Tag: Google Slides

Posted in professional development

Adventures in Readers Advisory: Celebrity Book Clubs

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Not kidlit related, but YA crossover into adult related.

My library still has grab-and-go service, so browsing is a challenge, especially for my senior patrons who may not have online access – or may not want it! That’s been the biggest frustration voiced by many of my patrons, for kids, teens, and adults alike: they miss browsing. We’ve taken some measures where we can, like putting up a browsing table behind the pick-up request area, where patrons can see look over some books and ask to see them. One of us library staff can head over, pluck the books, and hand ’em over. I’ve managed to get a lot of kids’ books circulated this way.

Remember when everyone and their aunt or uncle had a celebrity book club? When I first got the idea to promote celeb book club picks, I figured I’d have my pick of names to show off books for. Welp, it looks like most of those have dried up in the pandemic, but I found a few mainstays: Jenna Bush Hager for the Today Show, Good Morning America, Reese Witherspoon, and the original celeb book club powerhouse, Oprah Winfrey. Luckily for me, Oprah recommends four books for February and Jenna Bush Hager’s spotlighting two this month!

Easily created in Google Slides, it’s really just a book cover, blurb, and title of the slide. Place them around pickup areas to provide a browsing opportunity that won’t lead to folx spending a lot of time in the library (we have a max number patrons allowed in at a time), yet still providing them with some new books that they can request. For those of you with tech-savvy patrons, add a QR code that will link straight to the book detail page on your website and let patrons request the book right away. I doubt I’ve got these in the building at the moment (I’m writing this from home today), because the second a new book club pick is announced, the holds blow up, but if you have any copies in your location, keep them at your circ desk, ready to hand off to anyone who wants a copy to take home then and there.

Want to do these with kidlit? Why not? Here are a few I came up with today.

I’m sure more creative friends can do something even more exciting in Canva or Publisher. Share if you do, I’d love to see!

 

Posted in professional development, programs

The Bitmoji Library is done!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

I completed my Bitmoji library this morning! Aren’t my colleagues and I adorable?

This was so much easier than I thought it would be. There are several good videos online; I primarily used Ms Farah’s tutorial and DJ Silene’s tutorial, which were super clear and helpful.

Again, I used Google Slides, and insert a background using a search for “floor and wall background”. I played around with different keywords, like “cozy”, “library”, and “study”, but the results came back more cluttered than I’d like, so I went with this space that I could personalize. Next, I did a Insert and searched for “transparent book case”, because I didn’t want a background that would break up the experience of the scene.

Next, I created the Bitmoji. The PC app didn’t work well with my laptop, so I downloaded the app on my phone and emailed myself the Bitmoji. So. Easy. You can even search different keywords to see your avatar in silly costumes, reading, hanging out with a dog, you name it. Click on the avatar you like, and you get the choice to send it to yourself via email.

My colleague, Esti, sent me a few Bitmojis she had of herself, but I altered my avatar to create my colleague Alicia’s, which I also texted to her to make sure she was happy with the image. She was! Hooray!

The thing about Bitmojis is that they will show up with a white background around them, and you want that background removed. Thanks to the tutorials above, I learned about Remove.bg, a site that lets you upload an image, and download the same image with the background removed. Huzzah!

After choosing book covers and linking them to the library’s website, like I did with yesterday’s bookshelf post, I dropped in the Bitmojis, and finally, used one of Hafuboti’s Libraries Are for Everyone posters to give my library space a little personal touch. Voila!

I sent a link to my colleagues, and told them to make copies and customize to their delight. All you’ll need to do is click File, Make a Copy, and you have your own copy to enjoy. I’m thinking of adding slides to create bookshelves for different topics and subjects, and I can switch up the Bitmojis while I’m at it. This will be fun for Outreach!

Other Bitmoji Libraries

This Bitmoji Library is Library Goals.

This School Library/Media Center has some fun links, including links to an online chess game and a design-your-own-mask activity.

Knowledge Quest: Can Brandi Hartsell become my Bitmoji guru, please?

Mrs. Korzi got a shout-out from School Library Journal for her Banned Books Library, and it is fantastic.

Posted in professional development, programs

In which I play with virtual bookshelves

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

I have virtual bookshelf envy. There are some really amazing ones out there, and once again, I am in awe of the librarians out there, especially, in this case, the school librarians, who are figuring out ways to keep their kids reading, engaged, and interested. So I started playing around with creating my own virtual bookshelf, and made one with Google Slides.

While I was able to link each individual book in the Google Slide to my library’s book detail page, it doesn’t work if I download it as a PDF or a JPG, so that’s something you may want to keep in mind (at least, I haven’t figured out how to do it, yet, if it’s a possibility). So I’ll link the Google Slide here, if you want to see the links, and post the .JPG below.

This is a quick Back to School bookshelf I put together for littles, but I think it looks pretty snazzy, no? I found a quick video that is super helpful, if you’re interested. You can open a Google Slide blank, change the background and do an image search to find a bookshelf. From there, you can Insert book cover JPGs and PNGs, size them as you want, and put them on the shelves. You can click on the book cover, click the “insert link” icon, and add links to your library system, a GoodReads link, or your own book reviews, and share as you’d like. If you do want it to show up as a graphic file, and save it as a PNG or JPG, though, I haven’t figured out how to keep those links available when you download (unless you want to link the bookshelf files to the Google Slide, which has the links).

How will I use this? I can email the Google Slide to schools that I normally work with, and offer them a bunch of bookshelves with subjects of interest to the teachers and students (Minecraft bookshelves for the WIN!). The kids can click through to the library system’s page, and either borrow an ebook, if we have it available, or request a hard copy to be sent to their nearest open library to be picked up. I’ll report back on how this works, and if you have done something similar, I’d love to hear from you on how it’s working.

Next up: a Bitmoji library!