BROOKLYN PROSPECT LIBRARY - BROOKLYN MAGPIE

How to read more...

6/1/2018

Here are 8 things I thought were worth sharing:

1. Bill Gates recommends these 5 books for your summer reading.

2. The Great American Read = between now and October 18th, help our country vote for its favorite book!

3. The Ninth Annual New York Times Summer Reading Contest begins on June 15th! Check here starting then and learn now you can be one of the teens from around the world that get published in the New York Times!

4. 30 Best Book Engines to Find Your Perfect Summer Read!

5. Check out the summer reading put together by the following publications & blogs:
16 Books to Read This Summer (Town & Country)
Summer Reading 2018 (Brooklyn Public Library)
The 20 Smart Books You’ll Want to Read at the Beach This Summer (Esquire)
The Best Nonfiction Books of 2018 (So Far) (Esquire)
The Ultimate YA Summer Reading List - 2018 Edition (Brightly)
The Best Books of 2018 (So Far) (Real Simple)
Summer Reads 2018 (Publishers Weekly)
What We’re Reading This Summer (The Atlantic)
The 39 Books We’re Talking About This Summer (The Washington Post)
The Best Summer Beach Reads of Summer 2018 (The Daily Beast)
The 100 Stories That Shaped the World (BBC)
10 Dark Thrillers to Read in the Sunshine (Publishers Weekly)

6. A free app to help teens, parents, librarians and library staff, educators, and anyone who loves YA literature access nearly 4,000 titles recognized YALSA's awards and lists on their smartphone? Yes, please!

7. As part of Summer Reading at New York Libraries, the State Education Department and myON are partnering to bring thousands of enhanced digital books to children from birth through 8th grade and their families all around the state! Click here for more information and login details!

8. Can’t get out of town this summer? The BBC has you covered!

Listen Up!

5/1/2018

Here are 9 things I thought were worth sharing:

Sync is a free summer audiobook program for teens 13+ that runs from April 26th-July 25th, and provides two free book downloads every week via the free Overdrive app. Get listening today!
Here’s a round-up of podcasts for anyone interested in YA literature: Teen Creeps, First Draft, 88 Cups of Tea, Text Messages (archive only), Put a Blurb on It, Cast of Wonders, and HEY YA.
Here are some not-to-be-missed podcasts about books that can help to get you primed for summer reading: The Book Review (NYTimes), So Many Damn Books, Lit Up, and Fiction Podcast (The New Yorker).
After having books “talk” to you via audiobooks, take an opportunity to talk back to them! Google recently launched “Talk to Books”, which allows browsers to use natural language searches and AI to allow books to “talk back” to your query with related passages.
The BBC Archive has been busy collecting over 16,000 sound effects for you to use in your teaching or in your life!
World Resources Institute and more than 30 partners just launched Resource Watch, a platform that provides trusted and timely data for a sustainable future. It leverages technology and near-real-time data to bring much-needed transparency on the state of the planet’s people, resources and commerce all in one place. Great resource for all science teachers and students!
“The Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents.” Now it’s all online (March 1936-now) and accessible to everyone! Great for teachers or student researching US history!
Playing around with how you want your designs and presentations to look? Try wordmark.It and see what your words will look like in hundreds of different fonts!
Don’t forget that we subscribe to JStor!! They don’t forget the major role they play in providing resources for secondary and post-secondary students and teachers, and add publications to their database each month. Take a look at the publications they’ve added over the last 15 months (under “Recently added journal content”) and don’t forget to check JStor first when you need to research!

Poetry is...

4/6/2018

Here are 11 things I thought were worth sharing:

Carl Sandburg had more than a few definitions of poetry. Choose your favorite!
We’re a few days into National Poetry Month, so let’s spread the love to ourselves and our students! Here are 30 ways to celebrate that will help us do that!
PBS has been working on their series “Poetry in America” for years, so set your DVRs to tape all the episodes, and click here for their educational support materials.
Here are 22 Ways to Teach and Learn about Poetry with The New York Times.
Poem in Your Pocket Day is April 26th, and BPCS will be celebrating along with the rest of the country. Here are some poems put together for that day by several national and international poetry organizations, so you can get ready to stuff your pockets on the big day!
Help your students create blackout poetry, and enjoy the classroom-friendly poetry videos that Button Poetry has collected for you.
Have your students watch high school students from around the country strut their poetry stuff in Poetry Out Loud videos.
Some clever people are discovering haiku poems within stories in The New York Times.
Teachers from around the country share their tips on bringing poetry into their students’ lives.
Sign up to receive a Poem-A-Day in your inbox.
A glass-walled cathedral to poetry, Poet’s House on the Hudson River is a must-visit, especially in the spring or summer. They have plenty of events, and one of these days I’m going to sign up for their annual fundraiser: The Poetry Walk Across the Brooklyn Bridge!

Fall in love with the world again...

3/2/2018

Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing:

1. Start by listening to live-streaming radio stations, in real time, from across the globe via Radio Garden! Who knew American Country Music had dug in its heels in the UK? Follow that by checking out Words Without Borders or World Literature Today, or The United States Board on Books for Young People (the US arm of the International Board on Books for Young People) for the latest in international literature!
2. Need to research something on a more local level? Then check out the newly-created State Archives page on the library website.
3. From now through the end of 2018, JSTOR is providing FREE access to 3,200 scholarly titles from five publishers: Fordham University Press, University of Hawaii Press, University of Illinois Press, University of Michigan Press, and University Press of Colorado. This high quality, peer-reviewed content offers in-depth scholarship, including context that helps students who are just beginning to learn about a topic. This set of titles covers 40 disciplines, including History, Language & Literature, and Political Science. Go here to download the spreadsheet of titles, scroll to the far right for the URLs, and then the access is all yours! Let me know if you need any help accessing these books.
4. In every episode of the LeVar Burton Reads podcast, host LeVar Burton (Reading Rainbow, Star Trek, Roots) hand-picks a different piece of short fiction, and reads it to you. Enough said.
5. I told you this last year at the same time: everyone needs a Book Concierge. Still true!
6. A free computer literacy course, from Google, designed to prepare learners for a growing number of jobs that require basic digital skills.
7. Want to be happier? Then take Yale's most popular course, free online!
8. The kids are all right. In many ways, especially now. Here's a creative exercise that 50 of them did, connecting classic texts to stories from the New York Times...
9. Facing History's 2018 Student Essay Contest is here, and there is $25,000 on the table for the winners! The contest ends March 28th, so get cracking!
10. Did you know that Teaching Tolerance had a searchable library of leveled texts all ready for you to use?

Get out. Of Town!

11/29/2017

Here are 6 things I thought were worth sharing:

Get out of town next summer for free and learn new content and skills in the process!
The Library of Congress opened in 1800, but they're certainly not stuck in the past! Check out the three new apps for students & teachers they just released: Eagle Eye Citizen, Engaging Congress (only available on iOs and not Androids), and Kid Citizen.
Follow the "New Sentences" column from the New York Times and fall in love again with teaching writing to your students.
Google Scholar recently updated their User Interface. Click here to see how they made it easier for us to use!
Biodiversity is King, and now we can view more than 2 million images of our planet's richness through the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
If you're not following JSTOR Daily on social media, you should be! Since 2014, JSTOR's outreach team "has published more than 2,500 open articles that address current affairs and link back to academic content on JSTOR for context and insight." Perfect for use in the classroom!

Be more fun at parties!

11/7/2017

Here are 9 things I thought were worth sharing...

Want to be more fun at parties AND add to your resume? Consider taking a free online course from some of the top universities in the world!!
Looking to spice up your lessons? Let TED-Ed help!
13.8 billion years of history. Free. Online. Awesome. BigHistoryProject for the win!
There is a LOT going on in our world right now. Let the New York Times help you teach current events like a boss!
Want to be able to "teach financial education, STEM exploration, social-emotional learning, wellness, and career preparedness"? Then try EverFi for free and help our students gain some really important life skills!
The Brooklyn Public Library is really bringing it! Sign up today for their Open Book newsletter for educators, enroll in their new free Teacher Lab online continuing education program, and spread the word about the new Bard Microcollege that will soon begin classes at BPL Central!
Whenever you can, piggyback on the amazing PD opportunities offered by the DOE. It is updated regularly, so check back often!
Think you can tell the difference between real and fake news? Prove it!
Want to save time when you give feedback on the students' Google docs? Use CheckMark.

Fall into Reading in the Fall!

10/4/2017

Here are 8 things I thought were worth sharing...

1. The National Book Award Finalists were announced today! Our library has copies of all of the books in the Young People’s Literature category, so come by and check them out!
2. What do you think binds all the people of the world together? Set this 6-part series to tape (premieres on October 11th) so you can watch Morgan Freeman travel the world attempting to answer that question!
3. Have you been as captivated as I’ve been watching those Grammarly ads on YouTube? Well now perfect grammar and awesome writing skills can be yours by adding Grammarly as a free Chrome Extension! There is a paid version with more bells and whistles, but the free version is really helpful!
4. When NPR and Pearson get together, listen up! They’ve created Listenwise, a FREE award-winning listening skills platform, built on current events, that will aid literacy & student success!
5. GIF-creators, stand up! The international GIF IT UP competition (only open from October 1-31) is perfect for lovers of history, technology, and innovation!
6. We aren’t just limited to our local (awesome) library system, we can also access the Digital Public Library of America! Check out the Primary Sets that they put together on a regular basis and add the contents to your lessons!
7. A free technology curriculum from Google? Yes, please! These 13 lessons (each with multiple lessons and activities) will give you and your high school students practical digital tools to deal with the real world!
8. Want an interactive way to assess your students’ information literacy? Try TRAILS from Kent State Libraries. They’ve created “a knowledge assessment with multiple-choice questions targeting a variety of information literacy skills based on 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th grade standards.”

I'VE MISSED YOU!!

8/23/2017

Here are 9 things I thought were worth sharing:

1. Have you checked out The Internet Archive lately? It "is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more." Sit back, relax, and get lost in an ocean of fascinating content!!
2. School Library Journal recently released a crowd-of-librarians-sourced list of the Top 100 Must-Have Young Adult Books. We already have most of these in our Library, so be sure and stop by to check them out!
3. This bears repeating: If you don't have one, GET A LIBRARY CARD ALREADY! The Brooklyn Public Library recently redesigned their website, and it's awesome. Take a look at all of the Learning Resources they have, free with an active library card!
4. Would you love to get a grant to take your students on a field trip? Then apply for a Target Field Trip Grant today! Each grant is worth up to $700, and the entry deadline is October 1st.
5. If it's September, it's Brooklyn Book Festival time!! The festival will run from September 11-17, with the Children's Day on September 16th and the Festival Day & Literary Marketplace on September 17th. Go see hundreds of world-famous authors, buy amazing books, and hang out with your fellow readers!
6. Five Books is a great new readers advisory site that collects the top five book picks from authors who know what they're talking about!
7. It's time for Scholastic Writing Awards again! Begun in 1923, it is the nation's longest-running writing and artistic competition for young people. The competition opens on September 13th, so be sure to tell your students to enter. "Through the Scholastic Awards, teens in grades 7–12 from public, private, or home schools can apply in 29 categories of art and writing for their chance to earn scholarships and have their works exhibited and published."
8. Not sure if you heard the big news lately, but both BPL and NYPL now subscribe to Kanopy so you don't have to. This educational movie streaming service has over 26,000 fascinating movies and documentaries ready for you and your students to watch. Once you connect via either your NYPL or BPL card, you will be able to watch up to 6 films per month. Once you begin a movie, you have 3 days to finish it, and you can also watch on your smartphone. Move over, Netflix!!
9. Don't forget to check in with the New York Times' Learning Network when the school year begins. It is full of activities, lesson plans, writing prompts, and contests for your students to enter!

A Library Welcome to new faculty & Welcome Back to everyone else!

Summer Reading is my religion!

6/15/2017

Here are 11 things I thought were worth sharing:

Beginning tomorrow (June 16th), the Eighth Annual New York Times Summer Reading Contest is back! Tell your students aged 13-19 about it, and they might just be one of the weekly winners!
Summer Reading is the best kind of reading! Here is NYPL's list for adults. The BPL has the same list, just with pretty covers! Here are a few more: Harper's Bazaar, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, and PBS.
Are you a Big Picture kind of person? If so, check out The Condition of Education 2017.
Looking for some high-test summer reading? Check out this list of 50 recommended books from recent TED Talkers.
Another great resource perfect for ELL students & their teachers!
This really cool nonprofit marries psychology and art, and helps train art and other teachers to teach students how to see things differently...
Here is a great project that will help hone your students' visual literacy skills when they come back in September!
A lot of documents are being written in the White House now, and a lot have been written there in the past! This database will help you sort through them!
Want a daily list of free and almost-free things to do, see, and eat in NYC? Done.
Love Spotify? Love free classic audiobooks? Click here to find how you can find the second inside of the first!
Consider supplementing one of your courses next year with a free openly-licensed textbook.

HAPPY SUMMER & HAPPY READING, EVERYONE!

Prose is walking. Poetry is flying.

4/20/2017

Here are 9 things I thought were worth sharing:

1. April is National Poetry Month, and next week on April 27th, our middle school will be celebrating National Poem in Your Pocket Day! Stay tuned for more details!
2. Have a ton of cookbooks that you love but never end up using? Download Eat Your Books for free and start using all the recipes that you already have.
3. YALSA has created a free Teen Book Finder database that will help you and your students find your next YA read.
4. We haven’t left you out, Middle Grade Readers! Here is a new tool to help you find your next middle grade book!
5. Can’t draw a simple figure to save your life? Join the club. Google has created a new tool to help us artistically-impaired folks. I’ve used it, and it’s amazing!
6. Who knew that our government had an online bookstore? It features hundreds of interesting books and e-books from all government departments, and sometimes their books & e-books are even free!
7. Don’t you hate it when you or one of your students finds a perfect scholarly article and then you hit a paywall? Add a Chrome extension for this magic tool and access that article for free!
8. The Nature Booklist Project is great new database that helps students and their teachers find just the right fiction and nonfiction book on many different scientific topics.
9. Check out the brand-new USAFacts for a “data-driven portrait of the American population, our government’s finances, and government’s impact on society.”