The Sassy Bibliophile

I was honored to be the keynote speaker at the Region VII ESC Library Conference last week. I can't even tell you what a beautiful day it was, y'all! Michelle Cooper, a librarian I completely admire, is now at Region VII and put on a fantastic conference.  From technology sessions to the latest in YA lit, and an amazing array of vendors, too, she put together a truly amazing day of learning for every librarian there! Almost two years ago I wrote down a "50 before 50" list in my bullet journal. I had been feeling like I had drifted into a space of being a worker, a mother, and a wife----but forgetting to actually put myself on the priority list and wanting to also remember my hopes & dreams beyond my labels. Some of the items are small, some large--but all are things that are simply things I wanted to challenge myself to do.  Things I think are fun or special or rewarding. It's funny how just writing it down puts it in your brain as well as in your journ...

What an exciting time of year!  Some of us have already had our first day and for other of us that day is fast approaching.  What I can definitely say is that I always love it when the PD days are over, and my kids are coming back. I've met the incoming freshmen class at Fish Camp, new displays are up, shelves are straightened and we are ready to welcome our students. 29 years in and it is still just as exciting to me as it ever was, y'all.  I'm sharing 5 things I do to keep me joyful as we start our new year. The before school morning rush finds me greeting my people. We generally host somewhere around 150 kids before school starts each morning. Coffee in hand, I am going around the library checking in on all my kids.  Greeting them, saying good morning, making sure they have what they need for the day.  Email can wait, my to-do list can wait, everything waits because this is my time to make sure every kid in my space is noticed, acknowledged, and spok...

Some truths about me. I have a serious notebook addiction. I love awesome pens. I love to journal. So, I guess it stands to reason that when I do my reflections over the year, and when I do my planning for the upcoming year, I love to do it with old-school, hand-written, paper & pen, in awesome notebooks. This year, I picked up a medium-sized hot pink number at a local discount store for 2.99.  Maybe it seems odd, but I really like to start each new BuJo-ish library-planning journal right after the end of the school year. All the things are still fresh in my mind. I've just completed end-of-year reports, and all that data is handy for pondering. I've just made my state library standards review, and my EOY infographic to share with stakeholders. So, I've learned to begin at the end.  As it turns out, for me, at least, starting at the very beginning isn't necessarily a very good place to start because: 1. I want this year's data and other info cle...

"five"   by  namealus  is licensed under  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0  We have some new faces in our district library group,  Only 1 of the 6 elementary librarians is an experienced teacher-librarian for the upcoming year.  The other 5 of our elementary folks are in various stages of newness-to-the-library. So, out of 9 district librarians total, over half of them are newbies! We are so excited to welcome them into the fold, y'all. Here are some things we are doing to welcome in the newcomers.  I'd love for you to share your awesome tips with me---I'm always looking to add to my toolbox! 1. We are hosting a few meetups this summer.   Not meetings, exactly.  More get-to-know-you sessions and if they have a few easy questions that can be answered, then awesome. We had our first meetup at a local coffee shop this week, and it was so great.   It was nice to put faces with those names we've seen, and for everyone to trade phone numbe...