Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Summer Reading List on LibGuides

My summer reading lists are moving to LibGuides. Last year I tagged books in LibraryThing to complement the traditional list, but since my students know how to use LibGuides, I decided to try that platform this time.  It is so easy to transfer an already made list of books and annotations to LibGuides! It takes just a minute per book - or less.
On the 7th-8th grade reading list home page I put the required reading, and since the seventh graders have a choice of three books, I put book trailers I found on YouTube so the kids could watch a bit of what each book is about. Then I challenged them to make better book trailers this summer - we'll see if any do. Also, since I haven't yet met our incoming seventh graders, I made my profile box a "Meet Your Librarian" box. The other tabs are named after genres, and feature 8-12 books each.



The book covers are links to Amazon, a feature of  LibGuides. Each page also has a "user submission" box where students can submit links to their favorite books, allowing a place for them to contribute and potentially make the guide more relevant to their interests.

I am having fun making these slightly more dynamic lists for the older readers too, and each LibGuide has a down-loadable Word version of the summer reading choices, for those who like to have printed copies. I am adding required reading for Honors and AP classes as well. This could really revolutionize summer reading for us - I hope the students like it!
Do you use LibGuides for summer reading? Or do you use a different method for sharing books? please share!

4 comments:

  1. I hadn't considered using LibGuides for summer reading , but love them for research projects. This is a really good idea!

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  2. Thanks! I am still having fun with it. I am almost done with the ones for the upper grades. I hope the kids like them!

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  3. Very cool! I'm so glad the days of creating our old paper lists are over!

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  4. Yay! a student submitted a book link to one of the guides! http://bwscampus.libguides.com/content.php?pid=112416&sid=846502 Take a look! could be the beginnings of a student/librarian summer-long collaborative reading list!

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