Library Musings

I’m going to participate in Laurie Halse Anderson’s WFMAD challenge this year. If you’d like more details you can check the instructions from last year which also apply this year at http://halseanderson.livejournal.com/198027.html?page=1#comments. Laurie’s also on Facebook, so you could friend her there.

The challenge doesn’t actually start until August 1st, but I’m excited about it today, so thought I’d try for a practice 15 minute writing today on the topic: “Why I am excited about the WFMAD challenge”.

OK, that’s 2 minutes down. LOL

I think that the first and major reason I’m excited is because this is a project Laurie has designed. I feel like I’ve gotten to know her pretty well on Facebook so, in addition to being a big fan of her books, I admire her as a person and appreciate her as a friend.

You might think that a reason why I am participating is that I want to be an author, but that simply isn’t true. I would much rather enjoy the writings of truly gifted authors than spend time trying to hack out something myself.

I would like to post to my blog more regularly though, so I hope that this challenge will help me get into the habit of doing that.

I’m also excited because this is not a terribly daunting challenge. The rules are very flexible, and if/when you fall off the wagon it’s OK to get back on.

I’ll be starting back to work on August 10th, so I’m hoping that joining the WFMAD challenge will give me a chance to set out some of my ideas for the new school year.

And I think I’ll finish up here with a few of my current ideas for school.

Thanks to such fortunate concurrent events I have been drawn back into a project from last year where I was trying to put together lists of books for my students. (Actually, you can see the drafts of the lists in the previous entry on this blog.)

I’m designing some FAQ signs for my library in hopes that they will help to guide students in finding the most frequently needed resources on land and sea and in the depths of cyberspace. The only one I’ve got done so far is on how to locate books using Destiny. I don’t find that the name Destiny is of any help in understanding what the program is used for, so I hope that having a FAQ sign up will be of assistance.

I’ve been thinking about a cool design for a Welcome Back sign to hang above my first book display of the year. Print some simple photographic backgrounds on paper so it can be used as a sort of base stationary. (I have a good simple photo of beach sand and water that I’d like to use.) Then I could run the paper back through the printer to add one big letter per page. Debating yet how complex the letters should be. I tend to go overcomplicated, so I’ll probably just give each letter a different color.

My 15 minutes is up, so I’ll close for today. I’ll be back…