ALA Library SNAPSHOT DAY

Library Snapshot Day is "A Day in the Life of Your Library". If you or your library is planning a snapshot day, the American Library Association provides 3 easy steps:

1. Let ALA Know! If you are interested in hosting a Snapshot Day, or if you have already hosted one and would like to tell us about it, please contact Marci Merola, Director of the Office for Library Advocacy, or Michael Dowling, Director of the ALA Chapter Relations Office.
   
2. Visit the Library Snapshot Day Primer to get you started. If possible, please use some or all of these criteria as part of the information you gather. Although the main purpose of Library Snapshot Day is to help libraries at the state and local level, ALA would like to translate statewide results into national results that can be used for national media and advocacy efforts.
   
3. Send ALA your results! Please fill out this form and help ALA compile information about what happens in libraries across the country in a single day.

This sounds like a good project to share with a community photo club or a school photography club.

February is Love Your Library Month

California School Library Association Northern Section President and Teacher Librarian Tom Kahn alerted members of the CSLA to California School Libraries SNAP. February is Library Lovers Month. He urges members to share photos of what is happening in your library.

Rules are simple:

1. Photos will be accepted from current CSLA individual members only (both paraprofessional and professional)

2. Photos should be tagged as follows:
A. Students Access Information -- Students access information by applying their knowledge of the organization of libraries, print materials, digital media, and other sources.
B. Students Evaluate Information -- Students evaluate and analyze information to determine appropriateness in addressing the scope of inquiry.
C. Students Use Information -- Students organize, synthesize, create and communicate information.
D. Students Integrate Information Literacy Skills into All Areas of Learning -- Students independently pursue information to become life-long learners.

3. All photos containing easily recognizable students will need to be accompanied or followed up by a parental release form (See in my Google Docs)

4. All those submitting photos agree to permit the California School Library Association to use the photos in press releases and other promotional materials, as well as on their website. It is understood that no payment will be received for this use. [Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1311584@N24/ ]

Library Yard Signs for Top Readers

A Parish in Louisiana has the right idea -- yard signs for top readers! Kudos to the individual or team that came up with this outstanding idea and followed through on it. As a part of its summer reading program, Calcasieu Parish Public Library gives a certificate and a yard sign to youth who successfully complete ten books or have 10 books read to them by July 17. The sign declares: "A library champion lives here".

Yes, there is a web 2.0 connection here too: Parents can e-mail a digital picture of their reader with their yard sign; the pictures will then be posted on the library’s Web site, www.calcasieu.lib.la.us.

ALA Exhibits 2008 - Anaheim, CA

DEMCO is one of my favorite sources of Library, Literacy, and Reading items like book marks and t-shirts. So, I visited their exhibit at the annual American Library Association conference. There was no line, so I hopped in the beach buggy for a quick photo opportunity.

Every library should have at least one photo opportunity -- what would they look like? Giant book covers with special titles under a "window" opening for special characters on the cover? Or cut out scenes and characters from books -- like Harry Potter and friends, Eragon the dragon -- let your imaginations soar. What a great new business or DEMCO product line. You heard it first on Advocate4Libraries!

These days, many of us carry cell phones with cameras and can easily take a fun photo and send it to a friend or bunch of friends -- along with a message to meet at the library. Sounds fun.