Bibliocycle

More rain this morning.  The roads were again flooded.  The traffic is very light in the morning, because the whole day is shifted later.  The shops don’t open until 11, and most people eat dinner at 8:30 or 9:00pm.  There was little conversation in the car on the way to the campus.  We are all tired today.  When I arrived at the AKES office to print handouts for today’s activities, it was impossible because there was no electricity.  Our dinner tonight has been cancelled because of flooded road.

Today in the seminar we completed our exercise “Search Engine Showdown.”  The winner was Alltheweb.com.  Next we considered the importance of reading to academic achievement, and the reasons that reading (and literacy) is declining.  The participants shared their best strategies for promoting reading in their schools, and I offered some suggestions.  Together we produced a plan.  In the afternoon we discussed the need to market the library’s programs and services.  We identified all of the stakeholders, and decided to focus on marketing the library to teachers.  Librarians at each school listed all of the services and resources that they are currently providing to teachers, and the teachers made a ”wish list” of services they would like to receive from the libraries.  After the teachers reviewed their list, I showed a model brochure to the teams and they customized it.  Each group produced a mock-up of a brochure that they will actually use. 

This was a very productive day.  There was lots of laughter (I need to learn Urdu to understand the jokes!) but also lots of work.  I think that what we did today was really significant.