The Unquiet Librarian

YA author Kelly Bingham is here in our library as I write!  She is doing poetry writing workshops with our English classes today….what an amazing poet!

Here is my poem from the list writing strategy she showed us today:

“Granny’s Chiffarobe”

Polished gleaming mahogany

Gold patina handles inviting you to open doors to the past
Lingering odor of fluffy golden biscuits mingled with Rose Milk perfume and musty mothballs
Former home to calico cotton dresses and floral aprons
         Your worn Bible and pearl-handled pistol
Bits of quilting cotton left as breadcrumbs to a time now existing only in my memories
The secret door to Narnia I never could find.

Draft 2, posted 12:55

“Granny’s Chiffarobe”

Polished gleaming mahogany

Gold patina handles inviting you to open doors to the past
Lingering odor of fluffy golden biscuits mingled with Rose Milk perfume and musty mothballs
Former home to faded calico cotton dresses and floral aprons
         Your worn Bible and pearl-handled pistol
Ghostly tufts of quilting cotton left as breadcrumbs to a time now existing only in my memories
The secret door to Narnia I never could find.

Draft 3, posted 2:10

“Granny’s Chiffarobe”

Polished gleaming mahogany

Gold patina handles inviting you to open doors to the past
Lingering odor of fluffy golden buttery biscuits mingled with Rose Milk perfume and musty mothballs
Former home to faded calico cotton dresses and floral aprons
         and your two weapons:  a well-worn Bible and a pearl-handled pistol
Ghostly tufts of quilting cotton left as breadcrumbs leading back to a time now existing only in my memories
The secret door to Narnia I never could find.

I stumbled across another fun Twitter tool this evening called PowerTwitter.  If you are using Twitter in Firefox, this add-on allows you and others to see your Flickr photo stream embedded in your profile and a link to your 30 Boxes account.    You will need to set up an account with 30 Boxes for PowerTwitter to work.

Here are the basic steps to install this fun tool:

1.  Go to http://30boxes.com/blog/index.php/2007/04/09/power-twitter-by-30-boxes/. 
2.  Right click on the link for the add-on and save it to your desktop.
3.  Literally drag the installation icon you have downloaded into the middle of your Firefox browser.  Firefox will automatically install it for you.
4.  Restart your Firefox browser.
5.  Once you go to your Twitter account, click on your profile, and your Flickr photostream will pop up!

Who inspires you as a librarian?  I have been blessed to have many librarian mentors along the way as a child and as an adult.

Joy Mabry is someone who has been an inspiration to me for nearly twenty years now—I first met her as a barely twenty-something at our district teacher center, and she has been an unfailing source of support, encouragement, friendship, and wisdom.  She is an educator who has touched countless lives in the Cherokee County School District—she still has students from her days as an elementary school librarian who approach her with words of gratitude and thanks for what she did for them as their school media specialist.   I can only hope that I could have even an ounce of the positive influence on students as Joy Mabry has done and continues to do so even as I write this post.  If Joy were a library book, she would have been showered with every literary accolade and prize that one could win—she is definitely a Pulitzer  of a librarian!

Joy has especially been my “rock” the last few years as I opened my media center, and our patrons at Creekview High owe her a debt of thanks as she was an advocate of our media center (and still continues to be!!!) when our library barely had shelving in place.  I have also had the pleasure of interviewing her for a research project at the University of Georgia in which she shared her history as a reader and writer with me; I am hopeful she will let me eventually make that interview a live podcast you all can enjoy. 

When I think of people who have shaped me as a person and as a librarian, Joy is at the top of the list.  Her spirit, her wit, her boundless energy, her faith, and unwavering enthusiasm always make my day.  I am proud to be an “adopted” granddaughter to her and grateful she doesn’t judge me for my inability to change lamination film (she did this for me throughout 2006-07!).  Thankfully, my other qualities do make up for that flaw.   

I would like to publicly give a shout of thanks to Joy Mabry—friend, mentor, muse, librarian pioneer, maverick, and lifelong learner.

National Poetry Month Celebrations

Originally uploaded by theunquietlibrarian

Here is a cool mosaic I made using fd’s Flickr Toys at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ . I chose the mosaic option and pulled photos relating to National Poetry Month 2008.

I am proud to say one of our photos, The Unquiet Library, is a member of the “Poem In Your Pocket” photo pool!

A few months ago, I blogged about the Georgia Archives Digital Vaults, but have you seen the National Archives Digital Vaults?  Many thanks to Sandi Adams for pointing me to this FABULOUS resource! 

What can you do with the resources in The National Archives Digital Vaults?

• Create a movie
• Create a poster
• Search by tag or keyword
• Collect primary source documents and images for a project

For lesson plans and ideas, go to the Educator and Student Resource Page at http://www.archives.gov/nae/education/.  In addition to great resources for teachers and students, teachers can find wonderful guides and handouts to use with students that explain primary sources and analysis worksheets for an array of primary sources, including written documents, photographs, maps, cartoons, sound recordings, posters, and motion pictures. 

Go to http://www.archives.gov/nae/education/tool-box.html to access these materials!

You may also want to read this great blog post by Glenn at the HistoryTech blog at http://historytech.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/digital-vaults-social-networking-for-primary-sources/.

This is a resource that can make history come alive for students!  We would love to collaborate with you as a teacher and develop a project or research unit that incorporates this treasure trove of primary source documents.   Please let me know if you would like to explore ways to incorporate the digital archives into your instruction!

Thanks to my Library 2.0 Ning, I came across this amazing upcoming conference sponsored by Mississippi State University Libraries:  http://blogs.library.msstate.edu/web2summit/?page_id=13.

This is a conference dedicated to integrating Web 2.0 tools seamlessly into your library program and harnessing the power of Web 2.0 to improve your service to your patrons.  You can go to http://library.msstate.edu/mslibrarysummit/2007summit/index.html to view last year’s conference agenda as well as hear podcasts from last year’s session.

Here is a preview of this year’s conference focus:

Mississippi State University Libraries : Mississippi Library 2.0 Summit

What if we had something like this for Georgia librarians?  What about a Georgia Libraries 2.0 Summit for 2008?  Anyone out there interested in exploring and organizing this venture? 

Buffy Hamilton

While I received an email notice about this nearly a month ago, this afternoon is the first time I’ve taken the opportunity to watch this wonderful sneak preview of the new and improved EBSCOhost 2.0 interface!  Be sure to take some time to view this Flash video that will give you a guided tour of the new EBSCOhost 2.0!

As you know, we are fortunate to have access to many of the high quality EBSCOhost databases through GALILEO, but now these databases will have several new features that make the databases even more searchable while offering patrons more options for personalizing content delivery.  The new look and features make the database look like an information portal in the vein of Pageflakes! 

If you are a librarian, you can visit the awesome EBSCOhost 2.0 Support Center to prepare and familiarize yourself with this very cool new interface!  Be sure to use the tabs at the top of the page to browse the treasure trove of training materials available.  You will an array of helpful resources, including:

• a rollout timeline
• screenshots you can incorporate into training materials
• a PowerPoint highlighting the new features
• Flyers and posters you can customize to promote the new interface to your patrons

In addition to the EBSCOhost 2.0 Support Center, you can go to the EBSCOhost 2.0 Information site to get detailed information on all of the new features.  I think the new changes are definitely going to make these databases more user-friendly and more appealing to our users!   

Finally, visit http://support.ebscohost.com/ebscohost2/training.php to sign up for a free webinar to get your first wave of training!  The new interface should be available to most users in July 2008, so now is the time to start planning ahead for how you will use this database with your patrons in 2008-09.   I am truly excited about this new “facelift” for our EBSCOhost databases!

The Unquiet Library celebrated National Poem In Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 17!  We created “pockets” of poems throughout our media center where our patrons can go and get a poem to read for fun!  We also gave each English teacher a pocket of poems for his or her classroom to help students celebrate this event of sharing poems.

You can come by the library and get poems for your pockets for the rest of the month!  Please stop by the media center and browse our pockets of poems, which are a terrific mix of classic, modern, and student written poems!  Several of our pocket poems were written by Creekview’s finest! 

Happy poem reading!

Do you ever wonder how much you are Twittering?  Would you like to know the times of day you are most likely to Twitter?  Has it occurred to you that you might need to enter a 12 step recovery program for Twittering?  (LOL! ). 

Here is a fun little tool called TweetStats!  It will calculate the following stats:

• Your Tweet Timeline
• Your aggregate daily Tweets
• Your aggregate hourly Tweets
• Direct replies (percentage to whom you give direct replies)
• Percentage of Tweets per Twittering application

You can view my Tweet stats at http://tweetstats.com/graphs/buffyjhamilton. 

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
Rita Dove

Ever since taking Dr. JoBeth Allen’s Poetry course at the University of Georgia in 2003, I have had a passion for reading, sharing, and teaching poetry….no small feat as I hated poetry before taking this life-changing course. 

Inspired by my Podcasting class with Sandi Adams in January of 2008 (one of my Media 21 courses) and the work of Lisa Forrest’s Rooftop Poetry Club at Buffalo State University, I solicited requests for students and teachers to volunteer to read poetry for National Poetry Month @ The Unquiet Library.  Ms. Jane Pickart, teacher for 11th American Literature/Composition Honors, approached me and asked me if I was interested in podcasting a few classes on April 4 as they had been doing some poetry writing.  Of course, I jumped at this wonderful opportunity and offered to podcast every class! 

My original plan was to record each class period’s poetry reading and create a podcast for each class period.  However, I then decided I would experiment with streaming the poetry readings live via UStream TV (many thanks to Twitter friend and fellow librarian Phil Goerner in Colorado for showing me this fantastic tool!).  Excitement about the poetry reading grew this past week as I blogged about our upcoming podcast at http://theunquietlibrary.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/coming-attractions-poetry-reading-with-ms-pickarts-classes-and-the-unquiet-library/, and Ms. Pickart talked up our event with her students.  I also decided I would try to create “vodcasts” as well using one of our new Flip videocameras and upload the videos to TeacherTube!

Today was the big day of our poetry reading podcast!  Ms. Pickart and I began by reviewing the poetry reading protocol for online safety and to create the optimal recording conditions.  Each student had been asked to find a photo of a loved one and to write a paragraph about that person and the photo.  Students then were to create a “found poem” from the lines in the paragraph.  Having written found poems and teaching my students this method of poetry writing in the past, I felt sure we would hear some very special poems.

The students did not disappoint me!  I can honestly say that today was one of the most memorable experiences of my sixteen year career as an educator.  Within a few minutes into our first class period, I felt something special happening as each student came forward to share his/her poem.    Some poems were clever and witty; many were incredibly poignant.  All poems came from the hearts and souls of these eleventh grade students who wrote memorable lines and composed images that I think will stay with many of us beyond our years at CRHS.  Whether writing about a beloved grandparent, a sibling, a parent, aunt, or uncle, these students had something important to say.  I truly felt honored to be able to hear these poems that reflected the cherished memories and experiences with those so important to these students—I felt as though I was able to peek into a glimpse of their souls today.

We enjoyed many wonderful and moving poems today, but the collection of poems from the 5th period class was the one that moved nearly all us to tears.   Perhaps these poems spoke to me because they hit close to my heart—poems about various kinds of loss, of brave souls, of amazing grandparents—it seemed our eyes and souls felt a bit mistier with each reading of a poem.  Perhaps the most moving moment came when a young lady who just lost her mother in the last week bravely came forward to read her poem about her late mother.  How she summoned the strength to read her beautiful poem in front of the class I will never know, but we all admired her courage and grace as well as the gentle dignity of her poem that began with those famous lines from the classic Robert Munsch book, Love You Forever, and ended with her own unique and deeply personal twist on those lines, “I’ll love you forever…”.  Should you choose to listen to these podcasts, particulary the ones from 5th period (and I hope you will…the one I just referenced occurs during the last 3 minutes of the 5th period podcast!), be sure to get your Kleenexes ready!  I was also honored not only to be an observer of this poetry reading, but I was also even asked by the students in 5th period to share a favorite poem of mine, so I read “Orange”, I poem I composed in 2003 about a racist incident that happened to a fellow student and friend at UGA. 

I have only cried in front of a class once in my life—it was at the end of the 2003-2004 year while reading a poem to one of my 9th grade classes as a farewell gift the last week of school.  Today, though, the tears flowed freely and unabashedly as they did at a poetry reading I participated in while taking Dr. Allen’s class.  That same feeling of communion and catharsis I experienced at the Athens coffee house poetry reading washed over me today as I was lucky to enough to hear these poems.  Poems are truly meant to be read aloud and not just read silently—the power of the distilled emotion in poetry never ceases to awe me.

Ms. Pickart share with me privately as well as publicly to her classes that today was one of the most remarkable and memorable experiences of her 30 year career.  While she stated she had done this poetry writing assignment before, she had not scheduled a poetry reading in the format we did today.  I am still so overcome with emotions tonight that I can’t really articulate the “specialness” of what I experienced today, but I am so truly grateful that I did. 

This afternoon, Ms. Pickart and I were discussing the incredible turn of events today.   She commented that my presence as a podcaster and the whole podcasting element may have elevated the students’ performance and encouraged them to write something so deeply personal and meaningful.  Indeed, the students had a larger audience to write for and an authentic purpose for writing. 

Thankfully, I only encountered two technical issues.  First, I discovered my digital video camera would not interface properly with the UStream TV software, so I am hoping to get a webcam that should do the trick.  Secondly, the batteries decided to die twice on the Flip video camera; as a result, I lost the chance to video a few students.   The most challenging part was to remember to do all my technical tasks for recording the podcasts and videos—sometimes it was hard to remember to hit “record” and “pause” because I was so caught up in the moment of the poetry reading!

Where do we go from here?  Well, here are some musings and plans:

• Ms. Pickart and I both agree that poetry readings like these should be a more regular part of high school life!  When I started our poetry club (The Live Poet Society) this year, I had intended to do poetry readings in the library once a month in the spirit of the Rooftop Poetry Club.  I have been trying to get donations of free and short church pews that we could store easily and bring out into the main floor of the library (they had these at the coffeehouse poetry reading in Athens, and they were very cool), so if anyone has ideas of free donations, please contact me—I have been trying to find some via Ebay and craigslist Atlanta, but no luck yet. 
• With student permission, we are going to scan in and digitize the poems students turned into today.  I want to create a gallery/page on our website for each class period.
• We will create a living wall of poetry in the media center with these poems as well as some larger posters of the poems for everyone to enjoy.
• I am going to make “poetry books” for each class (a collection of poems by class period)—we will give a set to go in Ms. Pickart’s room, and we will have a set for students to read in the library.  I will enlist the assistance of master librarian Joy Mabry who directs our district Teacher Center to help me with this endeavor.
• We are encouraging students to share these poems with loved ones—can you think of a better gift?  We are offering our services in the library of free color printing and help with importing a digital copy into Publisher or some similar software to create that special copy for a loved one.
• We have asked students to share these poems with their loved ones on April 17 as part of our celebration of “Poem in Your Pocket Day“! 
• We will be having “pockets” of poems set up our library on April 17, “Poem in Your Pocket Day”, in which students can come choose a poem from a range of themes to take for free and give to someone they love or to a classmate as a random act of kindness.
• I will be working with the video next week during our Spring Break to get our vodcast up and going on Teacher Tube…check back for the update links!
• I would eventually love to have a “channel” on You Tube (or perhaps an educator friendly version of You Tube…something more appealing to kids than Teacher Tube) like the Buffalo State Rooftop Poetry Club You Tube Channel—take a look….how is this for inspiration?
• While I am still waiting for our podcasts to come up on iTunes and Odeo, I managed to get most of the initial mp3 files created today.  Please check back for our updated iTunes link, but for now, check out the audio files:
  >1st period readings
  >3rd and 5th period readings
  >7th period readings

It goes without saying that no standardized test could come close to measuring the talent, creativity, and passion these students demonstrated today through their poetry.  Perhaps “no child would be left behind” if more poetry readings were part of our daily classroom life instead of some ridiculous EOCT question!  I will definitely be creating podcasts of poetry readings with my 10th and 11th grade night school students later this month.   Podcasting poetry readings will now be a regular and new element of my poetry immersion unit I do with 9th and 10th graders (thanks to Dr. Allen….she inspired me to develop this organic unit while I was her student). 

Today truly exceeded my expectations—it was one of those magical experiences with words that I wish everyone could feel at least once in a lifetime.   I feel that being able to capture those readings with podcasting is a way that we can all relive on some level that communion of human experience today and our witnessing of the power of words!