Question?

Is there any way to show how many people participated each month. Smaller libraries won't stand a chance against the bigger libraries. Plus, what about each library maybe posting the person with the most books or pages read?

The QuickWitlitniks of Springfield-Greene

Total books read: 150

Total pages read: 45,883


Is that Queen we hear playing in the background?

Librarian Celebrities - this is how it should be

Changes afoot at UCPL.  Our little place is getting some press!

http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/metro/life/article_8ad33115-d9b6-5967-b8fb-dc9e822866a7.html

Joplin Public Library

January Totals

94 Books Read

19,217 pages

University City Public Library

January Team Totals

Books: 89
Pages: 26,182

Winner for favorite post is Nate for his take on Scott Pilgrim

Marshall Libraries United

January 2011

Team Totals
Books: 55
Pages: 17,267
Time: 136 hours, 57 minutes

(amended on Feb. 3 when I had reason to double-check my figures. Sorry!)

Introducing Team UCPL Captain Annie!

Annie is our sweetest librarian. She is helpful to all and friendly to a fault. Her favorite reads usually include zombies, vampires and serial killers. She is our team captain this year. Last year, recruiting could be difficult for the UCPL Book Challenge. Here is a typical interaction:

Annie has taken a whole new direction when it comes to recruiting. Here’s how it goes now:

I figured people would have a harder time telling her “no” but I didn’t imagine that “no” would never even come up. Annie really knows how to motivate people! I think she will take our team to a whole new level. Also, welcome to the team Andrew. I sure hope you meet the goals Annie set for you.

So many teams but still room for more

Wow, look at us go!  The competitive instinct is alive and well in libraries around the state.  As I write this, 11 teams are aggressively blogging for the fame and glory which will inevitably be bestowed on the winners.  When we are leg wrestling (or other tie breaking method that you can vote for or suggest in our scoring survey) to break the fated tie at the end of the year, we will be sure to charge admission…money that will be added to the final winnings.

So, are you lurking on the sidelines?  Time to join up.  How can you miss out on these good times? You can get a team together faster than a flash mob (and how long have I been waiting for an excuse to use “flash mob” in a sentence?).  Even the aged among us haven’t forgotten what we have read so far in 2011.  Unless, of course, you are too scared of the competition.  Are your library employees/coworkers not displaying the mettle needed to be a part of this?  Don’t let fear rule your year…follow us into the fray.

The Next Step

Oh my, the time does fly.  Looks like we are ready to start and what a great set of teams we have assembled here.  Many have active blogs now and are getting into the groove.  Maybe it is time to make up some rules.  So far, the only rule is that this contest starts January 1, 2011.  The only reading that counts is what you do in 2011, you can’t blog about books you read in High School and get credit for them.   I guess that about does it for rules unless you can think of something else.

Now onto our bigger issue:  How are we going to figure out who won this thing?  We have been thinking about and talking a lot about this subject.  We want scoring to be done in such a way that it encourages reading and participation.  We want the system to be objective and fair and reflect the values of the ancient Olympic Games or any other top flight event.  We examined scoring for a variety of team competitions in real life and what we came up with is…Why on earth should this be OUR responsibility?   To that end, please click on the survey and vote for the factors YOU think should be included in scoring. 

Click here for survey

One last thing:  Every team has at least one person who is an “author” on this blog.  We invite any other participants to become authors too.  Just send an email to: mobookchallenge@gmail.com to add them.  This blog is here to direct people to YOUR blog but we can also use it to keep each other informed of our progress, post a good review, introduce your team, issue team to team challenges, brag, anything you want.

Answers to questions you haven’t asked yet.

Why should I do this? We have found that our competition has improved our reader’s advisory skills.  It is clearer whom to go to with specific questions about some genres and authors.  Even though we always talked about books a lot before, now everyone knows who our “specialist” in certain areas is and that is helpful.  We also are getting our social networking requirement here.  As we mentioned in our presentation, we have noticed some library blogs (all in other states of course) that exist but haven’t had a post in six months.  Well, you can’t really even count that as having a blog, can you?  Our blog has also made our staff picks newsletter easier to put together because there is the copy and paste possibility instead of generating all new content.  Displays are easier too…you can look through the blog and come up with ideas. Plus our favorite reason, it is FUN.

What if RA isn't part of my job? Karen Robinson famously said during a class I took from her, “My friends and family don’t care what I do all day; they expect me to recommend books to them.”  So really it isn’t all about your job, it is about the joys of librarianship.   If you aren’t providing this service now, maybe you should start.  After all, keeping your bosses reading gives them less time to cut your budget.  Also, you never know when your job might change or you might change jobs.  Something like this could give you a leg up if you artfully include it on your resume.

My boss says no – well everybody can’t have “vision” but don’t let that stop you.  You can “go rogue” and set up a blog that isn’t affiliated with your library.  You can even put a disclaimer on your “personal” blog that states “this blog is not affiliated with ‘your library name here’” just to be sure there is no question about you following your leadership.  You can also tell us your boss’s name so we can make fun of him/her on OUR blogs.

This sounds like a lot of work.  We like to think of ourselves as the masters of work minimization but someone does have to get the blog going and the team will have to read and write about what they read.  I’ve been posting monthly book and page totals on our blog but people mostly keep track of their own totals and email them for me (with a few exceptions).  Since you are designing your own competition, keep in mind the amount of administrative tasks you are signing on for as you get creative.  I can’t emphasize enough the need for you to make CLEAR to your team that they have to keep track of their own reading.  After all, isn’t that why spreadsheets were created?

As for the team competition with the Missouri Book Challenge, the purpose of this blog is to keep us posted on your progress.  You can interpret that anyway you want to.  There is no requirement that you post anything here but in the end, you will have to provide totals.

You keep saying it is fun but I’m a fun hater.  Well, you got us here, maybe you should try therapy.