The Book Fair Report

Preliminary reports show that our fall book fair was quite successful.  It appears that this was our most successful book fair ever.  I will not have a final account until all the paperwork is complete, but it looks like more than $2000.00 cash was earned for our school library program.  Scholastic, our fair vendor, also provides "Scholastic Dollars" to be used to purchase  library books directly from the fair.  Again, I will have more information about this once the final paperwork is done, but I have already selected more than $300 of books from the fair.


Once again I am completely indebted to the wonderful people who have helped make this fair the success it was.  Preschool and kindergarten aides Shawnee Murphy, Dreama Hewitt, Debbie Burns, Doretta Malone, Charlotte Hawkins and Bonnie Homchenko take on extra responsibility with each fair, as our littlest shoppers need the most help finding appropriate items.  I appreciate their extra efforts as well as those of all our teachers who make extra time for their children to shop.


Josh Salisbury, our music teacher, helped with all the class previews.  I know the children are particularly thankful for his technical expertise in getting our most popular item, the Top Secret UV Pens, to work.  He also set the ground rules for behavior which made the preview days much more orderly.


I have always been very grateful for my parent and grandparent volunteers who have helped with the before-school shopping and class previews.  This year I was blessed with a wealth of volunteers. They are, in order of appearance, Melissa Burns, Tracy Uphold, Angela Hanlin, Lauri Martin, Valerie Blosser, Eileen McCusker, Sherry Scarbro, Janna Lowery, Kathy Barr, Greg Rice, Devon Boyles, Beth Proctor, Shonet McClung, Christi Lyons, Tanya Bartley and Jessica Criser.  Brian Henderson and Lisa Nair helped with evening shopping.  Art teacher Charity Bolyard helped with sales after the Halloween parties.


I am particularly indebted to student volunteers Rylie Hollar and Katy Pasquarelli who helped set up displays before the fair.  Tiffany Shannon, Taylor Keeling, and Shylar Hanlin helped with sales.  


Finally, Christi Lyons and her daughters Taylor, Haleigh and Maddie, and third grade teacher Rhonda Hatfield helped break down the fair and rebox unsold merchandise.


I want to say thanks to all the parents for their support of our school library.  It means a lot to me.


I'll have more details about the fair and plans for the revenue at a later date.  Thanks again for everything!

The Book Fair Starts Today

Well, folks, I have a long week ahead of me, but it is very much worth it!  Our fall Scholastic Book Fair begins this morning at 8:30 AM.  The fair will be open from 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM Monday through Thursday, and from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM on Friday.  Veteran book fair attendees will notice that I have shortened the evening hours by one; because I am at school at 6:15 every morning for Morning Adventures, I felt I shouldn't press my luck and stay open until 8:00 each evening!  I hope these times are convenient for parents.  If not, please let me know!


I am pleased with the content of this year's fair.  There are many, many great titles that I think the kids will be very excited about.  I think the parents will be pleased with the reduction on "non-book" items.  The selection, to me, seems like the best we have ever had. I hope you all agree.


One of my goals for money raised at this fair is to purchase sets of books to use with book clubs.  For example, in January, I would like to start a fifth grade book club reading either Rules by Cynthia Lord or Schooled by Gordon Korman.  I would like to have multiple copies of these titles available so the kids will not have to buy the books to participate.  Currently, our fourth grade book club is reading Cherokee Sister, by Debbie Dadey.


A student asked me Friday as we were setting up the fair whether I liked having book fairs.      I told her I liked having the fairs, and I liked it when it was over!  The real answer is a little more complex.  I enjoy having the fairs, because I get to see lots of parents that otherwise I might not come in contact with.  I think it is essential to my job to have a strong rapport with parents, teachers and students, and the book fair is an avenue to reach out to a group I might not see.


What I really like about the book fair is that it is essential to funding so many of the other things we do in the library.  For example, last year's fairs paid our renewal for Accelerated Reader.  Proceeds of the fairs have expanded our collection well beyond what our annual allotment from Monongalia County Schools can provide.  With these proceeds I am able to target materials that I think will be interesting to the kids, not necessarily the most literary or curriculum-oriented.  With these funds I have also enhanced what Mon County has provided in library software:  Brookhaven is the only school in the county that has reading program (Accelerated Reader) points for each book listed in the catalog; we are also the only school in the county that has TitlePeek, an Amazon-like feature that displays the covers of books in our collection.


I hope you all enjoy the fair!

Explorer Research at the End of Day Two

Mrs. Henderson and I began her Explorers project with the fourth grade on Monday.  I joined their classroom to teach each of the three classes how to use and why they should use online encyclopedias to start their research.  My rationale was that students need background information they can trust before they can evaluate whether or not information found using a search engine is trustworthy.

I began the discussion by explaining that in days of old writers researched their material thoroughly.  Then they submitted their manuscripts to publishers who evaluated their worth.  They in turn had editors double-check the writer's facts for accuracy.  As a result, the users could trust that the information in the published book was factual.

Today, of course, anyone can be an author, either on the web or of a published book.  The safeties for verifying accuracy of  information may not be in place.  For one class I created a wiki on DaSean Butler just to demonstrate how easy it is to create a web resource on a subject one knows little about.

After I showed the classes the features on World Book Online and Grolier Online, we looked at articles on the explorer Amerigo Vespucci.  Next, we looked at the bogus explorer site All About Explorers.  The kids at first thought that the information was obviously false.  Then I asked them if they would think the information was false if they had not read the other reputable articles about Vespucci.  They agreed that they would probably think the information was true.

I was very impressed with the children's reasoning skills. This is the first out of four years' students that have been able to accurately express what is wrong with information in the site.  While working with me in the library yesterday, several students told me that they found certain pieces of information on other websites, but that they needed to verify the information on other sites.  One boy found a book the biography section that's preface said the facts presented in the book were not true but based on the life of Marco Polo.  Guess what book is being removed from the biography section?

How Can You Tell If You Have Received "Good" Information? Part II

The world of publishing has changed greatly, to say the least.  Back in the day only the very affluent could publish his own work.  Everyone else would have had to go through a rigorous editorial process to determine if the work was worthy of publishing.  Once the work was accepted, editors would meticulously check and double-check facts, trying to eliminate misinformation, and in many cases, bias.  With the advent of the Internet and specifically Web 2.0, everyone (even me!) can be a published author.  Unfortunately, the editorial process is not there to censor and correct unintentional and malicious misinformation.  It falls to the user to be able determine what is worthy of their time.

The easiest thing a user can do to judge the content of a webpage in to have enough knowledge about the subject that you can spot the obviously false content.  This can be accomplished by using a reputable, traditionally published source as a first choice for background information.  Such sources include paid encyclopedia subscriptions such as World Book Online and Grolier Online, as mentioned previously in this blog.  When this isn't possible, web evaluations get a little tricky.

One of the first things web users might try is doing a Google search on the person or organization responsible for the website. Are they easily found using search engines?  Does what you find via the search indicate that this person or organization is qualified to write about their chosen topic?  If not, is there some indication on the page that indicates why the person writing the article is qualified?

Aside from the qualifications of the author, one should look for bias in the article.  Is the article providing balanced treatment, pros and cons, of the topic or is it only presenting one side of the issue? (Can we say this applies to political campaign ads as well?)  How important this consideration is depends on your needs.  Let's say you are looking for information about global warming.  If you already have lots of information supporting the idea that global warming is real, you may only be looking for a book that presents evidence that global warming is not real.  Again, check the credentials of the author or organization.

The date when a website was written can also affect the usefulness of information.  This is especially important in fields  where information is continually updated.  For example, solar system information is especially vulnerable to being obsolete.  Just for fun do a search on Pluto.  Is it still a planet (major planet? minor planet?) on the sites you have found?  Do a similar search on Jupiter's moon.  How many different answers to the number of moons can you find?

If you desire more detailed information about website evaluation, many sources are available to you.  One of my favorites is Alan November's resource page and a similar page on Sweet Search.  Both sites will give you useful information.

Good searching!