Insights from the Field

Guest Blogger : Melissa Kane

Award Book Promotion

by Melissa Kane, Anamosa High and Middle School

Melissa is the Teacher-Librarian at Anamosa High and Middle School. Her roots in library studies date back to helping create card catalog cards in high school to spending a semester cataloging an early childhood library in Grad School. The best part of her job is connecting kids to books they come back and tell her how much they enjoyed. She also loves to try out new technology and challenge teachers to do the same in their classrooms. She is also the IASL Publications Chair and looks forward to sharing school libraries stories!

As I have clearly let my writing this blog get lost in the craziness of my home life, quarantine, COVID, and virtual learning I decided since I have students back in my library and the vaccine is almost ready for teachers I should write again.

I have spent the first semester of school taking my rotation as a sub in classrooms, creating video lessons, delivering books to classrooms, and doing book talks once a week with small groups of students while only being physically allowed in one of the two buildings I serve. When our school board decided it was time for us to be back full time in person at semester I was so glad when the principal came to ask me about how to fit check out in the actual library for all kids in our next new schedule for the year. So now I get to see 5/6 graders once a week and 7/8 graders every other week. Comment in the form below to share how your time with students changed?

I realized when I was thinking about what to share with them when they come to checkout I had not shared the winners of the Iowa book awards from 2020 yet! I feel like I need a little bit of excitement in my reveal for such an interesting year. I am also trying to rethink my promotion of the books as in the past I inherited a Battle of the Books competition.



Have a great idea you've implemented? Concerned about a current issue in librarianship? Want to share a great library programming or technology implementation idea? Collaborated with teachers or other professionals with great results? Consider being a guest blogger for IASL. Contact the Publications Chair to find out how to get started.