Letter from a Student

A couple of weeks ago I received this letter on facebook from one of my former students. It was a complete surprise and made my whole year. When you read it, you'll understand why.

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Hi Ms. Mclean!

I know that I haven't spoken to you in forever, but I think that I owe you (and B.) some thanks. Even though, as a student, I didn't enjoy going to B., it was mainly because of the small student body and what I felt was an inability to branch out, try different things, or grow as a person. I always really appreciated the efforts of my teachers. I will always remember being able to join the "adults" for the teacher book club discussion on The Lovely Bones (have you seen the movie? What did you think?)

Also, learning how to research effectively was one aspect of B. that students in other schools apparently don't get. I go to the University of Central Florida and I'm a senior. As an English major, I see all types of levels of knowledge of the students around me. Some still don't know correct English grammar (periods, capitalization at the beginning of sentences, quotation marks). Some students are very well-learned.

While most students here quail at the thought of having to do work, for example, a research paper, I actually enjoy it. I still prefer books over anything over the Internet, but I have been able to use specifically the Google tools I remember you teaching us (site:edu and site:org and such) to help me. I also used my NoodleBib account up until this month, when my association with B. was too long gone for NoodleBib to let me in anymore.

A few years ago, I actually won the Information Fluency Award at UCF for the undergraduate level from the library. I won the award for persuasive speech that I had written regarding the possibility of the Loch Ness monster being alive. I used simple techniques to research my information, but, according to the UCF library, they were ingenious techniques (I learned them all at B.).

So thank you! =]

-S. L. c/o 2007 .

New Library Video!

My two very talented student library proctors and their friend who is a very talented film editor have banded together to create the first of our library videos for the year. It has a WWII theme and is about combating book censorship and saving books and reading. Loosely.... It rocks. 8-)

Babies, Babies, and More Babies!

Many, many faculty at school are pregnant. Or their kids are! Or friends are. It's in the water. So, I have been making lots of baby related crocheted items. My favorite item to make is the baby hat. Below is Matt, who had twins. I made a boy monkey hat and a girl monkey hat for Alessandra and Anthony.
Below is a hat and bootie set I have made for Jennifer, who is one of the dog trainers at SEGD. She doesn't want to know what the sex is of her baby, so I had to go with a nature theme. Hence the leaves on the hat.

Jan's daughter is having a little boy. Jan runs all the systems behind the scenes in the library. Her nursery theme is Nature. So I did leaves and trees.

Hat 1 with some leaves. I tried a four leaf clover, but it didn't work out. This set of leaves was much easier to do.

Hat 2 I was particularly proud of. I thought the tree came out rather well. It is actually a patter for a fern, but put on the baby hat, I caled it a tree. 8-)

Hat 3 Just a nice hat with gender nuetral colors.

Zoe, an English teacher at school, is due in January. So I got to put my feminine side to work and use up some of my pink yarn.

Notice the pink booties. They seem big don't they? I think they are for gigantor baby. I'm just not a good bootie crocheter. I wasn't sure they would actually fit a human baby, so I made another pair. They look more normal. I need a good bootie pattern. If anyone has one, please share!

Here's a close up of the multi colored pink hat with three solid pink flowers.

Here is a photo of the solid pink hat with some solid white flowers. So, that's everyone that is pregnant for now. My work for the pregnant is now done!

Harry Potter Film Festival

Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley is pictured above taking it easy at the Harry Potter Film Festival held last Friday in the Jean Ann Cone Library at my school. It went from 4 pm until 10 pm and we were able to watch HP 4, play some trivia, have a spell casting session, get sorted into our houses, and have a costume contest before ending with HP 6. We also had plenty of food! HRH had no problem with the costumes as you can see. Her main problem was not eating the food on the floor!

Awesome Anthem to Librarians by an Author

Author Cammie McGovern, (author of Neighborhood Watch) wrote an amazing article talking about her love for librarians. It actually made me teary! Read it.