We hope you are enjoying the new library website. In this post we’d like to highlight a new way to contact us: meebo. The good thing about meebo is that you don’t have to download anything. All you have to do is click on the “Ask a Librarian” link on the library home page and you are there.
If meebo’s not for you we have traditional email.
Then there’s good old fashioned phones numbers. You’ll find this signature on nearly every page on our site.
Another book event School for Children students are involved in is the Mock Printz Award. The goal of this award is to identify literary excellence in young adult literature. The 2010 winner is “Wintergirls,” by Laurie Halse Anderson.
Mock Honor mentions are “Leviathan,” by Scott Westerfeld.
And, “Stone Child” by Dan Pobloocki.
Every year Bank Street School for Children students hold their very own Mock Newbery Award for best new American children’s literature. The winner for 2010 is Rebecca Stead’s “When You Reach Me.”
And the following received honorable mentions, “11 Birthdays” by Wendy Mass.
And, “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon,” by Grace Lin.
The Irma Black Award committee is in full swing. Members have been discussing which sixteen books will make the final cut.
Irma Simonton Black
At the moment the semifinal list stands at twenty, and here they are:
- 14 Cows for America, by Carmen Agra Deedy
- All the World, by Mordicai Gerstein
- Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem, by Mac Barnett
- Bradley McGogg the Very Fine Frog, by Tim Beiser
- Don’t Lick the Dog!, by Wendy Wahman
- The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau, by Dan Yaccorino
- Keep On! The Story of Matthew Henson, Co-discoverer of the North Pole, by Deborah Hopkinson
- The Lion and the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney
- Little Devils, by Robert J. Blake
- Mind Your Manners, Alice Roosevelt! by Leslie Kimmelman
- A Penguin Story, by Antoinette Portis
- Princess Hyacinth (the surprising tale of a girl who floated), by Florence Parry Heide
- Redwoods, by Jason Chin
- Robot Zot! by Jon Scieszka
- Sergio Saves the Game, by Edel Rodriguez
- Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep!, by Maureen Wright
- The Strange Case of the Missing Sheep, by Mircea Catusanu
- Tyrannosaurus Math, by Michelle Markel
- Under the Snow, by Melissa Stewart
- Waiting for Winter, by Sebastian Meschenmoser
Check back soon to see the final list. Please note, you’ll have to wait another six weeks before these books appear in the library, at present School for Children students are reading them!
OK , so it’s late at night and you have an assignment due tomorrow. All you have to do is finish off that jolly reference list. Here are some quick, easy web ways to get that job done. They’re not perfect, and yes, you do have to tweek them, but they do take some of the hard work out of making a reference list. Here’s what to look for, when you’re using WilsonSelectPlus, and ERIC keep your eyes peeled for the “Cite This Item” link.
Cite This Item in ERIC
And, when you’re using EBSCO host products like Academic Search Premiere, Professional Development Collection, Education Research Complete look for the yellow paper icon.
Cite This in Academic Search Premiere
Proquest uses a “Cite this” link, see the screen shot below:
Cite This in Proquest
WorldCat also has a “Cite/Export” link that allows you to copy a citation (works with articles and books). If you’re a facebook user try the CiteMe application from WorldCat (books only).
Cite/Export in WorldCat
Once you have clicked one of the links above a pop-up page appears usually with several types of citation formats to choose from. Remember Bank Street is APA, all you have to do now is copy, paste (and tweek). Finally, if you have a book or article-in-hand, try the old standby Citation Machine, you can find a link on the library homepage. It’s a little clunky but it does get the job done. Other online applications you might want to look at are Bibme (student recommended), and OttoBib.
Something we see a lot of in the library are handmade picture books, nearly always as part of a thesis. They are often inserted without page numbering in the middle of a thesis, and are usually made on MS Word with photocopied images drawn by either the author or children, occasionally photographs are used. But, with the advent of digital cameras things are changing.
Bank Street student Roberta Koeppel made the picture books below as part of her thesis project to help prepare pediatric patients and their caregivers for a Video EEG (electroencephalogram) monitoring procedure. If you want to look at Roberta’s work the call number is T 2005 K89d.
Today, there are a number of options out there for making very professional looking picture books. Some are online websites where you upload images and write to a server – they can be a little slow, but for many people they are a good option because you can work on your book from any computer. Some online sites you might want to explore are:
Other options are to download a book making program to your computer and to work on the desktop. Examples of such programs are:
The good thing about these programs is that they are a little more stable. It’s only when you’ve finished creating your book that you have to deal with uploading to a site to get it printed.
No matter which program you use having a good camera counts – resolution is everything. There’s nothing worse than placing an image on a page and then to get the dreaded yellow triangle (poor resolution icon). One way of overcoming this is by making the image size smaller.
If you are thinking of making a book, but need a little help getting started, the library is planning some small group workshops next semester using blurb.
Have you ever wondered about the many different forms leadership can take within a school? Have you ever pondered how it’s possible for teachers to find the time and resources to teach AND lead? If you have, then come to an Occasional Paper Series panel discussion on “Teacher Leaders: Transforming Schools from the Inside.” Teacher leaders are playing an increasingly important role in shaping American schools. Hear what an expert group of such leaders have to say.
The event will feature an introduction from Eric Nadelstern, chief schools officer of the NYCDOE, and the panel discussion will be moderated by guest editor Gil Schmerler. The panel includes the following teacher-leaders and essayists: Nayantara Mhatre & Jill Stacy, Kami Patrizio, Jessica Endlich Winkler, Jennifer Groves, Kathleen Dickinson Rockwood, Clara E. Lin, Lillian Hernandez & Cristian Solorza, and Robin E. Hummel.
This event takes place in the Bank Street Auditorium, Monday, November 16th, 5:30 – 7:00pm. For those unable to attend in person, the discussion will be streamed live, and online chat will also be available. For more details on Occasional Paper Series events see: http://www.bankstreet.edu/gs/occasionalpapers.html
Sometimes you need some space in time to realize how much work has been done. Archivist Lindsey Wyckoff put this collection of Occasional Papers (1999 – 2009) on display in the library’s lobby. We were amazed at how much had been published, and how colorful the series looks.
Display of Occasional Papers Series Publications 1999 - 2009
This exhibit is in honor of an Occasional Paper Series panel discussion on a recent publication “Classroom life in the Age of Accountability.” This event will be filmed in the CDR, Thursday October 29th from 5:00 – 7:30pm. If you are unable to attend please check this webpage for details on how to view this event in real time, and later as a video podcast – there are also options to engage in live chat as the event unfolds.
If you are looking for another online word processor that can do the same kinds of things as Google docs, have a look at Buzzword from Acrobat.com. It has a nice, clean, crisp interface. It’s in beta form at the moment but it’s free (yay! my favorite word), and there’s also a premium (paid) version. Buzzword’s strength is that it is easy to share, and work on, collaborative documents – and yes, the people you want to share with do have to sign-up for an account. However, once Buzzword is up and running it’s stable and responsive. Give it a whirl and tell us what you think.
Thanks Karen!
This post is from our Children’s Librarian, Lisa von Drasek.
The Exquisite Corpse Adventure is a project of The Center for the Book and The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance.
Have you ever heard of an Exquisite Corpse? It’s not what you might think. An Exquisite Corpse is an old game in which people write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold it over to conceal part of it and pass it on to the next player to do the same. The game ends when someone finishes the story, which is then read aloud.
This “Exquisite Corpse Adventure” works this way: Jon Scieszka, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, has written the first episode, which is “pieced together out of so many parts that it is not possible to describe them all here, so go ahead and just start reading!” He has passed it on to a cast of celebrated writers and illustrators, who must eventually bring the story to an end. Every two weeks, there will be a new episode and a new illustration. The story will conclude a year from now.
Start here: http://www.read.gov/exquisite-corpse/
