 Last up on our lightning round this afternoon here at Big Talk from Small Libraries is Tracy McKinnon. She is from our Pleasanton public schools here in Pleasanton, Nebraska, dealing with the snow we've had going on today, home for the day because of that. And she's going to talk about a program they have about Christmas-y kind of program. I thought we got the red and green here, which actually fits with the weather today here in Nebraska. Tell us about how you've been to this program. You've got going. All right. Well, again, my name is Tracy McKinnon, and I am the new librarian at Pleasanton Public Schools, and I'm going to give you information today about a program I call Share the Gift of Reading. And so I'm just going to go ahead and start my presentation. The purpose of this whole thing was to generate excitement for reading during the holiday break, and so I was just trying to get kids more interested in reading books rather than playing video games and steering at the TV the whole time. So I had about some little helpers at my school, and we wrapped up nearly 300 of our library books in Christmas Wrap. And then right before break, when they came for check out, they checked out the wrapped books, but I kind of kept it a secret what I was up to. So as we were wrapping books, and I was stacking them up behind me in the library on the counters, the kids were like, what are those? Are those Christmas presents? And I'm like, yes, they're for you. And they were like, oh, so they were getting very excited. So I do want to make a small disclaimer that I do work at this small school library, public school library in a rural area. So our population is only about 342 people, and it is nearly 100% Christians. So the Christian Christmas theme does work for me, and I know that that may not work for everybody that's listening. So I threw it out there to a group of librarian friends, and they suggested that you could modify this by wrapping your books to look like animals and put them, if you made them look like birds, you could put them in a nest or dogs or cats, and you could put them on a dog bed. Or you can just wrap them in plain, beautiful wrap and do it to celebrate book week. So there's lots of ways this could be modified, but Christmas worked good for me. So one of the first steps of this, because there is a purpose to this besides just building excitement, and one of the first things I did in November, I notified all the staff members of the school that they would need to stop by the library and pick out some books. And the minimum was one book per staff member. I included everybody that worked at the school, the lunchroom workers, the janitor, the office staff. I wanted all the teachers and everybody. We're a pre-K through 12 school, and I wanted everybody in there to come and pick out books because I don't have a relationship with everybody in the school. I'm a brand new teacher there, but even if I had been there for years, I don't have a relationship with every single student. And part of this is relationship building. So as they came in, I had a checklist to make sure who had been in. And there were a few teachers that I literally had to go track them down and drag them into the library. But I kept a checklist to make sure that I had everybody in there. And I asked them to tell me their favorite books and I helped them find their favorite titles, maybe things they had read to their kids or grandkids or books that they liked when they were younger. And so I pulled those off the shelves and then I just put a sticky note on top of each book or each pile of books to keep track of who chose them because that would be important later on in the project. So then the next thing I did is I worked on the second step is to purchase the supplies and prepare everything so you're ready. For every book, you will need a blank bar code that you will attach to the outside of it in order to check it out without the student knowing what the book is. So I just printed these on paper. I didn't waste my labels, but I just printed these off on a piece of paper and I did leave the title on with the bar code when I printed it and we cut the title off right before we wrapped it just to make it easier to match up as we were wrapping. I also went to the dollar store and I brought about six or seven rolls of cheap Christmas wrap and I had tape and markers and then I just set up a party date. The seventh and eighth graders were so excited to help me and they loved wrapping and also we have a circle of friends group of disabled students at our school and I talked to the resource teacher and they were able to come and help for our wrapping party. So during the wrapping party, we just had a little turned on the Christmas music, had a little cookie and cocoa and I had pre-cut a lot of squares from the wrapping paper. Most of it, I cut into squares of various sizes. I did save one roll back to use for oversized books or things that we didn't have pieces of paper big enough for. I had tape and scissors set out and this is an example of how the books looked when they were wrapped. So it doesn't, you know, they could be a little prettier, but when you have seventh and eighth graders helping, you just have to, you know, go with what you did. If you're more OCD, you might have to wrap all your own books. But I just, we just wrote to you from, and then this one, it happened to be a book that I picked. So it said, promises me, Q-in, but you put whoever's name that chose that book on there. And then as you can see, I have the bar code taped on there. Another little hint is that you can add secret codes to the bottom or the corners or the back of the book. And I used a B for boy book, G for girl book. I also sometimes had to put a grade or an age level on the book so that I could remember and be able to tell them apart easier. If you do happen to forget, you can always beep it with the beeper and it'll come up on the computer so you can see what's underneath the wrap without unwrapping it. But, and then behind me, I have a big counter space. So behind me on the big counter space, I just stacked the books according to grade level. So I had a stack for kindergarten, I had a stack for first grade, you know. And so then it came to the checkout day. I'm going to go through the mechanics and then I'm going to talk about the lesson so that last step will be the lesson. On checkout day, I just had to make sure that the proper books were under the tree as each class came in. So I used some totes that I have and that worked really well for me to put all the books for first grade out when they came in and then to gather them up quickly because I had high schoolers coming in and between. So I had to move the books in and out kind of quickly but I would dump them out, spread them around under the tree and let them choose after I explained the project. And then when they were done checking out, I'd gather them up, throw them in the bin and bring the next group out. During the checkout, the main thing to watch for is that if you are watching for obvious mismatches. So if you forgot to label a book as a, you know, obvious, you know, princess pink book and a boy is standing there holding it, you might say, oh, sweetie, go pick a different one, you know, and trade out and just say, oh, I don't think you would like that book and get a different one. Also, the other thing I did not allow, allow the students to open the books in the library. They had to take the books home or some of the classroom teachers let them open them once they got back to the classroom. But I was afraid and I learned from experience that if they opened them in the library, sometimes they didn't want the book they got so then they wanted to return it right away. So that was why we avoided letting them open them there in the library. So let me explain what I told the kids. And so first of all, they were all sad, a little bit sad because they didn't, when I told them they didn't get to keep the book, that, you know, they were like, oh, and I was like, it's just your library checkout, but it's exciting because it's wrapped up and you don't know what's in there. So part of the lesson was accepting the book as a gift with grace because when they opened the wrapper, it would probably or most likely or maybe a book that they never would have chosen for themselves. So if they chose to take a wrapped book, I told them that they had to read it anyway or they had to read at least the first two chapters of it if it was a chapter book. They had to give it a chance because they might just accidentally discover a book that they liked or a new author that they liked or a new genre that they had never read. And then the second thing was after the Christmas break when they had taken the book home, their second requirement was to strike up a conversation with the staff member who chose the book and to say thank you for choosing that book, I liked it or to ask them, what did you like about it? Why did you pick this book? And of course, not every student did that, but I had quite a few of them that did and I had a really good response. The teachers were like, oh, the kids loved it. They were so excited. They said it was like Christmas morning when they were opening their books and unwrapping them and they were all so excited. So it's just been a very positive project for us and we really, it's been very good and well received and so that's it and so any questions? Great, thank you, Tracy. Does anybody have any questions for Tracy? We are running a little late, as you can see. We did have some technical difficulties for one of our earlier lightning round sessions, but we'll catch up, no problem. Sometimes it's a great idea and also would be workable in public libraries as well, definitely. It is very similar to the blind date with the book that many libraries are doing where it's just the books wrapped up. Sometimes they put what the genre or topic might be on it, but it's a surprise. I like the bit where you've connected it to someone who recommended it and here's the person and you're making that connection with that other person who was interested in that title for some reason. Yeah, and it was a little more school-friendly, especially for the elementary students. That's why I didn't go with the blind date with the book, it's not quite as appropriate for elementary school, so. And one question we do have and I'll just throw this one out to you. Did all the books get returned? Did anybody get confused and say, what do you mean it's a prison? I made it pretty clear and they had to go through the checkout, they got it beeped just like normal, so they understood, so they did all come out. All right, okay, thank you very much, Tracy. Yes, thank you. All right, and we're gonna go.