Switching Gears - Physical collection to Virtual!

Just because the school building is closed, that doesn't mean the library is closed! We're open 24/7/365 really.

Some tasks that I've been working on:

1. Switch Destiny view to Discover and focus on the electronic collection.
2. Update the website to focus on electronic resources.
3. Promote Online Safety on the library website, Canvas, and Learn at Home site.
4. Up my Social Media Game! Trying to post to Twitter and Facebook at least a few times per week (primary focus is for students, but hoping parents and staff will follow as well).
5. Evaluate our database holdings. Consider increasing eBoook collection. Commit to promote those resources to staff and students.
6. To avoid email burnout-I've tried to limit emails to staff of 1-2/week. I've created a New Resources page for them on the library website that I refer to each week.
7. Secured a School Google Voice number (and advertise it) so students can call/text for help. 
8. Start creating video demonstrations for staff (asynchronous learning)!
9. Explore SORA and Public Library Connect.

More to follow....thanks for hearing my random thoughts!

Be well. Stay home. Stay safe.

Genrefying Fiction, Part 3.0

Our next step...the ginormous Realistic Fiction section. We've left this section white and it holds everything that is NOT Historical, Fantasy, Science, Horror, Sports, or Graphic Novel. Shelf-wise, it's about 138 of our 373 shelves (roughly 37% of the fiction section). When helping classes, I've heard requests for "action packed", "murder", "criminal", "who-done-it", and so on. Time to pull another section out!

Plan to repeat the steps from earlier pull-outs. Here's what we're doing:

1. Pick a color for the label protector. We decided Aqua for Action & Adventure and Tan for Mystery. Order has been placed!
2. Search Destiny catalog for anything with mystery, thriller, murder, detective, criminal, crime; action, adventure, survival, etc. keywords. I've struggled with this as there seems to be no way to exclude items sitting in another sublocation. I've tried searching sublocation=undefined, but that doesn't seem to block them all out.
3. I added these search results to a Resource List.
4. Pull these books on to carts, my initial estimates are about 300 books in each genre.
5. Look carefully at titles and descriptions to make sure this is the best genre. Then add label protectors, change sublocation and category in Destiny. We did this in bulk, pulled books onto a cart, added the colored label protector, then scanned books through Update Copies to add the category and sublocation.
6. Signage and promotion!
7. Continually check circulating books for these categories....that's a daily basis.

Challenges about this project: Cross genre. It never fails, the first book I look at is a Fantasy/Mystery/Adventure book. Ugh. When this happens, I ask the students that have read it where they would want it.

Of course, now that the heavy lifting is finished, no one can browse the shelves! Ready for fall and time to switch to virtual reading!