Librarians' Corner News - Apr 2025

Okay, fellow book-wranglers 📚, let's talk about the reading magic 🧙 you're all making happen! The buzz 🐝 you're creating around books is AMAZING. Keep those recommendations coming and help your students explore new adventures! 🌻 Let's reach our goal of 12,000,000 reading minutes this school year!

Congratulations to the following schools for being selected as the lucky prize drawing winners for a FREE AUTHOR VISIT by Sean Petrie!!! Schools with at least 75% participation in the Great Escape Reading Challenge between August 1, 2024 thru March 14, 2025 were entered into the drawing.

Please put your hands together for:

• ʻĀhuimanu Elementary, Librarian Elodie Arellano
• ʻEwa Beach Elementary, Librarian Susan Nakasone
• Hoʻokele Elementary, Librarian Angela Ramey
• Kailua Elementary, Librarian Darren Tanaka
• Kaimukī Middle, Librarian Dianne Pang
• Major Sheldon Wheeler Elementary, Librarian Miko Sanico
• Mililani Waena Elementary, Librarian Dori Seatriz
• Waiāhole Elementary, Librarian Selena Mobbs

Mr. Petrie will be visiting these schools in August 2025.

A big shoutout to Ho‘okele Elementary School and Librarian Angela Ramey for placing Honorable Mention in Beanstackʻs 2025 Winter Reading Challenge: Be a Reading Machine, sponsored by Baker & Taylor. Winners were determined based on a few factors:

• Overall Participation: The number of readers registered + active throughout the challenge relative to the school size.
• Total Minutes/Books Logged: How much reading was logged during the challenge relative to the school size.
• Community Engagement: How the school engaged with the community throughout the challenge via various social channels.

Hoʻokele Elementary will be receiving five signed books to use as special giveaway prizes. Congratulations to Hoʻokele Elementary!

Continue to encourage your students to log their reading in Beanstack! Our goal for the 2024-2025 school year is to reach 12 million reading minutes!!! Check out the list of top performing schools for Quarter 3! We had 5,090 readers at 117 schools who logged 2,649,842 minutes of reading! Way to go!!! Let's keep logging those minutes!

Check out the list of Sora top circulating schools and titles for Quarter 3! We had 189,907 checkouts between January 1, 2025 and March 20, 2025!

Please feel free to register for the upcoming LS2 webinars provided by TLC (The Library Corporation).

April 1, 2025 | 7:00 am HST

Topic: Customizing LS2 PAC Title Details Page

Description: Join our Training team for an informative webinar on how to customize the Title Details page in LS2 PAC. In this session, you will learn how to:

• Add and edit display fields
• Remove display names
• Change the order of MARC record fields

**LS2 Admin access is needed.
Registration: Register here

April 22, 2025 | 7:00 am HST

Topic: Inventorying your Library

Description: It’s time for spring cleaning! If you haven’t run an inventory for a while, join us for this webinar to learn how the inventory process works. This session will guide you through the necessary steps to get your library’s inventory up to date.

**LS2 Cataloging is needed.
Registration: Register here

April 29, 2025 | 7:00 am HST

Topic: End-of-Year Tasks for Schools

Description: Are you a school librarian or school library administrator? While the end of the school year is still a few months away, it’s quickly approaching. Join the Training team for this webinar, which will cover a few reminders of important tasks to start thinking about as you prepare for the final stretch. This webinar will cover the end-of-year tasks in detail and discuss how TLC School Support can help you get ready for a smooth end-of-year wrap-up!

Registration: Register here

Check out this month's featured titles selected by our very own Hawaiʻi librarians!

Go to: https://soraapp.com/ to get started.

Submit your proposal today to present at the 2025 Hawaii School Library Conference scheduled for August 7 & 8, 2025! We invite you to submit a session proposal that inspires fresh ideas and innovative approaches to reimagining school libraries. Share how you are refreshing library programs, spaces, and practices to meet the changing needs of students and educators.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

📚 Revitalizing Literacy and Reading Programs

💡 Innovative Technology and Digital Tools

🔍 Reimagining Research and Inquiry-Based Learning

📖 Creative Collection Development and Curation

🎓 Leadership and Professional Growth

Join us in shaping the future of school libraries!

Bookelicious is sponsoring a virtual author visit with Kealani Netane on Monday, May 12, 2025 at 10 am HST! Kealani will be sharing her book, Tala Learns to Siva! Recommended for Grades K-4 (but any age students are welcome!)

Title/Author: Tala Learns to Siva, Kealani Netane

Date: Monday, May 12, 2025 @ 10:00 a.m.

Cost: $149 per school

Registration and Payment Deadline: You must register by April 15, 2025 to ensure your books are shipped in time for the event. However, registration will remain open until the event date.

Registration includes:

• Virtual author event for your school!
• Five (5) hardcover copies of the book
• Engaging & interactive presentation with a Native Hawaiian and Samoan author
• Recording available for 30 days
• Spotlight Schools appear live to ask questions of the author + Q&A box open to all attendees
• Impactful, positive literacy experience that supports reading joy & skills development

Register now for the 2025 Hawaiʻi School Library Conference, “Reimagine and Refresh” on August 7-8, 2025 (Thursday-Friday) from 7:30am to 3:30pm at the Prince Waikiki Hotel!

The purpose of the conference is to equip school librarians and staff with skills and knowledge to provide effective and engaging library programs and resources. Participants will develop their personal learning networks by sharing stories, experiences and questions to learn from each other.

We are excited to share this visual book list for the 2026 Nēnē Award nominees, created by ‘Āina Haina Elementary Librarian, Shelley Lau. Thank you, Shelley, for providing such a valuable resource for our librarians!

And guess what? You can find all these titles on Sora today! Click on the link below to access the collection in Sora!

Empower your teachers and students to track their reading! Use this flyer to show them how to find their minutes in Sora so they can log them in Beanstack. It's perfect for printing or adding to your library's website.

Share your favorite library hack, shortcut, or time-saving trick with your fellow librarians! Submit your tip using the link below for a chance to be featured in our next newsletter!

OR...if you would like to learn more about how other librarians do certain things in their libraries, submit your suggestions using the link below and we will do our best to feature tips/tricks that answer your questions!