Lesson 12

This week's lesson was all about creating a library webpage or blog. I have been very lucky in this regard. Over a year ago, one of the head librarians in my district offered to teach us about blogs and webpages. So I attended. I started out very very basic, but I have now worked it up into a place that has many uses:

- students use for resources
- we do projects on it
- teachers use it for resources
- I use it for UBC work
- I/teachers use for for computer classes (left over time play on the blog)
- I use for for music class projects
- Students love posting on it
- I've used it for pro-d stuff

Just over a year there have been over 7,000 visits. Impressive for a school with 220 kids and 15 teachers.

I liked how this week's lesson was still able to help me even though I have experience in the area. I posted the links to Prince of Wales and the webpages examples into this blog to keep them for future use. I will be going through those in greater detail over the spring as I am always looking to improve and add to my blog.

As I mentioned in my posting. Bogs/webpages for libraries are not needed. But some would argue that we are not needed either. My job is to make myself so valuable to the staff that they don't want me to leave or have my position cut. I wish more TLs thought this way.

My must have items for having a webpage were purely meant for me and my users, but I feel that they are these listed below:


1) link to the online collection and district resource centre

2) attractive photos that the kids can get a visual and be proud to see their library online

3) Links to basic databases 

4) Links to basic news sources

5) Links to help your staff - online sources for them

6) Fun element - for me that is online games, voting polls etc... stuff that keeps the kids coming back to the site. I don't want them to visit just once and that is it. I want them to save it in their browser and then they can get in the habit at a young age of going there and then by grade 6/7 they start using the databases. 

7) Keep is simple - confusing ones with too many pages on top of pages is too much for elementary kids.. the younger ones need it simple. The grade 6/7s need direct links to the databases as they are lazy/inexperienced searchers. 



With my blog I feel I have achieved this, however, like I said, it is a work in progress. The moment it becomes static that is when people stop using it. I'm always trying to add to it and improve it.


If you would like to view the blog google: Errington Library and it will pop up on the browser. 


What I loved about this lesson is it shows that I am on the right track for doing my job to the best that I can. I am helping my users in all possible ways I can. Giving them this blog and keeping up with IT or in some cases ahead of it makes me look very valuable to the staff at my school.