Top 10 Books: January 29, 2008!

Here are the Top 10 Books as of this last week at The Unquiet Library!

Titles 1 - 10 out of 10 Â

	1. Angel’s choice      0 of 1 available      FIC BAR Baratz-Logsted, Lauren.     Published 2006     Accelerated Reader® Level:  5.5 / 8.0 pts. Â
	2. Crank      1 of 2 available      FIC HOP Hopkins, Ellen.     Published 2004     Accelerated Reader® Level:  4.3 / 5.0 pts.     Lexile: NP Â
Â	3. Jing, king of bandits Volume 2 of 6 : twilight tales      1 of 1 available      741.5 KUM Kumakura, Yuichi.     Published 2004 Â
	4. Jing, king of bandits. Volume 3 of 6 : twilight tales      1 of 1 available      741.5 KUM Kumakura, Yuichi.     Published 2005 Â
	5. Jing, king of bandits. Volume 4 of 6 : twilight tales      1 of 1 available      741.5 KUM Kumakura, Yuichi.     Published 2005 Â
	6. Prey      1 of 1 available      FIC CRI Crichton, Michael, 1942-     Published 2003     Accelerated Reader® Level:  4.4 / 15.0 pts. Â
	7. Stained      1 of 1 available      FIC JAC Jacobson, Jennifer, 1958-     Published 2005     Accelerated Reader® Level:  4.1 / 5.0 pts.     Lexile: 660 Â
	8. Storm thief      1 of 1 available      FIC WOO Wooding, Chris, 1977-     Published 2006     Accelerated Reader® Level:  5.8 / 13.0 pts.     Lexile: 800 Â
	9. Zee’s way      0 of 1 available      FIC BUT Butcher, Kristin, 1951-     Published 2004     Accelerated Reader® Level:  4.1 / 2.0 pts. Â
	10. Amaryllis      0 of 1 available      FIC CRI Crist-Evans, Craig.     Published 2003     Accelerated Reader® Level:  5.5 / 6.0 pts. Â

Announcing the Arrival of 250+ books!

Teachers and students:  We are proud to announce the arrival of 250+ new books!  Come by and check out our new selection of fiction and nonfiction—all titles are by popular request!  Highlights include new books by Ellen Hopkins, Nicholas Sparks, Anthony Horowitz, and Meg Cabot as well manga, SAT and ACT practice test books, and Cirque de Freak books.

All new books are now available for checkout!

  

The Unquiet Library is Podcasting!

I am very excited to announce that we are beginning our podcasting programs here at The Unquiet Library!  We will be available on iTunes later this week (check back for more info on this!), and you can also view us at Podcast Blaster. 

You are also welcome to listen to our audio MP3 files we use to create our podcasts at our media center podcast page!  We will be updating our podcasts in the next few weeks, so tune in to hear exciting tutorials, announcements, book reviews, poetry readings, and interviews! 

February 1 update:  Visit this link to hear us on iTunes!

ALA Kicks Off “Save School Libraries” Valentine Campaign!

The American Library Association has kicked off the “Save School Libraries” Valentine Campaign!   The purpose of this campaign is to encourage federal legislators to include the SKILLs Act(Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries) as part of the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act(NCLB). 

The American Library Association says, “This is the single most important piece of legislation concerning school libraries that will come before Congress this year.  Reauthorizationof this bill is critical to the future of school libraries.”  In order for the SKILLs Act to be included in NCLB—that is, to place a state certified school library media specialist in every school–each member of Congress must co-sponsor the SKILLs Act.  To see which representatives have agreed to co-sponsor this legislation, you can visit this link to Senate Bill 1699.

Now is your chance to send a “I Love My School Librarian” Valentine card to your U.S. Senators and to ask them to co-sponsor the SKILLs Act!  For contact information for Georgia’s U.S. Senators, you can visit these links.  ALA asks that you send your “I love my librarian” Valentines to the local offices.

Senator Saxby Chambliss
100 Galleria Parkway
Suite 1340
Atlanta, GA 30339

Johnny Isakson
One Overton Park, Suite 970
3625 Cumberland Blvd
Atlanta, GA 30339

Why does it matter that each state fund at least one full time state certified media specialist?  Check out these facts:

• Research shows that students in schools staffed with libraries staffed by a certified media specialist learn more, get better grades, and score higher on standardized tests than their peers in schools without certified media specialists.
• School library media specialists provide students the research skills they need when they go on to higher education.
• School libraries no longer are just for books.  Instead, school libraries are now sophisticated 21st century learning environments that employ the latest technologies to ensure students have access to learning tools for success.
• Only 60 percent of our school libraries in the United States have a full time and state certified school library media specialist on staff.
• With limited funding and the increased focus on school performance under NCLB, administrators are trying to stretch dollars and are forced to sometimes cuts funds across various programs; school library media specialists, along with fine arts teachers, are often the first to be cut.

Thank you for your support of America’s school libraries!

A New Milestone: The Unquiet Library Blog Passes 15,000 Hits!

Wow!  We at The Unquiet Librarywant to thank all of our patrons and blog readers for your amazing support and readership!  As we near our “one year anniversary” or “blog birthday”, we are overwhelmed with the following on our blog—we officially have passed the 15,000 hit milestone! 

Stay tuned…we have some great new posts coming up next week and over the next few weeks!

Mrs. Hamilton and Mrs. Fleet

Library of Congress Goes Web 2.0 with Flickr!

I actually stumbled on this yesterday while working on a pathfinder (and sent an email of pure excitement to my fellow district media specialists!), but in case you haven’t heard this exciting news, the Library of Congress is now on Flickr!  Check out all the tags on the Library of Congress Flickr account!

What is the project about?  Why would the Library of Congress create a Flickr account?  You can read the full scoop here, but here is what you need to know in a nutshell straight from the Library of Congress on Flickr Project Page; you can also learn more by visiting the Library of Congress on Flickr FAQ Page.  The purpose of creating a LOC Flickr page includes these aims:

• To share photographs from the Library’s collections with people who enjoy images but might not visit the Library’s own Web site.
• To gain a better understanding of how social tagging and community input could benefit both the Library and users of the collections.  
• To gain experience participating in Web communities that are interested in the kinds of materials in the Library’s collections.

Here are two “must read” posts detailing the project and the public’s response to this new project from the Library of Congress Blog:

• Post 1
• Post 2

What does all this mean for us as educators and librarians?  I personally feel this is going to make the rich photo collection so much more accessible to our students and the American public in general.  Talk about an easier mode of searching!  Wow!  This new tool is a fabulous way to tap into these amazing primary sources.  To me, this is another example of the power of Web 2.0 tools to ignite learning and get our students excited about history. 

As always, Joyce Valenza has her thoughts and musings on this exciting development, too—you can read more in her post, “Let’s Tag:  Library of Congress Shares on Flickr“.

What do you think about the Library of Congress @ Flicker?  Share your thoughts!

The Go Overboard Challenge Grant

We just found out about this exciting opportunity for our students and clubs at Readergirlz.com.  This would be a WONDERFUL class project, club project, or individual project for Creekview students!

Community Challenge: Go Overboard Challenge Grant

This month we’re challenging readergirlz to Go Overboard with an idea to make a difference — and win a Go Overboard Challenge Grant to put your plan into action.

Burton Snowboards and award-winning author / readergirlz co-founder Justina Chen Headley are co-sponsoring the Go Overboard Challenge Grant with Youth Venture to fund the best youth-led ideas to change the world.

Commit to a cause you’re already passionate about - whether it’s saving the environment, ending world hunger, or protecting endangered species. With the help of local Vermont maple syrup makers (Green Mountain Sugar House), Olympic Gold medalist Hannah Teter bottles Hannah’s Gold to earn money for AIDS orphans in Africa. Justina co-founded readergirlz - our online book community - to promote literacy in teen girls. Syrah in Justina’s novel Girl Overboard spearheaded a huge snowboarding event to raise awareness for cancer. So think about a problem and figure out a solution!

Then tell us how you, your club, your team, or your entire school will Go Overboard by:
* forming a team (two or more persons) and filling out an action plan
* proposing a new sustainable organization (venture) to address a problem you have identified in your school, neighborhood, community, the world!

The best ideas will win one of 12 grants, each worth $1000, to help them realize their vision.

To learn more about the Go Overboard Challenge Grant, click here.

The rest of the divas want to thank Justina for making Syrah such an inspirational character in Girl Overboard and for working so hard on this grant opportunity with Burton Snowboards, Youth Venture, and Hannah Teter. You’re always right out there in front with a giving spirit.

Our challenge to all you readergirlz: Go Overboard with an idea now. May the best reach-out readergirl win a Go Overboard Grant!

January 23: Library Space Limited Today for 4th and 5th period Lunches

Because we have three classes scheduled for 4th period and two for 5th period today, space for lunch students at computers and tables will be very limited.  If you need to use the library at lunch, please come early!  Our scheduled classes have priority on library resources.

Thank you for your help!

The Unquiet Library@Pageflakes!

We are pleased to announce the debut of our Unquiet Library Pageflakes pagecast!  What is Pageflakes, you may ask?  It is a cool Web 2.0 tool that allows users to create personalized online desktops similar to that of iGoogle.  Users can easily add widgets related to education, photos, social bookmarking sites, news, podcasts, fun games, and even comic strips!  Our pagecast is designed to give you another avenue for accessing our library resources as well as provide a little fun for you where you can play online games, listen to our podcasts (coming February 1!), and view RSS feeds to some of our most popular library resources.

Please add our pagecast, http://www.pageflakes.com/theunquietlibrary/, to your favorites!  We will also be linking our pagecast from our blog and regular media center website the week of January 21, so check back next week!

You can even create your very own pageflake account at http://student.pageflakes.com/.  If you need assistance utilizing our pagecast or setting up your own student pageflake account, see Mrs. Hamilton or Mrs. Fleet!  You can learn more about Pageflakes in this PC Magazine review from December 7, 2007.

In the meantime, get it together @ The Unquiet Library Pagecast!

Readergirlz Manifesta 2008!

The latest great e-newsletter just arrived in my mailbox from Readergirlz!  I would like to share with you the Readergirlz Mainfesta 2008!  For even more exciting new news, go to http://www.readergirlz.com/  or http://www.readergirlz.com/issue.html !

And now we give you the Readergirlz Manifesta 2008.  This is what we stand for.  This is what we believe.  This is what we promise YOU.

• Readergirlz is committed to creating groundbreaking programs that make teen reading seriously fun.  If you thought 31 Flavorite Authors for Teens was Big and Bold, just wait until you see what we’ve got planned for April, 2008.
• Readergirlz is about celebrating excellent YA novels that feature strong girls with the guts to dream-and putting teen readers in direct contact with the author.  You aren’t going to believe our 2008 line-up, including (drum roll, please) the brilliant Nikki Grimes (February, 2008), spectacular Sarah Dessen (March, 2008), and incandescent Shannon Hale (May, 2008). 
• Readergirlz is about reaching out to others based on what you’ve read.  So continue to see how readergirlz ties every single book we feature with a community service project.  Have we mentioned April, 2008? 
• And most of all, readergirlz continues to be about inspiring girls to make history of their own!