Friday Focus
Friday, March 26, 2021, vol. 8, no.33
Friday Focus is a quick digest of news and notes
for members of The Indianapolis Public Library Shared System.
Vax Facts: Available at Your Library
You can also get to the topic tile map by doing a regular search and, on the far right, clicking Start the Topic Finder. From there, you can select whether you prefer Tiles or a Wheel. Choosing the visual representation of your search lets you narrow your original search results to the documents also containing that subject or term. Just click on a section to display results.
According to Gale, this tool takes the titles, subjects, and approximately the first 100 words from a subset of your top results and feeds them into an algorithm. Keywords shown in the graphics are those found most often in the text with your search term.
There are also some vaccination facts available from the Library catalog! I did this search for you this morning. Note that I wanted you to have the most recent information in print so I kept filtering the results until I got there. The results originally included a documentary on Kanopy, but it was from 2011, and a journal with vaccine in the name, but the last issue was 2012. I left you with just print, ebook and eaudio titles published in 2020. This would be a good way for YOU to share info, too. Go beyond "look it up in the catalog," and look it up yourself, use your skills to tailor the results, and then explain what you did. (Is this called metasearching?)
Jewish Community Library and IndyPL Share Domont Award
Barb Levy, one of the 25 volunteers who donate countless hours to organizing and staffing the Maurer Jewish Community Library (JCL), presented the nomination during the online award ceremony. She noted that the library had been closed since the mid 2000s, and rejoined the Shared System in October 2018. Although it has been closed during the pandemic, Barb noted that IndyPL patrons at 31 library branches and school locations had borrowed materials from their collection. The library’s collection has added 8,000 adult and juvenile books of Jewish content to the IndyPL catalog, 800 of which are in modern Hebrew. The collection also includes Yiddish and Russian language titles.
Marcia Goldstein, who accepted the award on behalf of JCL, called it a local treasure. John Helling, Chief Public Services Officer, accepted the award for IndyPL and said he expects the partnership to continue to grow in the future.
Need we say more? Yes, we need to! Keep it up Meredith Nicholson School 96!
Big Bag o' Books to Two High Schools
That's right, two HIGH SCHOOLS applied to win the Bag o' Books. Since their entries were both service-oriented in different ways, our impartial panel of judges opted to split the bag in half.
Congrats to Tonya Fisher at Lawrence North who wrote: We have a Peer education program here where juniors and seniors mentor elementary students. They are often on the lookout for great books to share with their mentees. Also, we have lots of staff with little ones that visit from time to time and being able to offer them a good book is always wonderful.
And congrats to Jenny Herron at Cathedral High School who wrote: Record video of students and staff reading the books aloud to the camera, as if to a live group. Post videos to CHS Live YouTube channel. Share Playlist with our Irish Blessings Daycare (for our staff). Share Playlist with Enlace Academy (especially Spanish books) to play to students. (Love that reading books in Spanish idea!)
Pretty Good to Help Social Distancing
From Jackie Nytes, IndyPL CEO, who hopes it's not already gone!
The Yorktown Library has an octagon floor display in excellent condition for sale. This unit retails for well over $1300.00, comes with four shelves and is a very pretty blue laminate on top.
Please make an offer if interested or reach out with any questions; pickup will be at the Yorktown Library. Thank you for looking and have a great day and weekend!
https://www.thelibrarystore.com/product/88-11839/slatwall-displays
Laurie Hogue
Assistant Director of Library Services, Yorktown Public Library
(765) 759-9723 www.yorktownlib.org
PressReader is an e-magazine platform that would connect to Axis 360. The vendor wants to make sure the titles they selected for children's and tweens are appropriate. They have subsets of children’s and tweens magazines, as well as animals and pets they would want to verify. Are there others in the other categories? Would the Gaming section have good stuff for teens, but is it all appropriate? There is a lot of world language content in there too.
Magazines will be coded so they can be scoped for your sites. Schools will have the ability to turn them completely off for their sites if they wanted.
Please review the titles that are available in these categories to verify that you would be OK with them appearing in Axis 360. Let us know what you think on the Feedback Form!
EBSCO Discovery Trial:
EBSCO is launching a new version of EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) and have given us trial access to take a look. (See illustration below.) Note that there are a TON of filters. You can narrow by pub date, geographic area, topic or subject, publication name, publisher, etc. Essentially, it's a lot like the current version, only the screen is less cluttered.
Here is access information for the trial for us: http://ezproxy.ilibrary.org/login?url=https://discovery.ebsco.com/c/rcjjqm
For more information on using the new EDS, here is a Quick Start Guide:
https://connect.ebsco.com/s/article/EBSCO-Discovery-Service-Quick-Start-Guide?language=en_US
Let me know what you think of the new EDS interface.
But wait, there's more:
Topic: eResources@IndyPL
Homework Help: What to Use When: Gale databases, World Book, SIRS and CultureGrams
Meeting Recording:
Access Passcode: @1RxiH9c
Leverage Gale Resources to Support Research Projects (30 minute recording)
Your Gale resources are perfect to support virtual student research, especially for those not able to work face to face with teachers. In this session, created for those already familiar with Gale, we will review the content types and tools best suited for research project support as well as best practices for identifying and surfacing a topic.
Early Childhood Educators Can Experience Exceptional Children's Picture Books
The Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award is given to "an exceptional picture book" each year. Five books are nominated by librarians, and voted on by kids (aged 0 to 5) across the state of Indiana . Maybe the littlest ones' votes can be interpreted by how long they paid attention! In the past, we've just had one Shared System school, a high school, participate. (Voting was done by grandchildren.) Since voting is online this year, you may be able to encourage your early childhood colleagues to participate!
The link is kind of long for online voting, so it might be useful to set it up on an iPad or computer station: https://www.in.gov/library/icb/firefly/indiana-early-literacy-firefly-award-remote-voting-for-indiana/
For more information about the award, paper ballots, or recommended activities, visit the State Library Firefly Award site.
The last day to report votes is July 31 so this could carry over to summer programs if there's not time this spring.
Here's the list of Firefly nominees in Bibliocommons.
For those who would like to take advantage of another voice doing the read-aloud, recordings of each book will be available on the IndyPL YouTube page. Exact date they'll appear isn't available - after April 6th. We'll keep you posted!
Thank You, Shortridge, for Offering to Share Classroom Sets!
From Melody Groothuis, school library manager at Shortridge High School: I have some novel sets that we are ready to part with. Let me know if you are interested. Share the list with anyone who might need to see it!
Wall of Fame - 52
The Hobbit - 30
War of the Worlds (Signet) - 52
Into the Wild - 142
The War of the Worlds (Dover) - 43
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - 28
Macbeth - 40
Three Cups of Tea - 18Q & A: Receipts and Room Card Lost Items
A: Yes, they can send email checkout receipts. Update eReceipt Option under Notification Settings in the patron registration screen. (See screenshot below.) Obviously, there must be an email address in the account. :-)
Q: I hope you're doing well! I have a teacher here who was charged for a book that she is sure she returned. I checked our shelves to make sure it wasn't accidentally reshelved here but didn't see it. Is there any way we can waive that charge for her?
A: This is a great time to use the Claims Returned feature. It may still show up. If someone returns a book at your place, there are two sometimes three more times that it would get checked in. First is at your place. Next is at the sorter. If the check in doesn’t register, it gets put in a special bin and they run it through the sorter again, and then when it arrives at its Home location, it gets checked in there.
We should be cautious about waiving Room Card lost books right away because they will occasionally show up. Also, because it's important to reinforce with the teacher that the books should never leave the classroom unless a student checks them out. I've only personally witnessed one instance where I thought a teacher abused the room card, but she had already left the school and we didn't have any recourse. If you're careful about making books instead of waiving fees too quickly, those very few who might be tempted to take advantage of your good nature will have less of an opportunity to do so.
Show Your Love for Libraries: Statewide Campaign Begins April 1
The Indiana Library Federation is working hard on a Love Our Libraries campaign for April. One small way to get your curators, administrators, teachers and families (and you) to show their support is to add a frame to their Facebook profile pictures.
(https://www.facebook.com/profilepicframes/?selected_overlay_id=124745622915635) If you have any trouble with the link, search for this exact phrase We love our school library.
Additional Love Our Libraries graphics and FaceBook frames are available here!
You might also look at the AISLE pages (Association of Indiana School Library Educators) for information just for school libraries. Here's a copy of their elevator pitch:
School Library Month is a time to bring awareness to the essential needs school librarians serve in the community. The Association of Indiana School Library Educators (AISLE) has developed a theme for our Hoosier libraries - School Libraries: Building Strong Connections.
This theme highlights the role libraries play as librarians redefine what school looks like during the pandemic. Indiana school librarians build new and strengthen existing connections this year, such as connections between:
● teachers and new technology.
● students and new formats of books.
● teachers and students and different ways to access resources digitally.
● our spaces and students, even when we couldn’t be together in person.
● our schools and our communities.
● students who may attend class virtually with other peers.
Librarians reach far beyond their physical school walls to build strong connections to assist our students, staff, and communities regardless of limitations or obstacles.
STEM Kits
While the kits aren't requestable, see the list of participating libraries and call to see if they have one available for you to go pick up.
Chairs in the Trees Storyteller
Donna Washington (pictured here in "the before times") is going to share her story – Chairs in the Trees “which tackles the rampant racial issues throughout America through a range of personal narrative stories” – from 4/15-4/21 via YouTube. She is also going to do a panel discussion with Shortridge High School on 4/23.
IndyPL would like to share the video with other high schools that may want to watch while we have it available. The Vimeo link will only work during those dates. Do you have people at your school who might be interested? Let Shael Weidenbach know!
Discover Summer Reading
Discover is the theme of this year's Summer Reading Program. Readers earn points for minutes read and for "discovery activities" that are, for the most part, accessible to all kids. For example:
DISCOVER MUSIC!
Listen to a new type of music or try an instrument. What did you hear or try?
Kristen Williams, library assistant at Lawrence North, is already having conversations with the English Department about how to promote the Summer Reading Program. While high school students might not be excited by most of the prizes (which are geared toward younger kids), they could earn prizes generated by the school. How about a homework pass or plain old extra credit for 2021-22?
Photo credit: Nick Youngson
Children's Book Week is May 3-9
Every Child A Reader description of Children's Book Week
Kids of all ages can participate on their own, with adults, or in groups to complete activities that will help them discover what their superpower is. Activities will be divided into themed categories like STEM, The Arts, and Social Activism. Through these activities, readers of all ages can see what they are drawn to and create a superpower that best expresses their passions and skills.
Materials will include a certificate and badge, some superpower examples from beloved book creators, and themed booklists. Kids who complete activities and decide on their superpower will be added to an interactive map (COPPA compliant).
We cannot wait to see the superpowers of kids across the nation!
All materials will be available in March.
About Us
Email: sharedsystem@indypl.org
Website: www.indypl.org/about/shared
Location: Library Service Center, North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN, United States
Phone: (317) 275-4707