Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Book Swap = Free Books!

Do you want some new(ish) books for FREE?
Do you have cool gently used books hanging around?

Let's recycle and trade books at the Travis Book Swap Next week! Here's how it works....

Next week-- Monday - Wednesday, bring in your grade appropriate used books to the library. For each one that is approved, the Library Ladies will give you a coupon good for one free book.

On Friday, you can come to the library before or after school to get a free book for each coupon you have!

See you there!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

MP3 Players at School?!?!?

...Only if they are BOOKS on MP3 checked out from the library!

Mrs. Jensen has just received a huge shipment of "Playaways" which are books preloaded onto MP3 players! You can check them out just like books! Look for them in the audio book section--over 50 new titles to choose from!

In addition, many new audio books on CD have come in, but we are waiting on new packaging for them before we can check them out to you-- look for them in the coming weeks.

See you at the library!

SKELETON CREEK Book Club

members—are you reading and viewing??

Our next meeting is on one of the following days—be sure you attend one so you can keep your Skeleton Creek book!

April 14 @ 3:50 P.M.
April 15 @ 3:50 P.M.
April 16 @ 7:40 A.M.

See you there!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Miss Me?

Whew-- what a crazy ride it's been!

I have been doing so much crazy work in so many crazy directions-- I just looked longingly at my blog link and passed it up...but NO LONGER! LOL!

I have updated my Shelfari-- see the shelf at the left? Click on it and check out what I have been reading lately!

The new American Library Association awards book lists (Bluebonnet & Lone Star) have come out, so I will post links to them below. (They are also linked on the library homepage!)

In late January, we also had a great author visit with Patrick Carman He talked about his 08-09 Lone Star book Atherton: House of Power, as well as the other series he has written. He talked a lot about how telling stories makes you a better writer. He showed his journal drawings and how they came to life with an artist’s hand.

He also talked about his newest book Skeleton Creek-- which is a completely new format. This book is written from the point of view of Ryan, who has been in accident that sent him to the hospital. Ryan's journal goes along with Sarah's videos-- as you read his journal you get the passwords to see her videos. Sounds like a great time, huh? Bobcat Book Club will begin a book club on his newest book Skeleton Creek TODAY (and tomorrow!) See you there! It's not too late...come after school!

See the new Lone Star Books @ http://www.txla.org/groups/yart/Assets/Files/lonestar/lone0910a.pdf


See the New Bluebonnet Books@ http://www.irvingisd.net/travislibrary/09_10_BlueBonnetList.htm

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Back to Blogging!

Well-- I didn't maean to take a vacation from blogging, but it looks like I did!

New books are pouring into the library-- check out

The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Hunger Games
Unwind

And lots more! Check out my Shelfari (to the left!)

Drop by to see our handiwork of decorations in the library!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Technology Media Fair

Technology Media Fair deadline is in just ONE MONTH! I hope you are working hard on your winning entry. Travis' deadline is Dec 5. See me (Mrs. Jensen) or Mrs. Jones for help in entering!

I made two (very) short videos to advertise-- check them out!

http://animoto.com/play/1f5hpVhmsjqliZwdgIO9PQ
http://animoto.com/play/5L7TDVxYFi8Ce1ChxEqLFA

Friday, October 24, 2008

Book Club--Are You Ready?

A new student Book Club will begin soon...look for info on the morning announcemnts or ask your reading teacher!

Busy Busy Busy

Thansk for a wonderful Book Fair! Our profits have allowed us to buy over $800.00 in new books form the bookfair-- about 25% of them in Spanish! Come by and see the new books!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Meyer's Midnight Sun on hold?

Probably you big Twilight fans already know…. But according to page 15 of the Oct 2008 School Library Journal…

“Best selling author Stephenie Meyer is scrapping plans to finish the final book in her TWILIGHT series after an incomplete version was leaked. “My partial draft of Midnight Sun was illegally posted on the internet,” Meyer wrote on her website. “What happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author.

Meyer, who sys she can likely pinpoint toe source of the leak, will make the draft public..

“I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely.”

Look for the Aug 28th (II) post on the author’s webpage. (I had no idea!)
She also posts a 264 page draft of the illegal manuscript on her site, There is a post script that says that Midnight Sun IS still her next project.

Meyer’s website:
http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

What Are You Reading?

Have you seen the signs all over campus telling you what your teachers and staff support memebers are reading?

They're EVERYWHERE!

Check out the signs to see what types of things your teachers like to read!
.......Is your crazy English teacher a mystery buff?
......................................Does your math teacher read romance?
.........Who is reading what?

Check out the signs....

BOOK FAIR

Hey Bobcats!

It's time for book fair-- hence the reason I haven't posted for a few days....well, that and I had the opportunity to visit family in NM.

Book Fair began on Thursday, October 2 and runs till Thursday, October 9. Lots of great new titles like The Do-It-Yourself Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Found (the book about the mysterious plane full of ababies who grow up and then find out why they are special) , Seekers, and lots of fun fiction and cool non-fiction await you at book fair.

Of course all the pencils, smelly erasers, and fun stuff is here too. Every dollar you spend goes to buy books for Travis.

Look for the new books soon!

Monday, September 29, 2008

New Series Books Are Ready! Put one on hold?

Look below for the list of new series books that are ready and waiting for you at the Travis library!

See you soon!

If you want to put th ese or any books on hold, just follow the steps below.

1. G0 to our website http://www.irvingisd.net/travislibrary
2. Click on "Find a Book"
3. Type the title in the box for Aquabrowser or Classic Catalog
4. Click on the name of the book you want
5. Click on "Place a hold"
6. Your patron ID is your student number (lunch number) and your PIN is the last four digits of your number!
7. Whoo Hoo! Be happy-- your book is on its way. You will get a note from your reading teacher when it arrives, or you can come back and check your patron record.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Web 2.0

I hate to break it to you, but Web 2.0 is over. Old news. Passé. Well-- maybe only for the techno-elite.

The new technology is called cloud technology. Since we are just in the middle of 2.0, let's not drop it for cloud tech, but let's check it out.

One simple way to do that and use it for our benefit is to check out the Clusty Cloud maker. Very cool. It creates a cloud of tags you can use in your blog. To do it, it takes your search terms and serches the major seach engines with it. Then it clusters the results and creates a cloud of tags...did I mention that it was cool?

Try it yourself at http://cloud.clusty.com/

Also try the search engine Clusty (an infortunate name.) According to the website (http://www.clusty.com/), here's what Clusty is all about...

What makes Clusty unique?

Clusty is a whole new way to search the web.

Clusty queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking. This "metasearch" approach helps raise the best results to the top and push search engine spam to the bottom.

But what really makes Clusty unique is what happens after you search. Instead of delivering millions of search results in one long list, our search engine groups similar results together into clusters. Clusters help you see your search results by topic so you can zero in on exactly what you’re looking for or discover unexpected relationships between items. When was the last time you went to the third or fourth page of the search results? Rather than scrolling through page after page, the clusters help you find results you may have missed or that were buried deep in the ranked list.

And with a name like Clusty, it’s gotta be good!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Research with PE Boys

So-- research in PE? Ab-so-lute-ly! The Boys PE classes are doing a great job researching Lifetime Ftiness. In teams, they are researching a sport and making a PowerPoint about how to get involved in it to keep fit. They will be presenting their information after they finish their PowerPoints. Go boys!