Overdue Library Loans - How to get students to return their books

A topic not explored to date on this blog, but does raise its head on Teacher Librarian message boards.

It can be too easy in this age of automated library systems that the computer will look after reminding students to return overdue loans via an email to their email accounts.

Sometimes a student won't look at them, focusing on other more important emails in their inbox. There is only school where I have across where students respond back to library staff about an overdue loan.

There is also the printed reminders forwarded through roll call classes. But sometimes, they forget to be distributed amongst other notices and the routine of roll call itself.

But what about face to face?

I find face to face reminders to be most effective at getting serial offenders to return their library books. It does take away some of your time, but if you want to get the books back, a verbal reminder wont hurt them.

At one school, a member of the library team will visit classrooms to speak to students. I have been part of it myself. Fifty percent of the time, the students will realise it was in their locker and immediately return the book. Others will go home, find it and bring it back.

I picked up last year at a school, where students were only receiving email reminders. I introduced printed overdue notices and would have the notices distributed by the Year Advisors.

Now in 2017, I have adopted the face to face reminders focusing on the serial offenders. I sent notes to students to report to the library and I reminded them of overdue items. We've managed to get a good chunk of the overdue items back including the longest overdues. The message had sunk in. Bookshelves and bedrooms were searched with books found. There was the odd one stuck in a locker.

Puzzles in the library

One thing that has become a bit of crowd puller this term at my current school is jigsaw puzzles.

It began simply out of a pastoral care period. The students had an opportunity for one period to work on puzzles or play board games in the library. A group had spent the fifty minute period working on a puzzle and we didn't want it to be dismantled.

We left it on the table and as students came to the library, they then took the initiative and the puzzle has taken shape.

It is not finished. Sadly there have been two incidents of students walking past and smashing the puzzle to pieces. Fortuantely, they get reassembled quickly.

It's proving to be a great recreational activity to promote because it requires:

• Collaboration (people working together)
• Problem solving (does the pieces fit etc? Should we work on borders first)
• Organisational skills (sorting pieces by colours, types, featured objects etc).
• Concentration

In addition jigsaw puzzles have a:

• Calming effect on the students.
• May attract students that may not normally use the library for reading or for learning during break times.
• Ability to fill time like when waiting your turn to access printing services.

I look forward to spending the summer working on some 4D puzzles which have been a challenge to those who have done it. 

Teaching Availability for 2018

As the end of the year approaches, I need to remind people of my availability for work in 2018.

At this stage, I am available for either casual, temporary or full time employment as a Teacher Librarian in 2018.

If you know of a school that requires the services of a Teacher Librarian or need a "locum" to fill in, please contact me.

More information is available here.

HallowRead Trivia

Recently , I was looking for ideas to do a library activity focusing on Halloween. I searched the OZTL_NET forum for ideas and liked the idea from one contributor of referring to Halloween as "HallowRead", to encourage reading.

I created a "HallowRead" quiz to challenge the Readers Club students focusing on Fantasy and Horror books. It was quite challenging but fun.

I will share this with you:

Questions
Answers
Answer Sheet

Thankyou to those on the OZTL_NET forum who shared their ideas.

Sydney Writers Festival @ Cabramatta Library- October 19 2017

Yours truly with Jessica Townsend, Author of the recently released book - Nevermoor.

Fairfield City Council recently hosted a Sydney Writers Festival workshop for students attending schools within the Fairfield City Council Local Government Area.

I took a group of sixteen students from Mary Mackillop Catholic College, Wakeley to attend the sessions. Those attending were given some excellent writing tips from the following authors:

• J. C. Burke - What to consider when writing a short story e.g. Ensuring that you know your (main) character
• Marlee Jane Ward - To write, you need to constantly develop your writing skills.
• Evelyn Scott (Poet) - Poetry is feeling, not telling. Poetry must be able to evoke emotion.  

Jessica Townsend went on a different tangent focusing on she was motivated into writing and was a keen writer from a very young age. Like the other writers, it takes time to reach your ultimate goal. For the girls, this was their big highlight of the day

Her recently released book Nevermoor has already been signed up for a film adapation by 20th Century Fox, and is being released in 28 countries.  She is an author to watch. I am in the process of reading Nevermoor and hopefully will update you soon on what I think.    

Time to ditch printed magazines?

Last year, I shared insights on ePeriodical apps including Pressreader and Zinio. Recently, I was told by a colleague about the relevance of Periodical Collections in school libraries.

They advised me that it is no longer worth spending. The argument was that newspapers and magazines incurred unnecessary expenses because of the easy disposal, whereas a book has a longer shelf life.

I can see their point, particularly as apps such as Zinio will allow you to access back issues for a period of time and once "loaned", it is yours forever. You can download copies to your app, delete them and if you need it again in the future download it again.

The digital replica can in effect have the life that a printed book would otherwise have.

However, studies show the preference for printed resources. Is forcing one to go digital the right way or wrong way?

While the benefits might include access to a greater variety of periodicals, ease of convenience, access to back issues and less maintenance of the periodical collection, the downside is that school students lose an opportunity to locate content from printed periodicals or seek out a printed copy if they enjoy the web content.

What is interesting though is that more magazines e.g. Time Magazine actually provide free digital subscriptions to print subscribers. Even if you take out a digital only subscription, you will have to pay the same price. You might as well get the combined subscription and provide the online login (via your intranet or learning management system).

With access to Australian newspapers, the web services provided for digital replicas and websites to schools is still poor with unfriendly interfaces along with the high costs of providing the service. At this stage, it would be preferred that a printed editions be made available and a single login (via your intranet of learning management system) to the website and digital replica. The digital access would only work for access on a web browser.

As for magazines, abolishing the entire print collection won't work at this stage. Rather, concentrate on the popular titles and cull the less popular ones. If a school can afford a zinio or Pressreader subscription, it should be used to supplement the existing collection. Public Libraries have scaled their collections of printed magazines while providing others online.

And try and see if your subscription includes digital access as to get the best of both worlds, particularly where printed and digital subscription is equal to the price of a digital only subscription.