Month: January 2011

Destiny Quest

- librariantiff 20 Comments

I know that so many school libraries use Destiny as their library management program. I’ve been a Destiny user for several years now, but just discovered Destiny Quest. While the regular Destiny interface works for me and meets my needs as a librarian, the catalog isn’t the most appealing interface for students. Enter Destiny Quest:

The search features in Destiny Quest are a lot more user friendly. Students can search by subject, title, author, etc. all in the top search bar. When the results appear, students can easily use the side toolbar to narrow their search. This interface is so much more visually appealing and easy for students to navigate. And searching is just the tip of the iceberg with Destiny Quest.

All of the typical catalog information is available when students click on a cover. They can also easily view Accelerated Reader info, peer reviews, recommendations for similar books, and the option to hold a book if it’s unavailable.

Oh wait, did I say peer reviews? Yep. Destiny Quest goes way beyond offering a nifty looking catalog. It gives students a social place to interact with their classmates and share what they’re reading.

You can add your friends (like on Facebook?!?!) to keep track of their book updates. You can see what they’re reading, reviewing, recommending, and even what they want to read. What an AWESOME way for them to find books that they want to read too. AND it’s a cool place to keep up with all the books you’ve read, are reading, and want to read.

Just drag and drop book covers onto your shelves to keep track. It’s so easy and so fun!!!

Plus there are some amazing ways that you can use Destiny Quest for research, which I’ve also been introducing to my students. Like all they have to do is drag/drop books and websites into a list and BAM! it formats the citations for them automatically.

I’m Quest obsessed. With my students, I’ve started a Quest craze. They’re logging in at home. They’re rating, reviewing, and recommending books. They’re showing their friends how to log on to Destiny Quest so they can share what they’re reading. The social aspect TOTALLY hooks them. But in the process, they’re learning to use the other tools as well, which is pretty amazing.

Does your school have Destiny Quest? Have your students taken to it as much as mine have?

Nesting

- librariantiff 5 Comments

So I’ve survived my first official week as a middle school librarian!

This was exam week at my school, so there wasn’t too much activity in the library. I’m anxious to start working with and getting to know the students, but it really was nice for me to have a quiet week to finish my “nesting.” I also had some time to really explore some of the features of Destiny that I haven’t used before. I discovered Destiny Quest, which has an awesome interface and allows students to not only search the library collection, but to read and write reviews, recommend books to friends, and put books on hold. I am really looking forward to sharing this resource with my students and teaching them to use all of the cool features. Definitely more to come on this!

I thought that the library needed some fun puzzles that the students would enjoy. My mom gave me these two for Christmas:

At first the kids just kind of stood there and looked at them. Which of course cracked me up. I guess they thought I’d put puzzles out on the circulation desk just to tease them? They obviously don’t know me yet! So after I talked a few of them into giving it a shot, they became quite popular and I even had a few come in during lunch to give these puzzles a try.

I also got a Diary of a Wimpy Kid jigsaw puzzle. I found this cool felt mat that came with a tube and straps so I can roll it up without messing up the puzzle if I need to. After the reluctance to try the maze puzzles, I had my library workers get this one started. A few kids that came in during lunch also tried this one out. I think this is going to be a hit!

I’ve been toying with the idea of shelving fiction by genre once we get into the new library. Regardless of if I do that or not, I knew I wanted to at least tag the books by genre so the students could browse the shelves for genres more easily. I ordered color-tinted label protectors and have started tagging the books:

Orange – Series

Light Blue – Realistic Fiction

Dark Blue – Sports

Pink – Romance

Yellow – Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Green – Mystery/Suspense/Horror

I’m also thinking I need to add a color for historical fiction, and maybe one for classics. I think the series tags are going to be particularly useful for students.

This is also giving me a chance to get to know the collection and do some weeding. The librarian before me did a lot of weeding, but there’s still so much that I just don’t see as anything the students would want to check out. Plus there are some titles that we have with serious multiple copy overkill. I knew my elementary school collection so well, there were few times that I even needed to use the catalog. Although this collection is much bigger, I know I won’t be happy until I’m extremely familiar with it. Which is why I’ve decided to take on this project right away.

We’re off on Monday, but we’ll kick of the new semester on Tuesday with LYRCA (our state book award) voting! It’s an event I love, giving students the opportunity to vote on real voting machines. We have about 140 students participating. So I’m looking forward to another great week!

My Week in Transition

- librariantiff Leave a comment

This was an exhausting, emotionally draining week for me. The retiring middle school librarian had a substitute this week in the library, but she did spend a bit of time early in the week cleaning out and packing up. My replacement at the elementary library started on Monday. I spent the week in limbo — mornings at the middle school and afternoons at the elementary school. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to do this. It allowed me the chance to tie up my loose ends at the elementary school and get myself situated at the middle school.

Being the techno-geek that I am, I made some changes to scheduling and morning routines at the middle school by infusing technology. I went crazy with the Google forms and I’m loving it! Mornings at the CMS library are very busy. Thankfully, there are several awesome teachers who have library duty to help out. Not only do students flock in to study, use the computers or printer/copier, return/check-out books, etc. but the library also takes care of selling temporary and replacement ID cards. These forms are now being used for students to sign in:

The ID Business form has been especially successful since the ID station is in the computer lab and the spreadsheet can be pulled up at that station so the names pop up as they are entered.

I went round and round trying to decide how I wanted to do scheduling. I needed to keep up with scheduling for the main area of the library, library lab, and 4 mobile labs available for check-out. Nan from Rhinelander High School shared her format for digital scheduling, and I loved it! You can check out here site here. So I took her idea and ran with it:

You can go here to see my live form with the Google calendars below. I think once the teachers get used to filling out the form, they’ll really like the ability to schedule whenever they want from where ever they are. I’m going to be looking to drum up some business and do some collaborative projects. Exciting times ahead!

As tough as this week was, I really felt the love at both schools. CMS is very happy to have me back and they have made me feel so welcome. TES let me know how much I’ll be missed, which really made me feel good and made it hard to leave at the same time.

So here’s to the next phase of my library career! I can’t wait to see what it holds.