Monday, July 7, 2008
Correction
Thanks to Mike for the correct title of the video "Fish!". I have corrected he posting for July 3rd.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Could shelf reading ever be fun?
Many people have the old stuffy misconception of what a library is. They picture a librarian named Marion with a her hair in a bun and pencil behind her ear shushing everyone. This is such and ancient concept and far from our libraries today. It is often hard to find a quiet spot to concentrate. Throughout the day there is a steady stream of people, people of all sorts with many different reasons for coming to the library.
Our goal is to have something for everyone. One of my goals is to make each person's visit more than a pleasant one. There should be fun and adventure in there, too. In order to make visitors to the library happy, we first must have happy staff. All levels of library employees should be happy to be here and happy to serve the public.
So how do we do that? Fun is a very personal thing. What is fun to one person, may not be fun at all to the next person. While pondering some ways to boost staff morale and to lighten up the atmosphere, I remembered a great video called "Fish!" about the famous Pike Place Fish Market. The staff at the market are all comedians and do all kinds of whacky and entertaining things. Fish are tossed around, fish sing, fish do amazing things. Tourists come from around the world go to see the fish antics at the market.
We can't toss around books at the library, it's too dangerous. We can't create too much of a ruckus since people are reading and studying. We can make a tedious task more fun. Everyone likes to win. How about a self reading contest complete with a great prize? Thus the Staff Shelf Reading Sweepstakes was born.
After walking through the collection, I divided the collection into small segments that could be shelf read in an hour or two. We concentrated on just non-fiction for this segment of the sweepstakes. Then I made a stack of old index cards into sweepstakes tickets by marking one segment on each ticket. The staff was told that this was entirely optional. I would like everyone to do at least one ticket, but if we all did three the job would be done. They can do as much as they want until the tickets are gone. Each person was handed a ticket and asked to shelf read that segment. When it was completed, sign it, turn it in and get another ticket. I told them that I would be spot checking. When all the tickets are in there will be a drawing for the prize. They were told that there regular duties can't be neglected, so I have offered to cover desk time up to 20 minutes to allow, especially the part time, staff to have some time to shelf read without backing up regular duties.
We are still working on this and I hope to have the non-fiction completed in a week or two. You may be asking so what is the prize? The prize is a $50 gift certificate of the winner's choice. This will be donated by me, so no funds from any agency or organization will be used. I look at it as a gift of appreciation to a staff that works hard. There will be a few surprise prizes, too, like one for the person who has shelf read the most. I may come up with others before the project is completed.
We will see if shelf reading can be fun.
Our goal is to have something for everyone. One of my goals is to make each person's visit more than a pleasant one. There should be fun and adventure in there, too. In order to make visitors to the library happy, we first must have happy staff. All levels of library employees should be happy to be here and happy to serve the public.
So how do we do that? Fun is a very personal thing. What is fun to one person, may not be fun at all to the next person. While pondering some ways to boost staff morale and to lighten up the atmosphere, I remembered a great video called "Fish!" about the famous Pike Place Fish Market. The staff at the market are all comedians and do all kinds of whacky and entertaining things. Fish are tossed around, fish sing, fish do amazing things. Tourists come from around the world go to see the fish antics at the market.
We can't toss around books at the library, it's too dangerous. We can't create too much of a ruckus since people are reading and studying. We can make a tedious task more fun. Everyone likes to win. How about a self reading contest complete with a great prize? Thus the Staff Shelf Reading Sweepstakes was born.
After walking through the collection, I divided the collection into small segments that could be shelf read in an hour or two. We concentrated on just non-fiction for this segment of the sweepstakes. Then I made a stack of old index cards into sweepstakes tickets by marking one segment on each ticket. The staff was told that this was entirely optional. I would like everyone to do at least one ticket, but if we all did three the job would be done. They can do as much as they want until the tickets are gone. Each person was handed a ticket and asked to shelf read that segment. When it was completed, sign it, turn it in and get another ticket. I told them that I would be spot checking. When all the tickets are in there will be a drawing for the prize. They were told that there regular duties can't be neglected, so I have offered to cover desk time up to 20 minutes to allow, especially the part time, staff to have some time to shelf read without backing up regular duties.
We are still working on this and I hope to have the non-fiction completed in a week or two. You may be asking so what is the prize? The prize is a $50 gift certificate of the winner's choice. This will be donated by me, so no funds from any agency or organization will be used. I look at it as a gift of appreciation to a staff that works hard. There will be a few surprise prizes, too, like one for the person who has shelf read the most. I may come up with others before the project is completed.
We will see if shelf reading can be fun.
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