Tales from a Loud Librarian

Finally, off the plane and on the road Going away for a week during summer break is something that is sacred to my husband and me. We live in a city that is hot in the summer so we try to find somewhere cooler and in a rural area where we can spend our time being outside and enjoying nature. This year we chose to drive through Vermont and New Hampshire so that we could end in Maine where my father lives.  Vermont is the land of covered bridges In years past, I would buy a guide book and visit the library to find more guides to where we would travel. My favorite publishers were Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. I loved reading about what we would see and looking for the most charming place to say. It was crucial to read a guidebook with a current copyright date because so much could change from year to year, especially prices. Now I don't even look at a guidebook. I use Trip Advisor (TA).  I love the app because I can save everything that I want to see ahead of ti...

Picture taken by their daughter in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve My school has been very lucky to host over 24 live author visits since 2011, and almost as many Skype visits. J & P Voelkel have visited our school three times and skyped twice. I adore them and their energy, and they really put on a show for the students with lots of props and audience participation. They came to New Orleans on this last visit in March because book four in their series,   Jaguar Stones , that was recently published had some important scenes set in our city. Just the other day, I received this wonderful card thanking us for opening our doors to them. Actually, I should be the one doing the thanking as they traveled so far to be with the students at Patrick Taylor for just a couple of hours.  Jon and Pamela, you are our rock stars. Thanks for visiting us for a third time. The students and teachers were blown away and had the most marvelous time during this last visit. You a...

On March 17th, the middle school students were treated to a performance by authors Jon and Pamela Voelkel that kept the kids enthralled from the moment it began to the action-packed conclusion. The Voelkels have become friends of mine as well as friends of our school. They were traveling because the last book in the Jaguar Stones series was published last month, but their publisher, Egmont, sent them to the West Coast, not New Orleans. Since both New Orleans and St. Louis are featured in the journey that Max and Lola take to save the world from Ah Pukuh in the book, The Lost City , the Voelkels decided to plan a trip to our area on their own. I am so glad that they did.  Their visit began with dinner at Pascal Manale's. An uptown institution that specializes in delicious seafood. Not only did we have a great meal that night, but there was a celebrity sitting at a table next to ours. Singer, Harry Connick Jr., was enjoying a meal with his family. We really wanted to get a...

I can't believe how frantic it can get in a school library. You might think of libraries as the calm oases in the sea of children who move in out of classrooms and down the halls of a school, but the library at PFTSTA is often so busy that my head is spinning by the end of the day.  We are currently in the midst of getting the middle school students ready to write the research paper for the annual  social studies fair . That means I am teaching all the students about where they should look for resources and how to access and utilize those resources. I will also help them learn how to create citations for this paper, but we have not started our lessons on using Easybib yet.  Along with teaching classes most of the day, I was preparing for the annual Open House for prospective students. Once all the preparations were in place, then I actually had to return to school on Thursday evening and give my two minute spiel about the library almost 25 times as parents and st...

[<a href="http://storify.com/TaylorLibrarian/pftsta-skypes-with-author-jon-voelkel" target="_blank">View the story "PFTSTA Skypes with Author, Jon Voelkel" on Storify</a>]<h1>PFTSTA Skypes with Author, Jon Voelkel</h1><h2>On Thursday, August 15th, PFTSTA held its annual Open House for parents to meet the teachers. Power Skills teacher, Kelly Maher, wanted to demonstrate to the parents how the Skype TV in her classroom could be utilized. The librarian, Elizabeth Kahn, scheduled Jon Voelkel to Skype with the parents during the Open House that lasted from 6:25PM until 8PM. There were four different groups of parents that moved in and out of the classroom during the evening. Jon sat at his computer the entire evening to speak with each group of parents for about 5 minutes. </h2>...