Facebook

I’ve been on Facebook for about a year now and I really enjoy it.  I’ve been able to reconnect with old friends, family, neighbors, and make new connections with family members I didn’t know I had.  When my nephew Tom was in Iraq, he didn’t have time to e-mail everyone, but he posted once or twice a week on his Facebook page.  We saw pictures and heard stories about his experiences there, interspersed with comments from the people he served with.  It brought our family closer together as we chatted back and forth about the baby of the family until he came safely home in September.

Another benefit has been maintaining connections with people from our travels.  I have “friended” the page for my mother’s village in Sicily, Lercara Fridi.  It’s almost all in Italian but great pictures and I can make sense of most of it.  But best of all, when I return there in a few years, I will have people to help me with housing and transportation.  And if any of them want to visit Kansas (it could happen!) they have a friend here.

I have some former students as friends but have avoided adding current or even recent students to my page.  If they have graduated from public schools, we can hook up.  I don’t want to be reading about the teachers they hate and the antics they are up to–especially when they are too young to know better.  Some of my former students have graduated from college and are embarking on interesting careers and it’s been fun hearing from them.

I know there are downsides.  I had to “unfriend” a relative who was inappropriate and hateful.  But for the most part it’s been a fun way to spend a few minutes a night seeing what everyone else has been doing.  In the long run, I think social networking will bring us all closer together.

Paperback Swap

If you haven’t used this service, give it a try. It’s a good way to move out unwanted books (yes, they do exist!) and to pick up an almost-free paperback of your chosing.

http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php

23 Things Kansas

From the library of West Junior High, Lawrence, Kansas:  a great place to pursue knowledge, which is why I signed up for this on-line course.

Hello world!

Celebrating life in a junior high library.  Yes, junior high–one of only four remaining in the state of Kansas.  We are on the endangered species list here in Lawrence but I think our library issues are shared with all secondary school librarians. 

Today I celebrate our library aides.   Every school has its small percentage of kids who love books, love the library, like to hang out among the shelves, or just want to avoid crowds.  At West we’re lucky that from this small population we have recruited aides whose enthusiasm for all things book is contagious.  Our aides sometimes enter the library skipping and often bounce up and down in eagerness to check in books.  They actually enjoy shelving and beg to work the circ desk to check books out to other students.  Of course it’s the first full week of this semester.  I imagine by next week the bouncing will be over and they’ll begin to see shelving as the backbreaking labor we all know it can be.  But for right now, they are making my library a fun place to be.