I received this email from Kylee at the Children's Museum:
"It was nice to meet you earlier this week and I hope you enjoyed your time in the Twin Cities. My Google alert picked up your blog entries about your trip to the Museum and I wanted to clarify a few things.
Our school group visits have not been suspended; it is our Museum classes that have been discontinued. Museum classes are hour long classroom experiences for visiting school groups. School groups are still able to visit the Museum, we just don't offer the classroom experiences at this time (which were optional for school group visits, not automatically included). Also, the Discovery Trunks are not a substitute for the Museum classes; we have been offering those for years.
I just wanted to clarify those things to avoid any confusion. Hope you have a returned home safe and sound. Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Best,
Kylee"
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
More pictures from the Children's Museum
I uploaded the pictures I took of the Minneapolis Children's Museum to this folder:
I:\Photos\Outside of the Library\20090616 Minneapolis Children's Museum
Big Read Summary
Tuesday, April 16th 3pm - 9pm
670 attendees, 269 cities are participating this year.
The first day’s orientation consisted of Grants and Program Management, Education and Promotional Materials, and miscellaneous contact information: arts.blog.bigread.com, hotline 612-238-8010, thebigread@artsmidwest.org.
We had dinner (chicken with some weird cheesy stuff on the top that we all scraped off in order to eat the chicken) then a keynote speech by Tim O’Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, which is one of the Big Read selections. He told us about watching his son disappear into the ocean and I didn’t know if that was true or not. He recounted his childhood girlfriend’s dying from a brain tumor, and the death of his father, so I left feeling a bit depressed.
Wednesday, April 17
Successful Community Partnerships:
Public Officials - let them pick the event they want to attend; work around their schedule
Programs off site - film festivals, writing workshops, panel discussions
Nature center - Call of the Wild kickoff at local Nature center
Community College - professor did lectures about book
Senior Center - book discussions, birds of prey program
Boy Scouts
Camping Trips
Senior Assistant Centers - cross collaboration with high school readers
See page 15 -16 for additional resources
Managing Public and Media Relations
Political and elected officials on board - be aware of election cycle
Create a timeline
Daily Newspaper - recruit editor for Big Read team, articles
Wrap buses with advertisements for Big Read
Hold monthly meetings with team
Book Clubs and reading groups - get the word out and solicit readers to join
Website - online trivia contest, teasers
Partners who do their own advertising - make sure they use Big Read logo
Licensing - if people read from the book and are videotaped - can’t do that
Face book page
Have publicity photos ready to go, contact info. Ready to go
Video promotion - be aware of what message you’re sending out. One had high schoolers doing a Jeopardy type game and nobody knew the answers
Photos - have signed releases, announce at programs that photos may be used for publication - tacit permission
Letters to the editor - encourage people to write letters if they enjoyed program, work with editors
Public service announcements - buy a block of ad time, if they run ours for free, have contests for high schoolers to create a psa, most effective are psa’s with local people, community based
Look for ideas on You tube - look up Big Read
Involving and Working with Schools
Artistic connections - exhibits with school art projects, photography
What worked: giving away copies of book with readers guide, Tableing - going into high schools cafeteria and setting up a table with free books and info.
What didn’t work: film contest
What worked:
Contact schools earlier the better - be clear to administrators what is in it for them and their students - first contact administrators, attend regional meetings, work with teachers
Lesson plan - approaching schools
Create PowerPoint, meet with teams of teachers, give them book bags or t-shirts
Customize the Big Read banners - a printer can apply removable stuff that you can use a blow dryer to remove
Junior college, private schools, reluctant readers, extra credit activities, work with school curriculum
What didn’t work: timing of their program
Elementary school:
Family reading nights
High schoolers help out
Abridged versions of book
Mark Twain impersonator
One act play
Art project - lumberyard donated pieces of fence which were given to schools to decorate illustrating the themes from the book, then displayed at their Tom Sawyer Day festival - ice cream social, music, hay rides, watermelon spitting contest, fishing
Reluctant readers
5 session book club - receive prize for reading
Use retirees
Newspapers: use a question from the Readers guide and ask for an adult response and a kids response and post them so you can see each group responded.
Involve home schools - associations or cooperative groups
Programming Discussion
Mock funeral - “Bury Illiteracy” - hearse, with lots of food and music - Alabama contingent
Get ideas from Teen Advisory Council
Family picnic, parades, contests on a lake or river
Read it Forward - book has a sticker with library’s blog information and left at various places - next time someone travels leave Bless Me Ultima and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in the waiting room
Bobby Horton - composer of Ken Burns documentary will conduct symphony for a couple of thousand - let’s check him out
One act plays - 45 min. play with kids as the actors - script from Colin Cox - I’ll email him
Toddler versions of books - “Danger in the Graveyard”
Family friendly - Little Read and Littlest Read - guess we weren’t the first ones to do a Little Read
Senior Centers - read chapters from book
Original illustrations in public domain. Contact Mark Twain House for good scans - $15 Jeff.Mainville@marktwainhouse.org
Permission slips for books - challenging book, we encourage you to read the book with your child
Oral History - one library is doing a local history project by taking oral histories - thought this is a great idea since we received the grant for local history
Read the book out loud
How to sell the book to adults - one man was concerned that Tom Sawyer wouldn’t appeal to his adult audience - impress upon them the importance of Mark Twain’s literature
Create a backdrop of Tom and Becky - kids and adults can stick their heads in the empty slots where the heads would be
Life size poster of Mark Twain at guildcraft
Reconvened at 2pm for a wrap up and film Conversation with Rudolfo Anaya which is really good. We came back with a lot of great ideas!
Tuesday, April 16th 3pm - 9pm
670 attendees, 269 cities are participating this year.
The first day’s orientation consisted of Grants and Program Management, Education and Promotional Materials, and miscellaneous contact information: arts.blog.bigread.com, hotline 612-238-8010, thebigread@artsmidwest.org.
We had dinner (chicken with some weird cheesy stuff on the top that we all scraped off in order to eat the chicken) then a keynote speech by Tim O’Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, which is one of the Big Read selections. He told us about watching his son disappear into the ocean and I didn’t know if that was true or not. He recounted his childhood girlfriend’s dying from a brain tumor, and the death of his father, so I left feeling a bit depressed.
Wednesday, April 17
Successful Community Partnerships:
Public Officials - let them pick the event they want to attend; work around their schedule
Programs off site - film festivals, writing workshops, panel discussions
Nature center - Call of the Wild kickoff at local Nature center
Community College - professor did lectures about book
Senior Center - book discussions, birds of prey program
Boy Scouts
Camping Trips
Senior Assistant Centers - cross collaboration with high school readers
See page 15 -16 for additional resources
Managing Public and Media Relations
Political and elected officials on board - be aware of election cycle
Create a timeline
Daily Newspaper - recruit editor for Big Read team, articles
Wrap buses with advertisements for Big Read
Hold monthly meetings with team
Book Clubs and reading groups - get the word out and solicit readers to join
Website - online trivia contest, teasers
Partners who do their own advertising - make sure they use Big Read logo
Licensing - if people read from the book and are videotaped - can’t do that
Face book page
Have publicity photos ready to go, contact info. Ready to go
Video promotion - be aware of what message you’re sending out. One had high schoolers doing a Jeopardy type game and nobody knew the answers
Photos - have signed releases, announce at programs that photos may be used for publication - tacit permission
Letters to the editor - encourage people to write letters if they enjoyed program, work with editors
Public service announcements - buy a block of ad time, if they run ours for free, have contests for high schoolers to create a psa, most effective are psa’s with local people, community based
Look for ideas on You tube - look up Big Read
Involving and Working with Schools
Artistic connections - exhibits with school art projects, photography
What worked: giving away copies of book with readers guide, Tableing - going into high schools cafeteria and setting up a table with free books and info.
What didn’t work: film contest
What worked:
Contact schools earlier the better - be clear to administrators what is in it for them and their students - first contact administrators, attend regional meetings, work with teachers
Lesson plan - approaching schools
Create PowerPoint, meet with teams of teachers, give them book bags or t-shirts
Customize the Big Read banners - a printer can apply removable stuff that you can use a blow dryer to remove
Junior college, private schools, reluctant readers, extra credit activities, work with school curriculum
What didn’t work: timing of their program
Elementary school:
Family reading nights
High schoolers help out
Abridged versions of book
Mark Twain impersonator
One act play
Art project - lumberyard donated pieces of fence which were given to schools to decorate illustrating the themes from the book, then displayed at their Tom Sawyer Day festival - ice cream social, music, hay rides, watermelon spitting contest, fishing
Reluctant readers
5 session book club - receive prize for reading
Use retirees
Newspapers: use a question from the Readers guide and ask for an adult response and a kids response and post them so you can see each group responded.
Involve home schools - associations or cooperative groups
Programming Discussion
Mock funeral - “Bury Illiteracy” - hearse, with lots of food and music - Alabama contingent
Get ideas from Teen Advisory Council
Family picnic, parades, contests on a lake or river
Read it Forward - book has a sticker with library’s blog information and left at various places - next time someone travels leave Bless Me Ultima and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in the waiting room
Bobby Horton - composer of Ken Burns documentary will conduct symphony for a couple of thousand - let’s check him out
One act plays - 45 min. play with kids as the actors - script from Colin Cox - I’ll email him
Toddler versions of books - “Danger in the Graveyard”
Family friendly - Little Read and Littlest Read - guess we weren’t the first ones to do a Little Read
Senior Centers - read chapters from book
Original illustrations in public domain. Contact Mark Twain House for good scans - $15 Jeff.Mainville@marktwainhouse.org
Permission slips for books - challenging book, we encourage you to read the book with your child
Oral History - one library is doing a local history project by taking oral histories - thought this is a great idea since we received the grant for local history
Read the book out loud
How to sell the book to adults - one man was concerned that Tom Sawyer wouldn’t appeal to his adult audience - impress upon them the importance of Mark Twain’s literature
Create a backdrop of Tom and Becky - kids and adults can stick their heads in the empty slots where the heads would be
Life size poster of Mark Twain at guildcraft
Reconvened at 2pm for a wrap up and film Conversation with Rudolfo Anaya which is really good. We came back with a lot of great ideas!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
More museum photos
State Capitol of Minnesota
Big Read Orientation begins
Today at 3 pm, the Big Read Orientation began, with over 650 Big Read grantees all arriving at the Minneapolis Hilton. The event kicked off with everyone picking up their orientation packets. When we went to get our packets, Christine Taylor, the Arts Midwest Program Director saw Karye and me and told us that we "threw them for a loop" when we applied for 2 Big Read grants. She said they went through all the grant fine print and couldn't find anything that said we couldn't do that, and they had to approve it. I told her that one Big Read grant just wasn't enough.....
During the orientation opening, there was a short welcome by David Kipen, NEA National Reading Initiatives Director. Next, Christine Taylor talked about Grant & Program Management and Materials Distribution.
The meeting adjourned at 5:15 pm and picked up again at 6 pm for the dinner and program. Tables were organized by book titles, so Margaret and I sat with other "Adventures of Tom Sawyer" people, while Karye and Linda were at a "Bless Me, Ultima" table. After we sat down, the waiter came over and opened up our cloth napkins and threw them in our laps (I think they were in a hurry to serve us), while a waitress spooned tiny amounts of salad dressing onto our salads for us. Next, they served us plates with chicken breast with melted cheese on top (I scraped off the cheese, yuck), angel hair pasta with chopped green and red pepper and green beans. For dessert, I had a piece of lemon chiffon cake and Margaret had a slice of chocolate mousse cake.
After dinner, David Kipen spoke again and gave a fun presentation showing how all the Big Read authors were somehow connected (think the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon). Next, keynote speaker Tim O'Brien (author of The Things They Carried, one of the newest Big Read titles) talked about how he gets his ideas and how he is so thankful for all the work librarians do for the Big Read. He shared some thought-provoking anecdotes and answered some questions from the audience, followed by a book signing. It was getting late, so we all trooped off to print out our boarding passes for our flights tomorrow.
The agenda for Wed is customized according to book title, so Margaret and I will start at 8:30 am with a break-out session on Successful Community Partnerships. We'll also attend presentations on Managing Public & Media Relations, Involving & Working with Schools, Permissions & Working with Publishers, and a discussion of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer programming ideas. At 2 pm, we'll reconvene with a presentation on The Big Read: Research & Evalution, the Big Read film called A Conversation with Rudolfo Anaya and a wrap-up with David Kipen and Christine Taylor. Whew! Then we'll leave for the airport and our 5:55 pm flight to Phoenix and then Ontario!
During the orientation opening, there was a short welcome by David Kipen, NEA National Reading Initiatives Director. Next, Christine Taylor talked about Grant & Program Management and Materials Distribution.
The meeting adjourned at 5:15 pm and picked up again at 6 pm for the dinner and program. Tables were organized by book titles, so Margaret and I sat with other "Adventures of Tom Sawyer" people, while Karye and Linda were at a "Bless Me, Ultima" table. After we sat down, the waiter came over and opened up our cloth napkins and threw them in our laps (I think they were in a hurry to serve us), while a waitress spooned tiny amounts of salad dressing onto our salads for us. Next, they served us plates with chicken breast with melted cheese on top (I scraped off the cheese, yuck), angel hair pasta with chopped green and red pepper and green beans. For dessert, I had a piece of lemon chiffon cake and Margaret had a slice of chocolate mousse cake.
After dinner, David Kipen spoke again and gave a fun presentation showing how all the Big Read authors were somehow connected (think the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon). Next, keynote speaker Tim O'Brien (author of The Things They Carried, one of the newest Big Read titles) talked about how he gets his ideas and how he is so thankful for all the work librarians do for the Big Read. He shared some thought-provoking anecdotes and answered some questions from the audience, followed by a book signing. It was getting late, so we all trooped off to print out our boarding passes for our flights tomorrow.
The agenda for Wed is customized according to book title, so Margaret and I will start at 8:30 am with a break-out session on Successful Community Partnerships. We'll also attend presentations on Managing Public & Media Relations, Involving & Working with Schools, Permissions & Working with Publishers, and a discussion of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer programming ideas. At 2 pm, we'll reconvene with a presentation on The Big Read: Research & Evalution, the Big Read film called A Conversation with Rudolfo Anaya and a wrap-up with David Kipen and Christine Taylor. Whew! Then we'll leave for the airport and our 5:55 pm flight to Phoenix and then Ontario!
Hmmmm.......
What do you think of this? After we got back from the museum, Linda, Karye and I were browsing in a store called "Made in Minnesota." A young African American man came in while we were there and asked the clerk if they were hiring. She told him no. When we left the store, Linda pointed out that there was a sign in the front window that said "Salespeople wanted." Food for thought.
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