A Look at Book Checkouts! Library Impact Dashboard

 A Look at Book Checkouts! Library Impact Dashboards!

I have spent the last two years categorizing the picture book and reader book sections of my two libraries.  I have switched away from having the readers mixed in with picture books and NF books.  I moved them to their own section called Readers.  Both the reader section and the picture book sections are now sorted into categories.  I used the same categories for both sections.  The Readers have the Letter R added to the category label.  More about this in another post.

I have been spending time learning how to use Google Looker Studio.  It used to be called Data Studio which I was familiar with and I wrote several blog posts about that journey.  I decided to create a Library Impact Dashboard after seeing one at a conference and a virtual training session held during my Thanksgiving break.  It was worth the time!

I wanted to expand on this dashboard so I started researching what else Google Looker was being used for.  Two items stood out to me.  One a Mini Credentials board and a digital reading log.  Let’s talk about the reading log.

In both of my schools students are expected to read independently outside of school at least 15 minutes a day and some up to 20 Minutes a day.  They turn in reading logs.  I found an awesome example online.  I started to build my Google form to collect the data and the Google form to display the results.  I am worried about getting teachers to buy into this.  With Looker studio you need data to build your dashboards.  I will need to create some fake entries to get the board set up.  I’m not really into fake data so I have set this aside for a moment. Good news is that once it is set up I can delete the fake data and start collecting real data without damaging the dashboard.

Where else can I get data?  I looked at my Library Catalog and see a report for Loaned Items…… Now this report would have to be run each week or for me at the end of my 6 day rotation.  This is the biggest drawback of this report. If you don't pull the report each week you will loose out on data. All other reports that I have use so far you can pull at any time and even years later.

OPALS does not keep this information past the book being returned.  I learned about why in one of my Master Library Classes and its a good reason.  When I pull this report I will need to ensure student information is left out for this very reason. I do not want to do an end run around keeping a history of what students borrowed form the library.  OPALS has an option to leave out student information when running this report.  This report does give me some great information that I can create a dashboard with.

1. A list of books loaned out with no user information.

2. The Author names

3. Location of the books

1. Special Locations (Short Chapter books/series picture books & Reader categories)

2. The next two sections - the location field is blank and it is easy to add these after the report is pulled. 

1. Dewey - All the Nonfiction Books

2. Fiction - Novels - the longer ones - shorter ones are in Chapter Baskets

   

This gives me a look at the most popular authors & the sections of the library that get looked at the most.

1. Now to start asking questions

1. Why is an author more popular than others?  Is it the number of their books that I have?  Is it just because the author is popular?  What else can it be?

2. Which sections are seeing the most use?  Do I need to weed these sections or purchase more books for them?

The best reason to create a dashboard is to look at the data and ask questions.  The report looking nice is great but you want it to lead to questions.  I will be adding this report to the Library Impact Dashboard as a second and third page of the report.

Picture Book Genre

 Picture Book Genre

UPDATE:  I have also sorted the Reader section for students into the same groups.  I used the same stickers but added the letter R to identify the section to shelve in.

Many libraries have added Genres to their fiction collections and there are tons of resources online to help you complete this task.  There are however not many resources online for adding Genre to the Picture Book section of the library.  I started my journey at https://obxlibrarian.weebly.com/blog/easy-picture-book-genrefication  I was sad to see students just wandering around the picture book section when it was sorted by author only and spine out all the time.  Once I started to switch over to Genre topics for picture books I saw a change in the students when looking for books.  They took the time to flip through the front facing books to see what was in that section.  It was amazing!

1. The first step is to go through your picture books and pull out board books and step into reading type readers.  They make it difficult to shelve books because their size is so different from most picture books.  I created their own sections for these books.

2. You will need to select the topics (genre) that will work best with your collection and your students.  Here is a list of the topics I went with.

1.  ABC’s

2. Adventures

3. Animals (wild/zoo)

4. Author

5. Bears

6. Bugs

7. Career

8. 123’s

9. Dragons & Dinos

10. Farm

11. Friends and family

12. USA/Government

13. Pet Stories

14. Princess/Prince

15. Scary

16. School/Books

17. Sea life

18. Silly Stories

19. Sports

20. Holiday

21. Superhero

22. Trucks & Equipment

23. Video Games

The highlighted topics can be large sections.  I am looking into breaking them down into smaller sections.

Author sticker means to shelve by the author’s name.

3. I created stickers with the above labels on them along with clipart to match. I printed these on blank spine labels.  I placed the stickers on the top right corner of the book cover.  Choose what works best for you.

4. Now the work comes in.  Sort the picture books into piles based on the topics.  Then place the stickers on them.

5. How will you shelve the books now that they have stickers on them?

1. Spine out?  I do this for the large sections

2. Bins on the shelf.  I do this with small topics.  I prefer front facing books as much as possible

3. Larger bins on the floor to highlight a section/topic of the collection.

6. Holiday books have a spine label and shelved out of the way but still accessible to students.

NOTE:  I do end up with some overfull bins but that is only at the start and end of the year.  All other times the bins are half empty.

The following are examples of the genre stickers I created using clipart.  I am not claiming this artwork as my own.  Please use your own artwork or clipart.

It has been awhile since I posted!

Let's Keep Going!

Hello Everyone:

    It has been a busy couple of years.  The last time I posted it was my first year at my two school libraries in Binghamton City School District.  I was unboxing and weeding two elementary school libraries with lots of help from my fellow librarians.  I survived! 

    I have been working on a new Google Site to hold my lesson plans and all things I need to track as a professional librarian. :)  You can view my work here, but many things you won't be able to view until I am ready for them to be public.  Don't worry I won't keep them a secret for long.

I was happy to see that Data Studio is now Google Looker Studio.  I did a 4 part post about creating reading logs using Data Studio.  Now I am back creating new reading logs and even more important Library Impact Dashboards.  View here.  Since I have two school libraries I have two dashboards but I have created a blended dashboard to combine the stats to view the totals of both schools.  There is a limit to the number of blends you can create in Google Looker Studio.  I believe it is 5 but I have had issues after 4 blends.

I would love some feedback.

Tammy Cummings

Librarian

 New School Year New Schools

Tammy Cummings Library Media Specialist Binghamton, NY

    Well this year has already been full of adventures.  Just over a year ago I switched school districts.  This meant working in two school libraries and moving to a new area.  Binghamton NY is now my home.  I've officially settled down or at least I had thought I settled down.  The district hired another librarian (or rehired one) and switched up who was working at which schools.  This meant two new schools and two new collections.

    Last year was the chaos of the pandemic and teaching asynchronously for part of the school year. Plus getting to know two new library collections. One school had over 700+ books that needed to be sorted through and cataloged.  Luckily I had help with that from Library aids and School Library Services.  Then having to make space for Covid testing in the library for part of the year and push into classrooms at both schools.  Towards the end of the school year I was finally able to have classes in the library!  I survived the school year, but then they sprung on us the switch up of locations!

    Start of this school year I found myself assigned to two different schools both of which the school library had undergone renovations!  All the books were in boxes at both schools!  Luckily at one school (School A) I had the help of other librarians in the district to unbox the books.  Managed to get this done before school started but it was still organized chaos.  Unfortunately at the other School (School B) I didn't have help unboxing the books until after the school year started, but the boxes were out of sight and I could start teaching right away.

    School A is a great space but the smart board is not up so I cannot project anything!  I do have two monitors so I use the second larger one to show students videos and such.  I only lost a little bit of shelving in the renovation at school A.  The collection is in desperate need of weeding.  About 900 books have been weeded as we were shelving.  The picture book section still needs to be weeded. 

    School B is an awesome space but shelving is very limited!  That has been the biggest issue with school B.  Very little was done before the school year started, but what was done the students did not like.  The principal had older tables put in the library so students had a place to sit to work.  At some point this school year the library will get new tables and chairs.  Learned the hard way that the projector does not work for the smart board and I am waiting on it being repaired.  Luckily there is a smart TV in the library and I use that instead.  The boxes of books were stored erratically in the band room.  I felt bad about taking up this teachers space and pushed myself to sort and weed fast!  Total so far of weeded books at School B is around 2000.  But all those books really needed to be weeded.  I still have my book budget for this year and need to get the orders placed.  Now I am am down to the books that really should stay.  I have almost completed the Non-Fiction (Informational Text) part of the collection, the biography section, readers, graphic novels and Fiction sections of the collection.  That leaves the picture books to get shelved.  Not enough room to shelve them plus I need to decide on how to shelve them.  Thankfully I do have help now with completing this library.

Things that I learned during this process:

1. Librarians don't get to pack boxes up at their pace and many non librarians will pitch in to get the work done!

2.  Boxes once packed will be moved an mixed up during the renovations!

3.  Librarians most likely won't get a say in the renovation.  You will be asked to spend a ton of time planning it but then the decision is not in your hands.

4.  Take care of yourself.  I pushed myself too hard and ended up sick for almost a week.

5.  Principals will say take your time and take care of yourself but they really want it done as quickly as possible.

This is the end for today.  I will start my next post about the decisions that I had to make and share some before and after photos of the progress so far.

Can you fit it in a box?

The TechWizard's Guide to Library Magic

Written by Ms. Cummings

CiTi Library Media Specialist

Can you fit it in a box?

The school year is coming to an end and it is time to start planning for next year.  I am lucky to be working summer school again this year.  Summer School gives me an opportunity as a librarian to try out things that I am not sure on.  This comes from working in a High School environment where there is not enough time to do things that have not been tested.  Summer is just as stressful getting ready for Regents exams and credit recovery but for Middle School, you get a chance to breathe. 

Every day I start my day out by looking at yahoo.com and newsfeeds on other websites.  One day I saw a post about "Museum in a box".  I took that chance that it was not click bait and clicked away.  I found a treasure trove of opportunities to turn a research paper into something more.  A website for a good overview of what these boxes are is at http://www.museuminabox.org/

I'm looking at the website and thinking that we could do this.  It would tie in with research, our 3D printers, and digital storytelling.  I have a wonderful technology department at school, but I would have to be able to do this with students with a minimal amount of help.  I know they would be there if I got stuck so I didn't go into a panic.  I just needed to figure this out but not by myself.

As high school students come to the library I start to have discussions about the project idea.  The discussions started out with what is a museum in a box and can you really fit that in a box.  Then moved on to how does it work and what can we use.  We decided to start out with a Raspberry Pi (RPi) device and an NFC reader, the second I have not yet used with the RPi.  I do have a backup plan if this doesn't work.  I'll clue you in on that later on probably in another blog post.

The library has limited funds for projects and this means I need to look for funding for this project.  Students were anxious to get started and we're already looking at other ways to use the RPi.  I had to break the news that we had to wait until the next school year.  The library needed about $2000 for this project and I decided to apply for NYSCATE grant for up to $2000.  I filled out the application with a budget with input by the students.  Then I had to wait and keep looking for possible other sources of funds.  Students kept asking and I kept telling them to wait for June.  I did prepare students by telling them how competitive grants are and that we may not get it.   And we waited.............

June 1st came and the students asked and again I said we have to wait some more.  The students started to get frustrated at that point.  Mid-June came around and they stopped asking.  I got an email that the Library received the NYSCATE grant for the full amount we requested.  I told one student and the rest knew within an hour.

I am excited about this project and can't wait to get working on it next year.  Summer school is quickly approaching and why not start exploring the Raspberry Pi with the summer school students.  I have one or two already just sitting in the cabinet.  I plan to pull out the devices and see what the summer school students can do with them.  I will be doing Maker Space projects for Middle School Summer School students.  Let's see what they can create.

Continue to watch my blog for updates on this project and other items of interest to grades k-12 and the library connections.

This post covered the

• project idea
• student connections
• finding funding

The next posts will cover

• Receiving the project supplies and how to manage them
• Plan B if we can't get the technology to work
• Digital Story Telling - Students will do the job of a museum Docent
• 3D printing objects for the boxes
• How it all turns out - and how you can try out of boxes

Reading Logs going digital how to and the benefits of going digital Part I

The TechWizard's Guide to Library Magic

Written by Ms. Cummings

CiTi Library Media Specialist

Reading Logs going digital how to and the benefits of going digital 
Part I

Step 1 - Create a Google Form to collect reading log data

Step 2 - Create the Public Reading Dashboard
Step 3 - create the sections of your dashboard
Step 4 - Create the Teacher Dashboard

This is part I of my journey to bringing a reading log into the digital age.  When my kids were younger they had to do reading logs all through elementary school and without fail they would get lost or have orange juice spilled on them and one even ended up in the bottom of the hamster cage!  Needless to say, they eventually made it to school and the teacher would stamp it and we start the process all over again.   As  School Library Media Specialist working in a K-12 Library I decided I wanted more to come from those reading logs.

My first step was to create a Google Form that provided an easy way for students and parents to enter the information.  I had to decide what data I really wanted to collect.  Your choices will depend on what data you and your teachers want to collect.

My form includes:

1. Automatically collect email address - this makes it easy to restrict access too.
2. First & Last names - with school student email address you may not need this I choose to include it in my data collection
3. Select one - student or adult - I want students to see adults are reading too, but you may not want to include this option
4. Grade - I am K-12 so I did Elementary, Middle School, and High School. Plus adult.  You can choose the grades you are working with.
5. Team - There are some teams in my schools.  Optional question.  
6. Book Title - ALL CAPS - this makes it easier for the system to match up titles.  You can go into the Google Sheet and correct any errors but all caps help limit the need to make corrections.  The program will count a title in all caps as different than the same title but in lower case letters. 
7. Author - at least the last name
8. Genre - I set up options for the genre and included "I can't decide" option.  You can leave this as a short answer but I don't recommend that. for the same reason as the title.  Spelling errors will cause problems so it is easier to have them select from a list
9. Abandoned or Finished - This is important to me in that all reading counts and it tells me that the student didn't like something about the book.  This helps with book recommendations and possibly tell you when a class needs a lesson on picking out just right books.  I will show you how to set it up so only finished books are counted in "Total books read".
10. Rate this book - I put in a 1-5 scale for rating the book.  This will help with the popular author and popular book part of the display
11. What is the next book you would like to read? - This doesn't appear in the display but its data I would like to have.  I have told students that they can put that they don't know what to read next.  This is also an optional question.

I had gotten this far into my creation of the Digital Reading Log and honestly, I did not really know where to go from this point.  I attended a PD on young adult books and the presenter mentioned a reading dashboard.  I got the links and viewed what they had created.  This is the link to the YouTube video Creating a Digital Independent Reading Log with G Suite Apps https://youtu.be/ASHSGiyCE68

There is also an article about the reading dashboard at this link

Honestly viewing the video and article did help get me to move forward with reading dashboard but there was so much that I struggled to figure out.

This is a lot of information to collect and you don't have to have all these items, but this data collection will provide the data for 2 to 3 dashboards.  The first and primary one is the Public Reading Dashboard.  Secondly, there is the Teacher Reading Dashboard and last, there is the Student Dashboard.  The Student Dashboard I am still working on and I will add a post for that one when I have it working.

Go ahead and create your own Google Form Reading Log and the Google Sheet to collect the data.  The sheet is created by clicking on the green box on the RESPONSES tab of the Google Form you created.  You will need this for the next part of this project.  Having the finalized form before you start the next step will be helpful, but there is a way to manage if a need to edit the Google Form occurs.  I will include tips to help you deal with those issues in the next posts.

Part II

Reliability Spectrum VS. FAKE News

Tammy Cummings, MLS
Center for  Instruction, Technology & Innovation

Reliability Spectrum VS. FAKE News

Librarians and educators today spend a lot of time educating students in regards to fake news.  The AASL Standards Framework for Learners has a standard (VI.A.3) that states "Evaluating information for accuracy, validity, social and cultural context, and appropriateness for need". (AASL)  In my role as a Library Media Specialist I have done many lessons on fake news and how to tell a valid source from a not so valid source.  I have seen many lessons by other librarians that concentrate on the areas of accuracy, validity.  These are the biggest evaluations used to decide if something is fake news or not.  The new Social Studies exams are now asking students to rate sources based on a reliability spectrum.  This connects with the remaining parts of the new library standard.

The new standard includes the need to evaluate sources not only on the accuracy and validity but also the social and cultural context and the appropriateness for the need.  This is the core thought process behind the reliability spectrum. Students will have several articles to read and they must rate them on this spectrum.  Students will need to know that it is not asking if the articles are fake news or not but how reliable are the sources to answer the questions that are being asked.

My example to students is as follows:

I am looking to create a healthy meal plan for the week.  I have three sources available to make my decisions.  

1. My grandmothers recipe box that is filled with our family recipes for generations.  
2. Local chef who wrote and published a cookbook.
3. A friend who is nutritionist and studying to be a dietitian.

Now I need to evaluate each source but what are the questions? Plus I need to state my reasoning.  Why did I rate that source the way I did?

Question 1:  Which source is reliable to create a meal plan for someone with a health issue, which one would be reliable?  Would you choose the friend studying to be a dietitian?  I would say that source would be between reliable and somewhat reliable, since the friend is still studying to be a dietitian.  Plus a dietitian is the better choice for nutrition decisions for health issues than a nutritionist.

Question 2:  Which source would be reliable to cook a meal for a night when everyone wants comfort food?  Would you choose Grandma's recipe box or the Chef that published a cookbook.  I would say that my family would want Grandma's Cooking and that makes it reliable.  Everyone likes Grandma's cooking.  The Chef I would say is somewhat reliable because to publish a cookbook you have to keep in mind what the reader would like to see in the cookbook.  That cookbook also needs to look appealing to get people to buy it but that doesn't guarantee that the recipes would be considered comfort food.

My example doesn't cover all the aspects of the reliability spectrum but it is a start that will get students talking.  Getting students to understand that the new Social Studies exams want them to take a stance and back it up.  There is no right or wrong answer to the rating but they need to be able to back up their decision with reasons and it can't be "just because" or "because it is".

The big take away is that students need evaluate their sources and be able to state how reliable those sources are.  Everyone not just students need to be able to chose a stance (using  the reliability spectrum) and be able to articulate why they took that stance.  It's OK to not agree but you must be able to back it up with your reasons.  Not everyone in my family would agree that my Grandmother's recipes would be considered comfort food.  They might say that the Chef's cookbook is more reliable.  That's OK because I know my family and they will not hesitate to tell me why, but they will also listen to my reasoning.  Are your students that comfortable with making a decision and stating why?

Remember it's not just about fake news but also about the reliability.   Lessons on Fake news are a great way to get student's attention and engage them in learning.  We also need to remember that there is more to evaluating sources and help students develop those skills.

Works cited:

(2018), National school library standards for learners, school librarians, and school libraries. Chicago, ALA Editions, an imprint of the American Library Association.

AASL_ReadingtheStandards_OnePager_2017.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved April 4, 2018, from http://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL_ReadingtheStandards_OnePager_2017.pdf

Library Website CiTi

Tammy Cummings, MLS
Center for  Instruction, Technology & Innovation

CiTi's Library Website

 The new  and improved library website is up and running. This new version of the website is linked to the CiTi website.  You will find it listed in the links column for each program at CiTi Library.  This will take you to the landing page and on this page there is a link (Visit the CiTi Library's  Google Site!) to the full library website.  You are welcome to bookmark the Google Sites Library page to take you directly to the page in the future.

Image of Library Website Landing Page

  The Library website is a place for Teachers and Students to find resources that support their learning.  There is a section for teachers that provides links to the teacher sign in pages for resources that we use here at CiTi.  The student section provides the links to the student sign in pages for the resources that students are most likely to use.  There are also resources to help students (and teachers) with their research needs and access to our ebooks/audio books.  You do not have  to be logged in to your CiTi Google account unless you need to view the restricted pages.  To view these pages just log in with your @citiboces.net account.

  The Library calendar is on the Home page of the Library website.  This calendar will enable you to see my availability for library lessons.  There is also the Library Schedule page that allows you to sign up for a time with the Librarian.  You will then receive a confirmation of that time from me.  This is the same form that teachers and students use to sign up for an ICE (Information, Curation & Exploration) session.  Once the Library space opens there is also a page for Library Sign In  where teachers will be able to see that their students did arrive at the library (They must have a pass).

The Library website is the best way to provide access to the digital library materials.  This website is updated on a regular basis and new items are added as they are added to the library.  Come visit the library website often.

Google Expedition UPDATE

CiTi Library Media Center

Tammy Cummings 

Library Media Specialist

UPDATE!

Google Expeditions Update.  Original Post Google Cardboard & Google Expeditions:  What I should know before hand.

I wanted to update everyone on Google Expeditions.  The app is adding new tours all the time.  The tours no longer are restricted to 360 Photos but now include 360 diagrams and drawings.  All are still created by experts in their fields.

For those that are having trouble with getting the app to run with the screen sharing.  You know you are having this issue when it never connects to a guide.  This means your network has a restriction on peer to peer screen sharing.  To overcome this hurdle don't go yell at your technology department!  You will need to purchase a Wifi device that will run about $80.  I use the Linksys AC750 Boost Dual-Band Wi-Fi Range Extender.  I do NOT plug it into the network.  I just plug it into a power outlet.  

You will need to take your device that you will use as the guide and start up the Google Expedition App.  Guides must log into their Google Accounts when using the app, Followers do not need to login.  I like to use an iPad for my guide device.  Download the tours you would like to run.  Then you will connect your guide device to the router.  Then go back into the Expedition App.  

Now you are ready to have follower devices connect to the wifi router, make sure it is the same one that the guide device is connected to.  Once they are connected they can start the Google Expedition App.  Select follow and join your tour.

IDEA!
Google Expeditions are created by experts in their fields.  Why not use these for research and not just field trips.  Allow students to be the guide and explore the tour on their own.  In the Guide point of view valuable & valid information is provided that students can use for their assignments.  The best part is that when they tap on the information it points them directly at what it is referring to.  The other great part is that they can't copy and paste the information.  They must take notes! This leaves us with the task of teaching students how to take notes properly.