Thing 35: Web Presence (including LibGuides)

I explored "Thing 35: Web Presence" not because I don't have a web presence, but because I thought my website needed a little boost. I have used Weebly for several years, which I love and after reading the "Brown Bag Teacher" blog post, I felt confident that I am already utilizing the tools and features that were highlighted by Catherine Reed.

I decided to explore the list of library sites that were posted in the assignment to see if I could get any ideas for my website. After exploring all of the sites, most of which were middle and high school, I determined that my site really lakes a "reading presence." There are a lot of resources on my site, highlights of student work and programs being offered. However, when it comes to supporting book lovers, book recommendations and generating an excitement for reading, I feel that I have really "dropped the ball." Therefore, I chose that to be the focus of this assignment. Little did I know how tedious this process was going to be.

I started of viewing other websites and looking for ideas and resources that others were using that I would like to include on my page. On the Springston School Library Blog they had links to different resources for book recommendations so I decided to start by including several of those on my site: The Book Seeker, Everyone's Reading, and Literature Map. I also loved how on their site there were pictures of kids reading or celebrating reading and I knew I wanted to capture that as well. For this assignment I started by including pictures that capture readers, but eventually I would like to include and imovie on this site.

On the Staples Library Learning Commons site, I liked the idea of displaying resources with a Symbaloo, but I didn't really feel like that fit with what I visually wanted for my website. In the past, I had used Shelfari and I loved the visual layout of that. I started out with the hopes of building shelves for my page, but unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed to learn that Amazon is no longer offering this services. I next looked into other options such as Goodreads, which isn't as kid friendly in my mind and I even read an article "12 Alternatives to Goodreads"  so I decided to start with that. I tried many of the suggestions, but they were most sites to help gain recommendations, not to provide them by building a shelf. Some were pretty cool though. Next, I tried to see if I might be able to embed my book shelf from Destiny Quest. I couldn't seem to find a way to do that either, I could print my shelves or email them, but not embed them. I then found an article on Shelfari Alternatives and found many of the same ideas that I had before, with a few additions. I tried Shelvable, which was simple and had a great layout, but I wasn't able to embed my shelf onto my site. I like how this site offered a great deal of information about each of the books from the description, to book details, to Goole Preview. Booklikes had a lot of potential as well. I like the look of the shelf and I could add a widget to my site, however creating shelves and adding books wasn't as easy I would have liked.

In the end I decided to go with Symbaloo, but I am open to suggestions. The nice thing about "Book Lovers" page on my website with Symbaloo pages of recommendations for each grade, K-6. The formatting is a little funky, but overall, I am happy to have a resource for students, teachers, and parents to find recommendations.
Symbaloo is that I am able to connect the kids to the catalog and they can go directly to see descriptions, detail and whether the book is currently available. Since that point, people have suggested Library Thing, but I was well into building my Symbaloo pages and didn't want to switch gears at that point. The Symbaloo pages took an extremely long time to put together, but I now have a

I will continue to add and tweak as new ideas and resources come to me, but at this point I am happy to say that I have an exciting "boost" to my website! In the longterm, I hope to work with Sarah Olson, our High School Librarian to also give our site/s an additional boost, by including a feature similar to what is on East Syracuse Minoa Central Schools site. They have the words "Lead-Learn-Innovate" on their with a direct link that takes you to a Google Slideshow of what each of those things means in the library. We would like to play with that idea for our mission or maybe goals and mantra. Sarah and I might even team up for a "DIY Thing" for that.