Category Archives: Lourdes Secondary School

The Haunted Library

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!

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.

Welcome to a new school year!

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Welcome to the 2021-2022 school year! I’m looking forward to seeing everyone to the Library, with a special welcome to the new S1s. Continue reading →

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.

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Summer in Lourdes Secondary Library

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Well done to all pupils and staff for making it through the year, and through the last difficult few months! You all deserve a great summer holiday! To all the pupils leaving this year, I’m so sorry not to have seen you to say goodbye properly, but I wish you all the best for the future – I’m sure you’ll all do great things and have wonderful lives. The important thing to do is to relax and enjoy this next stage of your life.

Because lockdown is continuing in some form, although it’s being gradually reduced, the library will remain open to you in its current virtual form over the holidays. Opening hours are 9am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday. This may change sometimes, if I’m taking a few days off or have school librarians meetings, but I will post it on your Teams and on the library’s social media if the library will be closed for a day or more.

You can contact Miss O’Neill by email at gw16oneilkathleenmar@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk, on your Teams, and through the library social media. The Twitter handle is @liblourdes and the Instagram handle is @lourdeslibrary. You can also follow the library mascot, Boba Felephant, on Instagram at @bobafelephant.

School Clubs

The Role-Playing Games Club will continue throughout the summer, with a new group for the new S1 pupils starting. There will also be a Summer Reading Challenge-themed programme running for the new S1 pupils, starting on Monday 29 June. S1s, and their younger family members, can register to take part in the official Summer Reading Challenge activities as well; the theme this year is the Silly Squad, so we can look forward to a daft summer!

If there is enough interest from pupils, I’m thinking about setting up a Storytelling Club to run once a fortnight over the summer, and to continue it once school opens again in August. It won’t only be creative writing, but also comics, films, coding, and other media that you would like to use. Please get in touch by email if you would like to be part of it.

The Online Library

You can access a range of resources free via Glasgow Libraries: https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries/online-library. All you need is your library card number and PIN – if you don’t know these, please contact me. Note: new S1 pupils, your cards are not yet ready, but I will let you know once you are all registered. If you have a Glasgow community libraries card, you can use that.

eBooks: use Overdrive and Borrowbox.
Audiobooks: use Overdrive, Borrowbox, and RB Digital
eMagazines: use RB Digital
eMusic: use Freegal

There is a great range of resources to help you with study, research into your hobbies, business ideas, family history, and more. If you’re learning to drive, you can practice for the theory test. These are available here: https://libcat.csglasgow.org/web/arena/eresources. You can also access user guides to the various resources on this page, but please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions about any of these resources.

I look forward to seeing you all in school in August. I don’t know yet what form the library will take. If we still need to socially distance, you will be able to request library books which will be delivered to you, and there will be books available in your English classroom. I will also be giving you book recommendations. I’ll keep you updated here on the blog, with the links to any blog posts being added to your Teams, and all information shared on library social media.

FInally – again – I, along with Boba Felephant, Albert von Einskull, and library kitten Mad Madame Mim, hope that you enjoy your holidays! Surely nobody can have as bad a holiday as Sweeney Todd being taken to the beach by Mrs Lovett (tee hee).

Creative Writing Competition Winner

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Just a dandy and his octopus, nothing to see here.

Last month, in the Library’s first lockdown competition, I posted the photo to the right on all the library’s social media accounts, and on Lourdes Secondary’s pupils’ Teams, and invited pupils to create a 500 word story, a 10 line poem, a 10 minute maximum short film, or a panel of maximum 10 panels.

There were some wonderfully creative responses, in the form of short stories and poems. Each entry was very original and imaginative, and I was impressed by the quality of the writing submitted. But one entry stood out, not just because the story was so imaginative, but also because it was an unusual and clearly well-thought out response to the picture. The author herself described her thoughts thus:

I decided to write a story using the image. When I saw the image, I thought of Charlie and the chocolate factory, so I incorporated the theme of sweets. I also took the side theme of poverty and how it restricts people.

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Napoleon Dynamite: a masterclass in comedy

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Librarian’s note: this is a historic blogpost – the first written by one of Lourdes Secondary‘s pupils! S1 Jack decided to write the first of what I hope will be the first of many pupil posts, with a film review.

Napoleon Dynamite film poster (source: Wikimedia Commons)

Napoleon Dynamite, a masterclass in comedy.

Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 comedy film starring John Heder, Efren Ramirez, Jon Gries, Aaron Ruell, Elren Ramirez, Tina Majorino [Librarian’s note: Tina also plays Mac in the excellent series Veronica Mars, and I recommend that everyone should watch it. Right now.]. The film follows a boy named Napoleon Dynamite and his friend Pedro Sanchez, as Pedro tries to win class president for his school. Directed by Jared Hess, the film is a love it or hate scenario; some might see it as too juvenile or plain unfunny, but it is a hidden gem sadly lost to the void of time. John Heder’s comedical timing is impecable as well as the look of his character, Napoleon, who is frequently bullied at his school and lives an utterly miserable life until he meets Deb, a girl with all kinds of strange jobs as she tries to raise money for college, who turns his life around. It is one of the most quoteable films to date and is generally underappreciated by the masses, receiving a 6.9/10 on IMDB, it is a must watch and can generally be found in most charity shops.

Librarian’s note: I knew of the film, but for some reason had never actually sat and watched it until I got this review. It was funny, odd in a very good way, and had a fantastically 1980s prom scene with some great music. The other dance scene, near the end, is also just a bit good.