like Repetior Host and Cura and non proprietary filament.


 We are also making space to house our new Glowforge Pro laser cutter, which we hope to have up and running in the later half of August.

This 3D  Centre will be open for drop-ins, class sign-ups and regular ICT department lessons, as well as Makerspace clubs and activities. We look forward to seeing our staff and students make wonderful use of these resources.

We are in the process of building up our cooking resources and creating  a cooking centre/kitchen area. This project will eventually move to the front of the LRC, once we work out electrical access, shelving and an extractor for the area.

Despite this delay we have set up a provisional are for it outside the ICT/LRC office to facilitate Life Skills group visits,  and our LRC Cooking Club which runs each Thursday from 2-3.

During this term, we will be focusing on microwave meals and tasty toaster treats, as we support our senior students in their preparations for University in the fall.

Guest Post: 6th Grade Induction

By one of our wonderful librarians, Hilda Gomez

English  Version

This year,  once again the librarians held a special 6th grade induction activity as we welcomed our new arrivals in the senor school. During the session we shared the many resources and services that the LRC offers as we do our best to to provide enriching learning experiences for our users, both in  and outside of lessons. One of the innovations we were excited to share this school year was our new collection of ebooks, online magazines and audiobooks.

After the presentation the students took part in an exciting game of Kahoot! Kahoot is an online platform for creating learning games which the kids really love. Using Kahoot, students and teachers can  participate in and run games using computer or mobile devices. In this case we used iPads. We ran this game, the purpose of which was to motivate the students to make use of the great variety of resources available to them through the LRC, as a tribal (house or homeroom) competition.  They showed great interest enjoyment of their first LRC experience, which we believe prepared them for further exciting experiences in the LRC with their English classes.

 Spanish Version
 
Este año, nuevamente, realizamos la inducción de 6th grado, dándoles la más cordial bienvenida de parte del equipo del LRC. Durante la sesión se mostraron todo los recursos y servicios con los que cuenta el Centro de Recursos para el Aprendizaje para así brindar un servicio integral a los usuarios y enriquecer sus experiencias de aprendizaje, dentro y fuera de clases, como alumnos. Una de las innovaciones de este año escolar es la gran variedad de nuevos ebooks, revistas en línea y audiolibros disponibles. 

Luego de esta presentación los alumnos disfrutaron de un juego dinámico de Kahoot, el cual es una plataforma de juegos interactivos, personalizado en línea. El juego consiste en responder en equipos preguntas relacionadas a la presentación que se dio, utilizando dispositivos móviles, en este caso iPads. Fue una competencia que los motivó a hacer uso de la gran variedad de recursos y visitar el LRC. Demostraron un gran interés y participación, y se prepararon en anticipación para las las siguientes sesiones que tomarán lugar en las próximas semanas.

Visiting Local Libraries #2

On Wednesday, April 29th, the Club ReciLectura visited Nuevo Cuscatlan’s Library. During the visit the our ABC students shared the activities they had prepared with 4th grade students from the Pedro Pablo Castillo School. The activity was entitled,  "My First Book". The goal of this particular activity was to share in a reading of  "Year of the Jungle"  by Suzanne Collins and and to follow up with a related writing activity. 

Year of the Jungle  is an autobiographical picture book, which focuses on a father and his daughter who are separated when the father is sent off to fight in the Vietnam War. 

The students enjoyed the reading which was followed up by a short writing project. The project had the 4th grade students writing their first recycled book. In doing so they were to use recycled materials and write about something happy that they had lived through, or an activity they enjoyed doing.

For more pictures visit Flickr

Post by: Hilda Gomez

Librarian

This was a very successful activity, which brought students together, encouraged them to express themselves, and brought a certain focus to the important topics of families and the environment. Our ABC students were a bit reluctant to leave at the end of the session and many of the 4th graders felt the same way. They all left feeling a great sense of commitment to their project work.

This is the second in series of library visits our club will be making and we look forward to posting more information about their work, when the time comes. 

Here is a link to our post about the club's first library visit during Earth Week of this year. 

Jennifer Garcia

LRC Coordinator

Library 2.0

On October 19th our wonderful Librarians and Library Assistant took the plunge and presented at the Library 2.0 Conference. They did a fantastic job both in preparing for and presenting at their first online conference.

During the presentation which focussed on our Learning Resources Centre, they shared  information about and images of the physical LRC, the different events and activities that take place here as well as the various displays and clubs that are run out of the LRC.  They also shared the virtual LRC, our centre's webpage and all of the resources within, including the online catalogue, The Shelfari Arrival Shelves, requests for resources and much more.


In addition to this they featured ABCICT, our teaching wiki, which is used on a daily basis by ICT Classes in the LRC, parents interested in internet safety resources, homework and areas of study, and teachers from around the world.

Another important area of focus during this presentation was the many applications that enable librarians and teachers to network, share ideas and resources, and learn from each other on a daily basis.

They also discussed the ways in which our Learning Resources Centre and its members of staff use web applications to maintain ever important channels of communication with the community and the world.



A few of the starring applications  that took centre stage in this section of the presentation were, Blogger, Twitter, Diigo, Facebook and Pinterest.

If you are interested in finding out more, do take a moment to check out the recording here.

What We Hope is an Exceptional Resource

Our LRC website was created to house a rich assortment of teaching tools, student resources, picture and video galleries and more.
The main interface is a pictorial, user friendly Glog embedded in a wiki. The Glog allows designers to link images and text to web pages and can be embedded on most sites.

Within the LRC Website community members can access, virtual bookshelves, which highlight new arrivals, and link to user reviews. They can also enjoy a great assortment of e-books from many different collections.

Community members can find collections of web tools, for editing photos, working with audio and video, as well as access digital image, video, and audio collections. Many of the resource in these collections are licensed for reuse and remixing into digital projects.

There are times when community members might want to request a resource for the LRC library. Our website offers an easy solution to this by hosting a request for resources section. Using this option members of the community can ask for books and magazines as well as other resources to be included in the yearly orders.  These requests will be reviewed by LRC staff members several times a year.

It is easy to browse the current library collection online. This includes not only books, but magazines as well. ABC users, and people from around the world, are able to check which resources the library contains and which copies are available for checking out.

Keeping up to date with happenings at the LRC is also quite easy. Regular reminders and information updates are issued through the LRC Twitter stream and Voki services, on the right side bar.

Community news and events are also posted weekly and can be found under the News Section. The LRC Events Calendar is embedded in the website for easy browsing of upcoming orders and events.

In house video and photo galleries are available for viewing and the Ustream link will take interested parties to live streaming of LOL’s Friday shows.

The research section provides students and teachers with important guidelines and resources for teaching and learning, as does the section on presentation guidelines.

Don’t be surprised if the main page changes a bit throughout the year. It’s to be expected, as relevant links to topical or new initiatives are added.

Some LRC Quick Links

• Browse the recently updated ABCICT Scratch Gallery.


• Browse the New  Book Arrivals.


• Browse the community events which are published on the LRC Website in the News Section.


• View LOL videos from the In House Video section of the LRC Website.


• Browse and read e-books online.


• Search our Useful Resources collections.


• Browse the Library Collection online.

Book Blurbs

In an effort to further promote reading, the ABC has added a new component to its Library Programme, called Book Blurbs.

The Book Blurb programme is intended to cover a range of reading objectives through the promotion of student written book recommendations.
In using this new system we hope to support students in achieving the following literature related goals, while promoting reading school wide.

1. Identify genre preferences.  2. Reflect and report on reading.   3. Justify responses to literature.    4.Read independently.   5. Identify, enjoy and appreciate
books.  6.Actively search out books which are appropriate to interests and learning needs.  7. Use personal reading experiences to form opinions and recommend books.

To participate, students will need to fill in a special form, available in the LRC, and place it in an envelope on the inside cover of the book they are recommending. It's that simple.
Book Blurbs will continue all year long. The forms and envelopes are available at the circulation desk for student use. A copy of the form has also been placed on the Library websites, for easy access from home.

Of course its easy to think up a new program. Promoting it and maintaining momentum is, of course, another story. In the Primary School Book Blurbs is running initially as a competition for students, which has placed it in the limelight. Speaking to students about it in assemblies and through daily messages, as well as encouraging them to use the system when taking out or dropping off books, should hopefully help as well.

Wikis as Websites for Libraries-It's not just about the code, is it?

This morning we held our second Wikis as Websites session of the year for members of the Salvadoran library community and members of ABES, the Salvadoran Librarians association.

Widget Fever

It was great to see everyone again, and they were certainly revved to get back into their wikis. After a brief refresher it became all about the widgets and code. The looks of surprise and then joy on people's faces when they saw not only the variety of useful widgets and ways to embed codes from various online services, took me back about 6 months, when I too caught the widget bug. Of course fantastic websites are not just about the code, but what a hook! Code in the form of widgets is like opening a little door or window to another source or collection of ideas, in an highly engaging manner.

The sheer enormity of of widgets/gadgets/flakes and embedding code out there, for free I might add, is enough to give anyone widget fever.

Today we looked at embedding slideshows, glogs, Librarything and Shelfari book shelves, blogs and rss feeds using widgetbox, youtube videos and Twitter feeds. In the end we could have used at least one more exploratory session, but hopefully participants will maintain their momentum over the next few months.

But there is more!

During the last part of the session our Library Assistant fed back from her Guatemalan Digital Literacy conference experience using Prezi. It was her first time presenting and her first time using Prezi.

What's Prezi?

If you haven't tried Prezi yet...you are missing out on a great interactive presentation tool. Yes it's a web app and yes you can also download your work! Try teaching it to kids, what a fantastic way to get away from the ppt and enforce presentation reform guidelines!

Back to the Conference

Our conference wasjoined by others who had attended in Guatemala.  Some joined us in person and others  did so virutally using Elluminate. It was the first time I was able to use my Learn Central V-Room with anything larger than a group of friends. It was fantastic and the participants in El Salvador got to listen to and learn from  speakers in other areas of the continent as well as those physically present. This was the first such experience for most of the participants and they were thrilled by it.

I am going to break out the V-Room again this school year with our Spanish classes, enabling students and teachers to  link up and participate to student presentations in real time.

Is anyone else out there using Elluminate with their kids?

LRC Extreme Readers

On of our goals for this year was to start up a Book Club. While most of our initial goals have been achieved, this particular one has not. For a while I though of using Librarything or Shelfari, but today while wandering through my GoogleReader for the first time in weeks, I came across BookSprouts. This site lets you form a club, join other clubs, keep clubs private or open, hold discussions, vote on the next book and is basically a web presence for you book club. I am really looking forward to launching this at school, hopefully prior to
Easter and arranging for the necessary books in multiple copies to get it going.