Library Packet for Teachers

On National Teacher’s Day, my staff and I prepared a packet for teachers. The packet contains a thank you card which I personally wrote notes for all forty teachers of the Academy, a poem about the many reasons why we teach, promotional collateral of all out online subscriptions and a profile of my staff and myself. Yup. Shameless plug. 

Needless to say, the packet was put together to thank teachers of their continued patronage, encourage teachers to ask us for questions, inform them of the rich resources we have in the library and remind them that their library staff are human resources that can help them teach better. In this age where virtually anything can be taken and sourced from Google, communicating the library’s role and our added value is very important. I have received good feedback thus far and I do welcome suggestions. And this is what I am more keen on getting. The activities, projects and programs that we run are informed by library users’ needs, feedback and responses. 

This is not the first time we distributed library packets. Nor will this be the last. In the changing landscape of education, librarians are challenged to be more creative and resourceful every day!

23 Mobile Things PH&SG: Thing # 3: Email Marketing

Thing #3 is Email Marketing.

This is all I can say about this week's topic: It is new technology for me and it's taking me a while to learn the whole thing. I've done a couple of Enewsletters using FlashIssue and MailChimp. I sent this to 23 Mobile Things' email add and I'm a bit successful. I think. My blogging experience helped me figure the navigation and design of both apps but this is new stuff for me. Blogger is indeed old school. And yes, I feel old too. Hahaha!

But, I'm a self declared learner for life so I'll keep trying until I figure things out completely in MailChimp and FlashIssue. I can use either apps to repackage and reformat information needed to disseminate to readers in our high school library. Apart from news and updates on readers' services, I can use the Enewsletter as tool to communicate Information Literacy Skills topics. For example, an introduction to the research cycle may take one whole period to teach. That's an hour. As follow through, an e-newsletter will help me remind students on relevant concepts about the research cycle. The cool thing about sending this e-newsletter is that, I can make a mailing list and presto! The e-newsletter is sent to recipients.

I take it that there are two prerequisites here: one is learning the apps; two is the digestion of content. Oh Father Time, please be a friend!

E-newsletter using FlashIssue

Ecampaign using MailChimp

Library Reading Programs for Summer

 Sharing the introduction of the library's summer reading list here. My staff and I are coming up with a booklet, five pages in all, that has fiction, non-fiction, ebook titles recommended for teachers, students and their parents. Included in the booklet is a feedback form asking readers to send in their book reviews in exchange of a reading reward when school resumes in August.

Summer readingbooklet from Zarah Gagatiga

Apart from the recommended reads that the library will be releasing next week, there's also the Creativity Action Service activity that I'm spearheading for incoming Grade 12 students. I dubbed it as Summer Reading Circle. Here are the simple mechanics of the activity.

Summer Reading Circle: Participate and earn CAS points for Creativity

a. Incoming grade 12s borrow two books from the library over the long summer break.

b. Read the books and write a review. Reviews will be published in the school website, school newspaper or the library's blog. Well written reviews may be sent to a print or online magazine :-)

c. Reading Circle participants read the book reviews of their peers and post comments.

d. Librarian or teacher (volunteer) can conduct online discussions. Or, over the summer, meet up for face to face discussion.

Electric Youth: Teens Speak of Marekting Strategies for the School Library

Bm g12 marketing_lib_feedback from Zarah Gagatiga

Reading Alerts!

I like pulling out titles from the shelves and gathering them up in a list. This is one way to promote the library's collection, bridge information gaps and enrich concepts taken up in class. Here's a reading list I recommended to a Humanities and Filipino classes in school. I used the teachers' unit plans (lesson plans) as basis for selection.

Filipino10 recomreads from Zarah Gagatiga

Humanities worldwar2 2 from Zarah Gagatiga

I then emailed the list to teachers so they can post it in their classroom. As a follow through, I set up a special reading table for the books recommended in the list.

Ask a Librarian Video

Here's a neat library marketing video. I love the background music.