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In this issue…….

Book Review Spotlight

News Bit

L4U Upgrade, A Metaphoric Tale

Important Information

Regarding L4U Upgrade

Recently Catalogued

L4U Conversion FAQ’S

Book Review Spotlight

Battle Bunny by Jon Scieszka

Simon & Schuster, c2013.

I am trying to get more creative with what I do with the

books that are discarded from our school library. Quite

often, I have a box of discarded books labelled with a

“Help Yourself!” sign. Sometimes, the pages from dis-

carded books are used for art projects and word centers.

After sharing the book Battle Bunny by Jon

Scieszka, Mac Barnett and Matthew Myers, with the

Grade Four class at Earl Oxford School, we were

inspired to reuse the discarded books in yet another way!

Battle Bunny actually began as a very simple story called

Birthday Bunny. (Its size, illustrations and story line re-

minds me of the books that lined my bookshelf when I was younger.) Scieszka and Bar-

nett use their talent, creativity and knowledge of their young readers, to transform a very

safe story about a Bunny who believes his friends in the forest have forgotten his birth-

day. Of course they haven’t! The forest animals had planned a surprise birthday party

for the Bunny all along.

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The authors use the original story’s text and illustrations

to re-create an exciting and dangerous story about a

Bunny with an evil plan who battles the forest animals.

Only the young boy who was originally given the story

Birthday Bunny can stop the plan! The Grade Four

students were inspired by the pencil doodles and fantastic

change in plot!

The newest use at Earl Oxford School for discarded books

is for those students who are creatively trying to write

their own version of Battle Bunny! After all, Scieszka,

Barnett and Myers did it, how hard could it be?

Reviewed by:

Jodie Stapleton

Teacher-Librarian, HALEP & MY Literacy Support

Earl Oxford School

News Bit

The publishing industry is changing their approach to how they

time the release of the next book in a series. The following arti-

cle relays the balance of publishing schedules versus public im-

patience. An interesting read from the New York Times.

Bosman, Julie. Impatience Has Its Reward: books are rolled out

faster. The New York Times. Online. Feb. 10, 2014.

Oooh, controversy on the YA level. Here’s an issue that we would

most likely cringe at when deciding whether or not to place this

book in a school library. Realistically, we should take the safer

road. But as I believe in Freedom to Read, why not take a toddle

through this column from The Telegraph and think about how

censorship affects your library?

Chilton, Martin. Should potty-mouthed children’s books come

with a PG certificate? The Telegraph. Online. Feb. 4, 2014.

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L4U Upgrade, A Metaphoric Tale

By Rachel Burnett, Divisional Library Technician

Once upon a time there was a sturdy, old man named L4U. He was comfortable in his job as

a Librarian, and he saw the world in neatly organized colors and stripes. But he was getting

old, the colors were fading, and sometimes he would lose his balance and tip over.

One Friday, L4U was having a normal, relaxing day returning books and checking new ones

out to his patrons. At the end of the day, Little Johnny returned The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!

By Mo Willems, and Little Suzy checked out Big Nate flips out by Lincoln Peirce. It was a

long day, and as he turned to leave, L4U slipped and fell and bumped his head on the desk.

Monday morning came, and L4U woke up instantly confused. The world had turned grey and

dim, the sounds were muted, and what was worse, he could not remember where he was! A

few people were standing beside the desk, waiting to check out and return books. L4U

stared at his hands, watching in shock as they did these tasks all on their own. He could not

remember how to do the job, yet his limbs seemed to work for him. Each time he returned a

book his arms would set it on a cart, safely, NOT TO BE SHELVED. Each time he checked out

a book, information would be stored in a box in his brain to print out at the end of the week.

On Wednesday, Little Suzy returned Big Nate flips out, which he set on the shelf with the

rest of the returns. He felt numb and uncertain, but worked like this throughout the week.

When Friday arrived, Little Johnny returned to borrow Lis-

ten to My Trumpet! By Mo Willems. L4U stored that infor-

mation and printed the last of the Circulated Out barcode

sheets. He turned to leave as he usually does, and in his

confusion slipped and hit his head on the desk again.

Another Monday morning arrived, L4U opened his eyes. It

was as though he opened his eyes for the very first time!

The world was full of exotic colors and gales of laughter,

and more shapes than he ever thought possible. There

seemed to be endless opportunities to read and explore!

Blinking in the new light, L4U stood up and noticed a very

USEFUL FICTION

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large stack of books sitting on the shelf. “What’s this? I just checked out Big Nate flips out

by Lincoln Peirce on Friday?” he thought, holding the book. He checked his screen and no-

ticed that it was STILL CHECKED OUT?! “I had better return these!” He went to work re-

turning all the books sitting on his shelf, wondering how come he could not remember any

of these books coming back.

Then standing in front of him, Little Johnny was holding Listen to My Trumpet! By Mo Wil-

lems, wanting to return it. L4U got a little stern with him for taking the book without bor-

rowing it, and poor Little Johnny became quite upset and said, “But you checked it out for

me on Friday, don’t you remember?” In fact, L4U could NOT remember. Then he noticed a

pile of printed sheets with barcodes. Sure enough, there was Little Johnny’s patron barcode

and the barcode for the book he borrowed! L4U sincerely apologized, then went to work,

circulating out the books on the printed sheets, that he most certainly could not remember

checking out to begin with.

With a sigh of relief, he cleaned up the mess that he seemed to have left for himself, and

accepted the bright new future ahead of him. THE END

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING L4U UPGRADE

The Conversion process takes place over an entire week, not just one day.

The information provided at the last TL meeting indicated you would not use L4U to

return materials. I would like to revise that, and suggest that you DO use L4U to

scan books as returned. DO NOT re-shelve these books. We need the Circulation

Management screen to accurately reflect the books that are currently out in order

to re-process those circulation on the upgraded system.

Training sessions are held the Monday after your conversion week (except for the

last week which will be held the following Thursday). If you requires subs, then

you may login to Employee Connect, and complete a leave of absence request

online, indicating your need for a sub. I did not need to set up a PD event for these

training sessions.

You may consider closing your library, if you and your administrator prefer that op-

tion, but it really is not necessary. I would suggest, though, that you consider clos-

ing the library for half a day at the beginning of the following week to allow you

time to process the previous weeks circulation in and outs. By doing this, you will

also have a chance to warm up to the system. Also, I suggest not allowing other

teachers to use L4U until you have orientated yourself and can answer their ques-

tions.

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Remember to click on the images which are

linked to interesting websites!

Click here for a list of New Books and Featured Read-

ing Lists found on Canada’s own online book venue!

Recently Catalogued

NEW ERA

Musk Ox Counts

by Erin Cabatingan and

Matthew Myers

JR REID

How Big is it? : A big book all

about bigness

by Ben Hillman

KING GEORGE

My First Book of Chinese

Words

by Faye-Lynn Wu

RIVERHEIGHTS

Between shades of gray

by Ruta Sepetys

WAVERLY PARK

Fairy Tale Comics

Edited by Chris Duffy

VALLEYVIEW

Zombie Apocalypse

Survival Guide

EASY NON-

FICTION

FOREIGN

GRAPHIC YA

FICTION

NON-

FICTION

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Current and past issues of Big Little Libraries can be found on the Brandon

School Division website, www.bsd.ca, under Programs, Learning Support

Services, Teacher Librarian Newsletters. For further information about this

newsletter, or to provide feedback, contact Rachel Burnett, Divisional

Library Technician at: burnett.rachel@bsdca.

L4U Conversion FAQ’S

1. Do I need to shut down the library during the time the program is being upgraded?

No. You can circulate books as usual. The only stipulation is that you DO NOT re-shelve the

books that are returned. When the new system is in place, you will have to return these

books over again. At the end of your conversion week I will create a list of student and book

barcodes that were Circulated Out. When the new system is in place, you will use these

barcodes to circulate these books out again.

2. Will the circulation, client and item histories survive the conversion?

Yes. All data will be moved from your old system to the new system. The only data affected

are those which used to be locally controlled on your computer (like Preferences, and Re-

ports) that will be centrally controlled from the division office.

3. How do I rename the titles of the Reports I want to keep?

Reports are found when you open up a screen and click the print button. In the Library File

you will see a list of Titles, like “Library Title by Loan Type Code”, etc. IF THERE ARE ANY

TITLES that you CREATED yourself and would like to keep, you must double-click the title to

open the report. On the right-hand side, near the bottom, is a space for the Title. Type in

the two letter code for your school (ie. Kirkcaldy Heights is KH) at the beginning of the title.

Save the report.

4. How do I figure out which students are no longer in the school?

For the most part, they will be students who graduated. Open your client file and sort the

list by Homeroom. Just click the Homeroom column to do this. Highlight all the students in

all the graduating homerooms, then click subset. The number at the top of the screen will

indicate to you if what you have is an accurate number of students in that grade. If not,

compare your list to your current grade 8 list (or grade 12 for the high schools) and delete

all the students who are no longer there. My suggestion, highlight all the grade 8 students.

Hold the control key down and click on each student who IS in your school. Then click Sub-

set and the subsequent list should be the graduated students who you can now delete. Hold

the Shift key and click the Delete button on your screen.