Author Archives: Ms O'Neill

About Ms O'Neill

School librarian at Lourdes Secondary and St Margaret Mary's Secondary/St Oswald's Secondary.

The Haunted Library

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Halloween is Ms O’Neill’s absolute favourite holiday, so every year the Lourdes Secondary Library appears to get a little more spooky! This year saw the arrival of a new Library Assistant, who was very excited about their new job as they headed over on the bus, and generally started well, but does occasionally steal the Librarian’s coffee cup (an ill-advised choice, usually).In other news, the senior Library minions Jack (as part of his Caritas work) and Rene did an excellent job decorating the Library. The Halloween tree was a mass of cobwebs, pumpkins, with a random skeletal arm, and a skeleton fairy on the top.

The pupils have been doing a great job creating potions, spells, and other witchy resources to be added to the Library Grimoire. S4 minion Rene created a wonderfully artistic display of spell ingredients and witchy blank pages for pupils to create their own spells, potions, and general witchy shenanigans. More on those in a future blog post!

 

 

 

 

Celebrating pupil book displays

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February and March have given the Library minions many opportunities to create some wonderful book displays.

S4 Rene and some friends kicked things of with a Valentine’s day display, complete with red and pink confetti.

To say farewell to their favourite TV series, Our Flag Means Death, S6 pupils Lucy and Scarlett created a celebration of all things pirate (yaaar). We mourn the cancellation of the show; it had such potential. We can commemorate its demise by honouring the Pirates Code, some tenets of which feature in the book display.

February was LGBT+ History Month, celebrating the work LGBT+ people have done in the field of medicine, with the hashtag #UnderTheScope. The Library book display was more of a general celebration of LGBTQ+ people’s presence and achievements, but identified a need to seek out more books about their work in the medical field.

In March, S6 Molly took on the job of creating a book display to celebrate International Women’s Day, with the input of the latest additions to the cohort of Library Minions, S1 Julia and S3 Will.

S6 volunteers Mariam and Melissa put together this year’s World Book Day display, including stories set in different parts of the world, and non-fiction about the wide variety of cultures, food, art, festivals, religions, history and so on around the world. There’s a lot to find out about!

The Library noticeboard on the ground floor – a new addition to the Library Kingdom – is also getting busier and brighter, with lots of new notices, particularly about World Book Day. Don’t forget to look at it when you’re going past to find out what’s going on at the Library!

Not scared of dolls? These books could help you with that…

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Among the latest delivery of books to arrive at St Margaret Mary’s and St Oswald’s Library were several titles from the Red Eye horror series published by Little Tiger. Alex Bell’s two books Frozen Charlotte and Charlotte Says have proven very popular with pupils who are always asking for more horror. The two stories are built around a collection of dolls known as Frozen Charlottes and their decidedly creepy presence at Dunvegan House on the Isle of Skye, in the present day (in Frozen Charlotte) and in Victorian times (in the prequel Charlotte Says).

Now Charlotte says to me that I should write this post recommending further books about scary dolls.  Have a look at the titles below; they’re all available to borrow from the school library and/or from the Libby app (available on your iPad and on smartphones). Come and see me for help in setting up the app if you don’t already have it installed.

If you’ve read these, which doll is the scariest? Or do you know one even more terrifying?

 

Library Elves and Experiments in Christmas Trees

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The senior pupil volunteers turned elves for the season, and took their assigned task of decorating the Library for Christmas very seriously this year, and we ended up with three trees, one traditional (see below), two more booky.

The S6 pupils above are just some of the senior volunteers who spend at least one period a week helping out in the Library. In addition to their decorating duties, they also worked on selecting books from among the weeded Library stock, so that they can be included in the school’s Christmas hampers which are sent out to families in the local community. The younger Library elves also got involved in this work, prepping the books for being put in the hampers.

Library Christmas Trees and Holiday Reading

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There’s a been a bit of experimentation on the Library Christmas Tree front this year! In addition to the more traditional tree (this year with extra elves), we created a second tree out of books in the Library collections. It really was surprising to find just how many green books there were on the Library shelves when I started looking for them. The addition of a few printed baubles and star, and it really does look the part.

If you run out of books to read over the Christmas holidays, never fear! Here are some of the festive/wintry ebooks available to read via Libby on your iPads (or phone/computer): https://glasgow.overdrive.com/library/teens/collection/1137149. Just don’t forget to get your Library card number and PIN from Librarian Kathleen before the holidays start!

I hope you all enjoy a wonderful break from school, that you keep warm, and get some time to relax. Merry Christmas, and see you all in January!

Reading Resolutions: 12 months, 12 challenges

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Happy New Year! I started back to school on Monday, and with the Library being closed for Prelims, I’m spending my time planning what to do in my first full year as the St Margaret Mary’s Secondary and St Oswald’s Secondary Librarian.  The first Library tweet of the year asked about your Reading Resolutions for 2023 – have you made any yet? If not, this blog post is here to help you! I’m setting 12 reading challenges, one for every month of the year. Pupils who complete all the challenges will get a certificate and a wee prize in January 2024. The most important thing to remember is that you should enjoy the books you are reading, and if you don’t like a book, don’t force yourself to finish it. Teachers, you are of course welcome to get in on this too! Continue reading →

There’s a new Librarian in town!

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Blue dragon wearing glasses and holding book, sitting on top of pile of books. Text: In a world of bookworms be a book dragon,

Artist: Katie Tholke

I’ve been spending the first few weeks here at St Margaret Mary’s and St Oswald’s getting to know the Library and the school. With all the S1 inductions complete, I can properly introduce myself here on the Library blog!

My name’s Kathleen O’Neill, and I’m in the Library on Mondays and Tuesdays, from 8.45am to 4pm. You can visit the Library at interval and lunchtime, but please have your snack/lunch before or after your visit. Pupils in S1, S2, and S3 will also have regular opportunities to visit the Library during English classes.

A little about me – when I’m not here, I’m at Lourdes Secondary in Cardonald, but you can always send me an email at gw16oneilkathleenmar@glow.sch.uk. I am owned by three cats. My favourite book genre is fantasy fiction, including books like The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien, the Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, The Princess Bride by William Goldman, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. My all-time favourite book is Possession by A. S. Byatt, which is about two university lecturers researching two Victorian writers, and solving the mystery of the relationship between these writers. It goes from university libraries to the wild coastline of Brittany in France, going back and forward in time, with lots of fairy tales, poems, romance, and Celtic mythology all coming together. I started playing the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons about 6 years ago, and over the years have tried out other RPGs as well. If you are a Stranger Things fan, you’ll almost certainly know about D&D.  Basically, you make a character – you could be an elf, a goblin, a wizard, a warrior – and go on adventures with other characters made by your friends. The decisions you make decide what your group’s story will be. Since I started playing, I’ve been a druid, a cat wizard, a medium in 1920s America. I’ve been killed by vampires, and I’ve flown on a griffon. Since October 2019, I’ve been running a very popular Role-Playing Games at Lourdes.

You can follow the Library on Twitter. If you would like to create something – a book review, a story, a poem, some art – for the Glasgow School Libraries magazine Swatch, please let me know. Here are some previous issues: Autumn 2022 and Summer 2022.  You could also share your creations through this blog.

Artist: Munashichi

The most important thing that you need to know about the Library is that it is your space. It’s full of books that you like to read, and you can help me with the book shopping list by giving me your suggestions and recommendations. It’s a place to visit with your friends to just sit and chat, to do your homework, to make new friends, to get some quiet time. If you would like to volunteer to help out in the Library, come along and we’ll chat about your ideas. If you have an idea for a club, a celebration, an event, a book display, I can’t wait to hear all about it.

Looking forward to seeing you in the Library soon!

Kathleen (Librarian/Book Dragon)

The Week of World Book Day 2021

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World Book Day 2021 took place on Thursday 4 March. But Glasgow’s School Librarians decided to celebrate it all week long. I’ve collected everything we put together in this blog post. I hope you enjoy it!

£1 Book Tokens

Every year, you can get books for free with a £1 book token. Your English teachers have some of the book tokens, but you can also get them at the library once you’re back in  school. Because of lockdown, the tokens are also available to download this year. Go to the Library Team, to the General Channel, and read the post It’s World Book Day! You can read more about the books at this link: https://www.worldbookday.com/books/.

Guess the Shelf Competition

You have until the end of the day on Wednesday 10 March to email the librarian your guesses for the Guess the Shelf competition. The bookshelves belong to staff across Lourdes Secondary – some are from their homes, others are from their classrooms. Can you guess who owns which shelf? Good luck! https://bit.ly/3rlbvDQ.

What do School Librarians Like to Read?

The theme of World Book Day 2021 is Share A Story. So the Glasgow School Librarians came together on Teams last week to share their current reads. We put our recommendations together in a flip book, with help from library pets and cuddly toys. Which ones have you read? https://bit.ly/38ictcc.

A Week of World Book Day Flipbooks

The librarian at Bellahouston Academy and Rosshall Academy made five flip books celebrating the themes in all the £1 books available for World Book Day, one for every day of the week. You’ll find lots of information, book lists, and some quizzes to test yourselves.

Day1: https://online.flipbuilder.com/kczr/sjce/. Some World Book Day books are about the environment, so if you’re passionate about saving the earth, this is the flipbook for you.

Day 2: https://online.flipbuilder.com/kczr/byid/. Like science-fiction and superheroes? You should read this flipbook to get some new book recommendations.

Day 3: https://online.flipbuilder.com/kczr/pefh/.  This flipbook is a homage to all things detective and crime. You’ll discover famous literary detectives who have been around for decades and the new generations of young detectives.

Day 4: https://online.flipbuilder.com/kczr/oivi/. This particular flipbook about Fantasy fiction was partially inspired by the adventures of the School Librarians D&D Group.

Day 5: https://online.flipbuilder.com/kczr/nzcg/. We’re ending the week with a celebration of the football books available from your school library.