GIFSL* 64: Cheap Bookmark Week (Friday)

This is one of my favourite ideas.  It taps into libraries as places with facts and information: facts and information can can be fun and light as well as heavy.  It offers the opportunity for some fun interaction when you hand over the book and bookmark.  It recycles something you can find in op shops on a reasonably regular basis.

See that price tag?  $4.  The most I've paid for a box of Trivial Pursuit is $6.  And what's inside?

No, they're not question cards, they're bookmarks!  Lots and lots of them!  No guillotine work today, just some fun to be had.

It's probably a slightly pricier idea than some of the other ones from this week, but here's a comparison.  A commercial library supplier I checked had quite a few bookmarks which came in bundles of 200 bookmarks for $40.  In this box of Trivial Pursuit I got 200 bookmarks for $4.  A tenth of the price.  Still cheap as chips, and fun! (This idea is part of my presentation about Re-Imagining your School Library: I've presented it in Newcastle and south-western Sydney in the last month, so I know there are TLs in those areas scouring their op shops and garage sales for Trivial Pursuit!)

Links in again with a theme of the library being a place where you find facts and information (and fun, the unexpected, a happy moment) - oh, there are lots of ways you could tie this in to a wider promotional theme.

Hope you've enjoyed the Cheap Bookmark Week ideas on the blog this week - do comment, your feedback is always appreciated.

Cheers

Ruth

*GIFSL = good ideas for school libraries, an ongoing series on this blog.

GIFSL* 63: Cheap Bookmark Week (Thursday)

Kids have an ongoing fascination with name definitions - hardly surprising, as they are, as in the subliminal story of Possum Magic and a gazillion other books, discovering and refining who they are in the world.  I myself as a teacher librarian have had enormous fun solemnly assuring Kid A that the name of their best friend/ boyfriend/girlfriend could well mean "Viking vomit", but if they looked up this wonderful book it might be able to reassure them..... Oh miss, it DOESN'T mean that!

Parents have an enthusiasm (or used to, maybe most use the internet baby name sites now?) for baby name books, which become ripe for the culling when their baby-naming days are over.  Which is why you don't have to hunt extra extra hard to find a baby name book in an op shop/charity shop/garage sale.

This one cost me a whole $3.  571 pages.  Two bookmarks per page for most of it, four for others.

 That's over 500 bookmarks for peanuts (571 pages is of course half that number of actual paper pages) with a bit of guillotining.

Find New Characters At Your Library

There's a theme to which this could be tied, easy-peasy.  Book promotion ideas based around characters.  Have you met Severus Snape?  What about Harry Crewe?  and on and on with book characters as a way into encouraging students to try reading something new.

I know some teacher librarians prefer to laminate bookmarks - yes, it's more durable, lets you have two different sides stuck together and so forth.  I mostly don't laminate our bookmarks, for several reasons.  One is cost - we hand out hundreds of bookmarks in any given week, and laminating each would add significant cost; I'd rather be able to hand out as many as possible without worrying about how much they're costing, as I'm on a tight budget.  What I save on laminating can buy more books/resources.  Another is time - running the laminator, guillotining/trimming the results etc. all takes time.  A third is value - kids are kids are kids, and even if we give them a precious lovely laminated bookmark, I'm not so sure that most of them would treasure it as they ought.  Better a shorter-lifespan item that I don't have to stress about and they don't either (much easier to get a new bookmark with a new loan than have a 'dragon in pearls' interrogate them about the lovely bookmark they got last time, where is it, they should have brought it, well OK here's another but you take care of it this time, etc etc).  As I said in my first post, these are bookmarks I can hand out like confetti with a cheery smile on my face, and ones that can bring a smile to a kid's face because they're amusing/quirky/unexpected/fun.

I did have a couple of girls who were enquiring about when our next 'new' bookmarks would be out - and nobody was more surprised than me to find that they had a complete collection of the themed cardboard bookmarks I devise - Valentine's Day, Harmony Day, ANZAC Day, thrillers, holiday borrowing, winter reading etc.... It was heartwarming to know they liked them that much.  But for most of our kids, a bookmark isn't valued/collected like that.  But they do use them and appreciate the gesture/convenience/courtesy/kindness/fun of them, and that's the most important thing. 

These bookmarks aren't just on a stand on the counter, we put one with every loan - wand the loan, stamp the due date, dezap the security tag and add a bookmark, that's our loan routine, whichever of us is doing it.  It's an active gesture.  Here you are.  Enjoy.  Here's a bookmark to help you (and amuse/interest you too - I've never had one that just has the name of the library on it and no more.  It's too valuable real estate not to make it work harder and smarter).  These bookmarks are part of our library's PR.

Tune in tomorrow for one of my favourite cheap bookmark ideas (if you know about it, you'll be able to jump the gun on your colleagues who don't....)

Cheers

Ruth

GIFSL* 62: Cheap Bookmarks Week (Wednesday)

From an op shop/charity shop/garage sale, find the right sort of dictionary, with pages of reasonably thick paper, and a size of book/column width that lends itself to bookmarks:

...like this one, and you have hundreds of bookmarks for a few dollars.  Just some slicing with the guillotine.  (Or do you have a suitable dictionary that is overdue for being culled?)

Libraries Define Your World:
there's a theme you could tie in with it.  I think definitions have a lot of scope for use for display purposes in libraries.  A department store book section featured this, in big print, high on the wall:

And they used definitions on their lampshades:

There's an idea worth adapting/borrowing: how could you use definition decor in your library?  Think of the rich (and amusing) words you could define.  Not just Book, or Reading.  Student.  Work.  Study.  Learn.  Adventure.  Discover.... lots of potential there, isn't there?

Cheers

Ruth

*GIFSL = good ideas for school libraries, an ongoing series on this blog.

GIFSL* 61: Cheap Bookmarks Week (Tuesday)

Before you cry, "VANDAL!" let me point out that this hardback copy of Harry Potter fell to bits after being loved to death by our library borrowers.  Pages falling out all over, irreparable.  But not useless.  Oh dear me no.  Because every left hand page of the book has the header, "Harry Potter".  The pages are a reasonable weight of paper.  And the knowledge of Harry Potter among children is extensive.  And J.K. Rowling created with these books a world and vocabulary that is highly recognisable.  Character names, spell words, place names and more.

So if you take a page with Harry Potter as its header, and slice down either side to a bookmarky sort of size, you'll get, pretty much every time, some bit of recognisable vocab on the page (as well as the Harry Potter cue at the top).  Lupin.  Hogwarts.  butterbeer.  Expelliarmus.  And you will also get a bookmark that kids like and which hasn't cost you a bean.

And there are lots and lots of pages in Harry Potter books, so you have lots and lots of bookmarks which you can share generously and without a qualm.  It's recycling and it's useful and fun.

Tune in tomorrow for another cheap bookmark idea!

Cheers

Ruth

*GIFSL = good ideas for school libraries, an ongoing series on this blog.

GIFSL* 60: Cheap Bookmarks Week (Monday)

We hand out a bookmark with every student loan at our library, for all sorts of reasons.  Because kids like to know what page they're on.  To make it easy for students to know what page they're on without bending book corners (to make it easy for them to do the right thing).  As a freebie.  As a promotional item promoting the library and our current theme.  Because we can.

If you follow the tag for bookmarks on this blog, you'll find a bunch of the ones we've made using Publisher and coloured cardboard (click here or over on the tag cloud on the right on the word 'bookmarks').

With a limited budget (but a confetti-style approach to bookmarks) I'm always on the lookout for inexpensive and clever ways to create fun bookmarks.  By and large, I don't go for laminated-precious, but ones we can hand out with generosity and enthusiasm: so they need to be inexpensive.

One thing we're about in the library is facts and information.  So, get yourself one of these:

...which isn't a tricky find in an op shop/garage sale for a couple of dollars.  Study the pages:

and realise that the column widths line up on either side of the page (in this edition: check if you have a different year's edition).  A bit of guillotine work slicing along the space between the columns and you have hundreds of bookmarks for less than five dollars.  Bargain!  Fun facts and information which the kids enjoy (and which can be tied into a wider library promotional theme if you wish).  The columns lining up means you can read front and back, and if a pic gets sliced, oh well - read the current entry in the current copy of the Guinness Book of Records, waiting for you at your school library!

Here's another facty-book find with equally good potential:

That one cost me a whole four dollars at an op shop.  Thick and full of bookmark potential, hundreds more for very little money.


Tune in tomorrow for another cheap bookmark idea. 

Cheers

Ruth

*GIFSL = Good Ideas For School Libraries

ANZAC Day display, 2011

Our ANZAC Day display for 2011.

Flags acquired around Australia Day, when they're plentiful and inexpensive.  Bunting is four sheets of coloured cardboard, cut into pennants and stapled to string.  Photos using Hipstamatic (Kodot Grizzled/John S.)

On top of the bookcase is this picture of ANZAC Cove:

and two great quotes related to the day, the ode and Ataturk on how our sons are now theirs too.

The bookmarks we use feature these two quotes - I designed the bookmarks a few years ago (using Microsoft Publisher, they are printed eight to the page on brown/green cardboard) and they work nicely each year.  It's good to put both those pieces of writing in the hands of our students each ANZAC Day.

The school, of course, has ANZAC Day remembrance assemblies for the students and staff.  The library's display is in support of this.  It's good policy and practice to work in with school/national events like this; sometimes libraries can be perceived as being islands/apart/disconnected.  Better to be at the heart of things.



Lest we forget.

Ruth



Save your Delicious bookmarks before they vanish!

We interrupt holiday silence for a brief announcement...

Assorted news reports and tweets and so forth indicate that Yahoo is planning to sell Delicious, and mentioned is the ominous word 'sunset'.  Hmmm.  I've been a happy user of Delicious and certainly don't want to lose my bookmarks.  I also want to keep using an online bookmarking site for its convenience - my bookmarks available from any computer.  Social bookmarking is a handy beast.

I exported my Delicious bookmarks to a saved file on my computer, so I have them as they stand (login to your Delicious account, and exporting is an option in the Tools menu).  Next, I was going to import them into Google Bookmarks (there are literally dozens of possibilities, as I found reading said articles/tweets) but hey, the Google instructions assumed you have or can install the Google toolbar and Firefox.  I'm on a DET laptop right now, and can't do either.  So instead I toddled over to Diigo and it was easy as pie to set up an account and import that saved file.

So now if you look over on the right you'll see a list of my latest Diigo bookmarks.  I'm not alone; millions of Delicious bookmarks are apparently being exported/imported elsewhere as we speak.  It's not a bad idea, anyway, to export one's bookmark file and save it to a computer from time to time, just in case...

Cheers

Ruth

PS. Another section of my presentation on Personal Learning Networks that I'll have to revise...

Bookmarks: Valentine's Day and Olympics

Valentine's Day bookmarks: We also photocopied this bookmark design onto pale pink cardboard, but they were all shy of the camera...  One set of words, but a different font for each of the eight per sheet on one side, with a piece of prose I wrote last year; and the cheerful 'your library' ditty on the back of each one.

One side of the Olympics bookmarks features a quote from Pierre de Coubertin.

The other side features the Olympic motto, in Latin and in English, because I dunno about you, but even if I could guess Fortius as being about strength, I'm not confident that I'd have guessed Citius as faster...

The little box with the library credit burgles a slogan/vision statement a teacher librarian pal uses all the time at her school.

Learn...to do your best.

She didn't mind my borrowing it.  I adapted it to be the library-promo piece.

You'll notice that, for these, the design is the same on each bookmark and I've done the variety thing with relevant colours of cardboard.  Easy.

We hand out a bookmark to each borrower when they borrow.  I've blogged about them before, why as well as other designs I've created (check out the 'bookmarks' tag from the tag cloud over on the right).  The short version is less about Keeping Books Noice and more about a moment of helpful generosity to each borrower, something useful; and a piece of informative advertising to remind them of this library each time they use it.

A year or more after we started doing the bookmark thing, the borrowers expect it; a few sweet crazy kids collect an example of each new design... and they haven't cost us a bomb in either software or cardboard.  Every school has a program like Microsoft Publisher.  Every school has coloured cardboard... it's not hard to design your own...

The Olympic bookmarks are generic you may notice; nothing about the specific/current games, which means I can use them again.  Same thing applies to other themes; many can be annually revisited, rather than designing new each time.  Sure, I'll probably tweak, but it's also good when your're busy-AS to fish out last year's bookmark design for this theme and just print up bookmarks.

I've seen some beautiful bookmarks in other libraries, colour printed and so forth; because we hand these out with every loan, we go through rather a lot, which is why most of ours are like the ones above, theme-related and photocopied onto coloured cardboard.  Inexpensive, but not ineffective.

Cheers

Ruth

A thought for Friday on: Mistakes...

How many students do you know who HATE making mistakes?  And will choose inertia in preference to risk?*

I like this one.  Might adapt it to bookmarks/posters...



Found here, from here (pic)/ here (blog).

Cheers, Ruth

PS Dare I ask if you know teachers and teacher librarians who are like this too?  I do.  Sometimes it's me.

GIFSL*: 32. Thrillers (sizzle marketing)

One of the great challenges of a library, as opposed to a bookshop, is that you generally only have a single copy of a book to 'sell'.  So you do a GREAT job on persuading a student that Book X is worth reading, and the student borrows it... and you have to start again with Book Y for the next student.
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So when promoting books, 'sizzle' becomes important.  An approach that can be adapted to a wider range of authors or titles, so when Book X is borrowed, there are other options around.
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I've been experimenting with 'sizzle marketing' this year.  One of the recent experiments was Thrillers.  Narrowly defined, Thrillers could just mean Ludlumish books.  I went hunting for definitions of thrillers, and burgled out the bits I liked, deciding that Thrillers were books with thrills/excitement/adventure, and by gosh and by golly,what school library doesn't have books falling within these generous parameters?
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Using a thrilling colour scheme of yellow and red, (easily found in standard school cardboard) we had a header on our foyer bookcase:
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...and extracts from the quotes I found on the noticeboard behind the borrowing desk:
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And bookmarks based on these quotes, using yellow and red cardboard.  I also had a plan for a banner, but time and other commitments defeated that plan, this time round.
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There wasn't an especial spike in lending, but the purpose of this isn't the spike anyway.  We had something else on the noticeboard/bookcase/bookmarks before this, and something else after, and the regular changing of the guard on these is a signal that our library is a place where things are evolving, not static, where there's something new to see, something new to find or discover.  Subliminal sizzle, as well as more overt marketing.
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What do you need?
The yellow and red cardboard are standard school colours, nothing special.  Some of the more unusual fonts came from Scrapvillage.  The quotes (formatting is my own) from assorted googling.  Bookmarks were my usual 2x4 grid using Microsoft Publisher.  If you're on the nswtl email list, I sent a copy of the file for the bookmarks and the file for the posters (with my school name removed) to the list a week or two ago.  The bookcase header letters are laminated, and behind them you'll find nothing fancier than a metal bookend.
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Cheers, Ruth
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What are your ideas for marketing the sizzle?  Do leave a comment!
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*GIFSL = Good ideas for school libraries
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The happy life of teacher librarians

They had asked me to get in the Warriors series, with cat heroes.  Two Year 7 girls, bright eyed and bushy tailed as is part of the fun of Year 7 kids.  Sure, I'd said, and bought the six in the first series (noting that I hadn't, by any means, exhausted what they might ask me to buy, if I had the budget for it...).  They were delighted when the books were ready for them, but worried about being able to read them all before anyone else borrowed them.  What, I said, if one of you borrows 1/3/5 and the other borrows 2/4/6, and then you can swap them and renew them till you're both all through?  Yes! they said, gleefully happy.
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They came in today to do a renew/swap.  As is my habit, after stamping the book I reached for a bookmark from the pot on the borrowing desk.  As I've blogged about before, we always have bookmarks, and add one to each loan - usually made with Microsoft Publisher, printed on coloured cardboard, reflecting a variety of themes/seasons (holiday borrowing, ANZAC Day, Halloween - whatever we're using to promote reading at the time).  It's 'bookmark diplomacy', a small helpful gesture that represents our library philosophy, the help we offer freely.

"Oh no, Miss, I don't want a bookmark."
"Oh," I said, a tad disappointed.
"Because I already have one," she said.
"We've just put new ones out.."
"We know, Miss.  We came in this morning and got one of each of them."
"Really?"
"Oh yes, we love them, Miss.  We collect them.  We have one of EVERY one from the whole year so far, you know."
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I didn't.  But wasn't that a lovely moment in the happy life of teacher librarians?
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Cheers, Ruth
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Good ideas for school libraries: 20. Holiday Borrowing part 2

As promised, the rest of our holiday borrowing spin'n'marketing plans....

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Double Borrowing Passes

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Some of the most voracious readers pointed out to me, quite reasonably, that our normal limit of four items per borrower just wasn't a fair or happy thing, when faced with all that a voracious reader would need to stay happily reading.  OK, I said, what can we do?  Let us borrow MORE! they said.  OK, I said, good idea.  What about a double borrowing pass?  YES! they said.  So I got typing with Microsoft Publisher, and our Library Colour Paper (the duplicating room doesn't have this teal):

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And of course one should give credit where credit is due; and and my dear papa always says there are TWO sides to a piece of paper (given the propensity of children to only notice one, and thus run through paper at a rate of knots), so here's the back:

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Much better to use it this way than leave it blank - who knows who'll read it, and what good it might achieve for the library, quite apart from bringing a happy smile to the kids thus acknowledged.

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How does this work?  My basic rule has been, you can have one as long as you haven't got any overdue books.  Juniors with a pass can borrow up to 8 items, seniors with a pass, up to 16; but it's been mostly the juniors who've wanted them.  When I announced this initiative on the whole school assembly, there was an audible buzz of enthusiasm, which was lovely to hear.  The passes are mentioned on the staff "I'm reading" badges, and on the quizzes, and we have a sign at the desk reminding students that they are available.

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We didn't do any resetting on the borrowing system; if a kid produces one of these passes, we just override the usual limit.  This way, there's nothing to re-reset after the holidays.  If they end up with a couple more than eight, well, it's probably not going to be a problem.  We'll just do the usual overdues and worry about the rest if it needs worrying about.  Our focus is on facilitating borrowing and encouraging enthusiasm for borrowing.  One result has been kids happily borrowing whole series (eg Marsden's Tomorrow When the War Began), because they can, and they can then read the lot in one go.

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Worth doing again?  Oh yes.  Cost nothing beyond the paper, and ties in with other marketing passes/coupons/cards the kids are familiar with - a freebie, a short-term opportunity, a bargain...

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Bookmarks

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If you've read this blog before, you know we do bookmarks - always have them on the borrowing desk, a varying assortment depending on the season, what we're promoting and so forth.  So holiday borrowing bookmarks are a given.

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These are the same green (the light fell differently), the same lime used for the teacher badges etc, our 'colour' for this holiday borrowing promotion; the fancy font is the one I've used for this too, along with our standard library font.  The bookmarks serve as an extra reminder of when books are due back (from the point of view of look how LONG you have rather than BRING THEM BACK YOU LOT, which is a kinda anti-marketing tone) as well as featuring really really bad slogans and being a helpful little freebie. 

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I made up the bookmarks in Microsoft Publisher, as I usually do (using ordinary Publisher clip art).  The images below are the generalised version I sent to the NSWTL list; our school ones feature our school name.

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For those in the northern hemisphere who might be a tad puzzled, Easter is autumn (fall) here, not spring.

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The Lucky Draw for Borrowers

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This is an idea I've borrowed from a colleague (who knows who she is); only I'm meaner than she is... This has been running during the two weeks of holiday borrowing.

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A student gets one entry form per loan, that goes into the draw.  The prizes are EITHER Easter Eggs, or A Toothbrush!

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No, the students don't get to specify their choice of prize... Toothbrushes are from a two dollar shop, cost $1 each; Easter eggs from Aldi, $1.67 per bag.

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Here are the slips, another Microsoft Publisher piece (figured I'd make them small, for economy; it asks what they borrowed, although I'm not sure if I want to read this many...

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The draw will take place on the whole school assembly tomorrow...in two stages.  Stage 1: twenty winners drawn from the above.  Stage 2: twenty winners come out the front and draw to see if they win Easter eggs or a toothbrush.  Should be fun! - and amusing, and happy associations for the library.  Or so I hope.

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If you have a devious mind, you might be wondering if devious minds among the kids have worked out that they could get a double borrowing pass and borrow up a storm to get lots of entries in the draw.  Not a problem.  Any really blatant borrowing not appearing to involve any sort of reading, I would have a moment about, but it hasn't happened (or it's been subtle enough not to come to my attention).  Also, it's only one prize per person (I decided - heck, I get to make up the rules as I go along, as necessary!).  And, if you're showing the school how much the library is being used and loved, what's not to like about increased borrowing figures?

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I'll sum up the holiday borrowing for this term in another blog entry.  Have you tried any of our ideas?  How has it gone for you?

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Good ideas for school libraries: 5. Bookmarks

Bookmarks.  Useful, of course, but also An Opportunity.  Happy users, happy not-turned corners on books, another moment to make life easier and give something for nothing.  We aim to put one with each loan, and they are rarely refused.  Good library PR, of course, and a small task that can be tucked into corners of the day/week to keep the supply going.

Here you can see two of our bookmark styles.  The yellow ones are the ones we make ourselves using quotes/ideas/themes through the year.  This is our start of year Neil Gaiman quote (as blogged here).  The other ones make use of damaged books - see how useful a Tintin book with missing pages can be?  The cost, either way, isn't great (and with the damaged books, we're recycling). 

The bookmark pot on the borrowing desk doesn't have the same thing in it week in week out, but offers choice and variety, and the kids look to see what's there.  Another small, constantly changing aspect of the library, keeping things fresh, keeping things new.

What you need: for the cardboard bookmarks, cardboard, a program such as Microsoft Publisher, a photocopier, a guillotine.  I set up a 2x4 grid table in Publisher, centre a box inside one, compose the bookmark front within this, group all items (if I have multiples such as a graphic, plus text box, plus...) then paste this grouped element in the other grids.  As my dear papa says, there are two sides to a piece of paper, so the back of the bookmarks is used too - another 2x4 grid.  If there's a website relevant to the front of the bookmark, or further info, it goes on the back - along with, always, the name of our school library.

What you need for the Tintin bookmarks: a damaged book that you'd otherwise be writing off, with suitable content for making into bookmarks interesting to kids (oh yes, we have more ideas - I'll bung 'em here over time! - not giving everything away ALL at once!).  You can see how the cartoon boxes of Tintin work rather nicely...Trim to a rectangle and put several at once through the laminator using an A4 sleeve; guillotine/trim.

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Bookmarks - original student work

Some of our library regulars spend lunchtimes drawing in manga and other genres, so I've started with them in working on having some original bookmarks. I've scanned the originals (at 600dpi to preserve detail) and printed them in colour. We'll back them with coloured paper (noting they're part of our Original Art bookmark series) and laminate them, then have them as a freebie at the borrowing desk. Here are four of the first ones in the series. I insisted that the students sign their original work (in whatever form they choose for their 'artist's signature'), to own and be proud of their creations.

Manga bookmarks

Manga's incredibly popular with some kids right now - reading, drawing, engaging with this world and style through the internet. I've asked some of those who spend happy time drawing in the library to make me some bookmarks in their own unique mangaesque (is that a word?) style, and they've eagerly agreed. Colour, please, I said - I'm happy to scan and print them in colour - and make sure you sign/autograph your original work.

I'm looking forward to seeing the results. We keep a supply of free bookmarks at the borrowing desk - there are other ways (I'll blog about later) to have an interesting selection at minimal cost.