books in the wild update

Content time now, and design of the stickers. It is getting down to running the wild on books competition at school and I have still to finish the database and webpages behind the competition.

I love this theme that they are using in the US at the moment, LOL @ your Library,
http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/teenreading/trw/trw2007/trw07products.htm

LOL! @ your library! Dates to be confirmed, Boost your endorphins, lower your blood pressure, and improve your immune system by stopping by the library during Teen Read Week to laugh with a humorous book or graphic novel! Stop by today and see what’s funny at your library, and pick up a page turner that you can read or listen to just for the fun of it!

Firstly, I know you’re thinking why is she talking about something that doesn’t even happen until October? Then I know you’re thinking, why do I really care?

Well, have you really ever considered some of the benefits to reading for fun? No? It just so happens that I have a list of the top ten reasons why you should read for the fun of it!

10) Books don’t get caught in your braces… if they do, you may want to seek help for that.

9) Unlike gym, you don’t have to shower afterwards… unless its a manga with a really cute purple haired guy in it. Then I might consider a cold shower afterwards.

8)Reading won’t cause pimples… unless while you are reading you are eating a bunch of cheese doodles. Then maybe.

7) It will help you forget what they serve in the cafeteria. If however, you like chicken surprise, more power to you.

6) Magazines don’t “crash”.

5) Graphic novels look good with whatever you are wearing… unless you area wearing plaid skin tight pants with a bright pink shirt that has huge flowers and dolphins on it. I don’t think anything could save a fashion disaster like that.

4) Its cheaper than a new video game, and your fingers won’t hurt even after a couple hours of turning pages, unlike the controller to your XBox.

3) You can drown out your parents’ cheesy music listening to an audiobook… unless your parents listen to someone rad like Jimmy Hendrix, then you should listen to the music while you are reading so you can rock out. You know you want to.

2) You’ll learn words even your teachers don’t know. Like maybe, shenanigans, which in my opinion, is a most excellent word.
AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON TO READ FOR FUN!

1) It’ll confuse your parents. I can hear your parents now. What? You’re reading a book, you enjoy it and you’re actually laughing? Who has stolen my child!

The main theme for the Teen Read Week initiative is “Read For The Fun Of It,” and includes a sub-theme that changes each year. This year’s sub-theme is “LOL@ your library®,” and it promotes humorous books and graphic novels as a tool for getting young adults to read.

So anyway. What harm could it cause? You read some silly books and have *gasp* some fun too! I may put together some special programs during that week… something cool to give away or something fun to do. We’ll see.

books in the wild

I have been doing more of the planning and design for the "books in the wild", a trip out to West Auckland was needed, unfortunately I did not find any "wild books" but did manage to find one of the advertising posters.

Books in the Wild - newspaper article

Teens are in the good books
By RANI TIMOTI - Western Leader | Friday, 20 July 2007

A new scheme aimed at getting more teenagers reading starts in Waitakere city this week.
The Books in the Wild programme is an innovative book-sharing initiative targeting year 9 and 10 students.
Popular teen book titles will be left at locations around the city, including schools and indoor public areas.

Students are being challenged to hunt them down, register online and make comments before leaving the books in similar places for others to pick up.

The 14-week trial programme is being coordinated by the Waitakere library and information service.

Spokeswoman Adrienne Hannan says it's difficult to get younger teenagers into libraries.

She hopes the programme makes the library more appealing to them.

"The modern library is more like the living room of the city, with computers, games, DVDs and CDs in addition to books, magazines, reference material and study guides," she says. "If we can raise that awareness through initiatives like this then we stand to create a new generation of library users."

Library staff have been promoting the scheme around schools with great success.

"About 200 kids at Rutherford College were trying to get into their library first to get the books," she says.

"It was a similar scene at Waitakere College."

The programme features prizes for students and schools. It will be extended to other age groups if it is successful.

Wild on Books Part 2

Wild on Books - Day Two

Having responded to the email from yesterday that contained the podcast, I have now had another from my friendly librarian;

NO HURRY! I was just wondering if it is 'physically' (electronically?) possible so we could think about giving it a go. What do you think about next term? We don't have to have 160 books - we could reduce to 5 copies of 10 - 12 titles 'released' into the wilds of the school Library, with focus on Yrs 9 & 10.
Thanks for being so positive,

Background One of the problems we have is getting students to read books, our school has a goal that each student should get 2.4 books out throughout the year. we have approx 1800 students, half boys, and half girls. The boys get out less books than girls. The Library doesn't issue really until half way through term one when they get their ID cards, and stop issuing 5 weeks out from the end of school due to stock take and to make sure all the books issued that year have been returned. We have more than 10,000 in the library.

So each year we try to get over 4,320 books issued to students to meet the goal, a normal week we may have between 100 and 200 books, through the 7 weeks of the reading competition we had around 350 and over 400 books taken out. I think we had over 2,000 books taken out in that period.

This "books in the wild" might help as well, it gets students using the Internet for something other than playing games as well as helping our schools reading and writing level.

Plan and Design
Some things to think about when designing the database
We need to record or have a record of each student, these can be exported from our Student Management System, why not have them set a password and username, well the students don't have email accounts to be able to have there forgotten password emailed back to them, I have thought about using Active Directory, but don't really have the access to the main school web server. We will use one of the Servers that I have setup at the school, will probably setup one of the ict servers with this, it does need to have a bit of grunt behind it, as there may be up to 30 students accessing it at once, maybe more. I will use there login codes that they have at the moment, and the password as there date of birth DD/MM/YY.

Next is looking at the books that we will be using, what details should be available for the students, if they enter a code the book should come up, or does this need to be there? Or should this be a double check to make sure that the student has found the right book?

Students registering the book?
Students entering the information once logged in, (log out?) code of the book, details of the book? I think I need to be able to access the Waitakere system (Books in the Wild) for more of this information?

Student Table
StudentID Number this could be associated with there school id - unique identifier
Surname
FirstName
SchoolLevel
FormClass
Username? This is not needed as they will login using there stduent ID Number 4 digit number. This means the students need to have their ID card present with them, even to get a book out.
Password = Date of Birth, too difficult to link in with active directory.
Ethnicity = for statistical purposes?
Gender = for statistical purposes?

Books
Barcode -unique identifier
SpecialCode mix of alpha and numeric characters
Title
Author
Description
ImageLocation

Entry
EntryNumber ID
StudentID
Books.SpecialCode
Excitement score
Date and Time Issued

Photo Idea, setup an email address for students to email there photo to...

Design of the site, it has to be interesting and grab the students attention. Should it be a book? Or simple pages? Multimedia? Images? Somethings to think about for my next blog entry.

Wild on books

I was away on my field trip today and when I returned to school I had an email sitting there from the Teacher in Charge of the Library about a teenage initiative thats is being carried out in West Auckland secondary schools.

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Can we do this?

Thanks so much Angela for drawing our attention to this. The link is http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20070803-0933-Wild_Books-064.mp3

and is worth listening to. Congratulations to Waitakere library team for coming up with this brilliant idea. The whole interview is very thought provoking.
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Now I have been busy looking at this and working on an idea for the use of this at school, however it will involve a little bit of work, the pilot and idea were originally designed by Waitakere Library and we will look at using some of there ideas. This will be done in conjunction with the Librarian at school.

200 books could be a bit of a large task, however creating the stickers to go inside the book will be easy, and creating the codes simple.

The website however? Do we make it only available inside the school or available outside the school.

What is involved in the website when students register a book? It sounds like we may have to do a trip to the west of Auckland for a bit of investigation.

http://www.booksinthewild.co.nz is the website that the Waitakere Library have created, and Manukau Library also have an idea of point allocated to books with there idea of Manix http://www.manukau-libraries.govt.nz/whatwehave/Teens/teenview.htm
There is a huge difference between these sites, however I think there is also a larger issue at stake, they have a great idea, but not the interface to engage the users, the manix pages are basic webpages, they need to employ someone who has an idea on how to create good websites. The books in the wild website has some good graphics but the overall design lets it down, students expect more these days.


More information about the "books in the wild"

Ground-breaking literacy programme for Waitakere teens
copied from http://www.waitakere.govt.nz/WhaHap/nm/mr/jul07.asp#bitw

The wild west is set to take on a new twist with the launch of a ground-breaking teen literacy programme in Waitakere City.

In a New Zealand first, the city's Year 9 and 10 students will have the opportunity to participate in 'Books in the Wild' - an innovative book-sharing initiative involving the release of popular teen titles into "wild" places around the city.

Waitakere Library & Information Services is kicking off the trial programme with the launch of eight specially selected teen titles into the city's secondary schools on the week of July 16th. The challenge for the students is to hunt down and read the titles, register them online and release them back into the wild for others to read.

The titles include contemporary and classic novels, as well as non-fiction, and half are written by New Zealand authors.

There are a number of great prizes up for grabs for both individuals and participating schools, including a Playstation Portable and games, 30Gb iPod, Vodafone phones and airtime and Whitcoulls vouchers, as well as virtual library vouchers that can be redeemed in Waitakere City libraries for games, DVDs and CDs. Each book contains a unique identifying number, which allows the holder to register online, comment on the book they've found and enter the prize draw.

A digital photo competition is also being run alongside the programme - the challenge being to take a photo of one of the eight books in a 'wild' place. The winning photograph will be made into a new library card for 2008.

Children's and Teens' Services Librarian, Adrienne Hannan, says it is hoped that the Books in the Wild initiative will inspire the hard-to-reach teen market to become more engaged in literature.

"If we are going to grow the future capability of Waitakere City, we need initiatives like this that will help to grow its levels of literacy," she says.

"It also helps them to see that the library is not just about print resources any more. The modern library is more like the 'living room' of the city, with computers, games, DVDs and CDs in addition to books, magazines, reference material and study guides. If we can raise that awareness through initiatives like this, particularly with young people who may not have been brought up as library users or given books in the home, then we stand to create a new generation of library users."

If the 14-week trial is successful, Waitakere Library and Information Services will look to extend the programme to other age groups.

For more information, visit www.booksinthewild.co.nz