Other Blogs

I used Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com/) to search for other blogs that related to my topic of interest. I looked at a few of the results and linked from one of them to Abby (the) Librarian, which seemed to be a very appropriate and relevant one. It is the blog of a new children's librarian in a suburb of Chicago. She posts ideas and activities, "day[s] in the life," and book reviews. Here is a great idea that she used in her library to engage young children in summer reading activities.

We're also trying out a couple of non-prize incentives, one of which is our gong. Yes, that's right. We have a gong. Actually, we have two gongs, both brought in by staff members. Whenever a kid completes the Summer Reading Club, they get the chance to hit the gong. We brought it with us on our visits to the schools and preschools and the kids seemed pretty wowed by it. They can hit it one time, as loud or as soft as they would like, and that way the whole library (and possibly the whole town depending on how hard they hit it...) will know what an awesome job they did finishing the Summer Reading Club. Nobody's finished quite yet, so I can't tell you for sure that it's awesome, but I'm betting it will be. I'll report back later in the summer when, hopefully, the library will be ringing with GONNNGGG after GONNNGGG.

It looks like Abby provides some great ideas for working with children in a library. I look forward to reading more of her experiences and thoughts in the future.