March Madness with Books

I am always looking for new ways to promote reading. One of the aides I work with suggest that we do something with March Madness, so the plan developed to do Book Madness at the high school. While doing some research online I discovered that there already was a March Madness Reading Program - http://marchbookmadness.weebly.com/ with a picture book, middle school and young adult divisions. Since this is something that was being planed in mid February we didn't have time to promote it so that we could use the book list from "March Book Madness" website, especially since the library where I am currently work as an interim does not own all the books. It is differently I program that I would consider using in the future since the "March Book Madness" website lays everything out for you and has a tips tab an all kinds of other helpful information.

Now onto the program that I set up. The library management system used by my employer has the option to list the top 50 books that have been circulated. The top eight books were placed in brackets based on their circulation since September 1st of the school year. The aides that I work with did a fabulous job creating the display below.

It is an interesting mix of books with some titles that have been turned into movies, one classic and a couple of other titles. The complete title lists consists of The Program by Suzanne Young, Boy on the Edge by Fridrik Erlings, Paper Towns by John Green, The Martian by Andy Weir, If I Stay by Gayle Forman, The Fifth Wave by Rick Yaney, The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

The voting deadlines are posted along with a QR code to for the Google Form that was developed for voting. The QR code will be changed at the end of each round to gain access to the new Google From for voting. Publicity included signs/flyers posted around the school, emails to students and staff (teachers, support staff & administrators), postings on the library's websites with updates and tweets on the library's twitter account and school's twitter feed. The brackets were created with black yarn.

Series Madness

At the middles school a similar activity was planned. The top 10 books that had been circulated to date since the beginning of school year included many series. How can books in a series compete against each other, so the decision was made to have Series Madness. Very appropriate since middle school students love series.

 

The windows are great places to create displays. As you can see the display is double sided, and similar to the on created on a wall in the high school library. The major difference being that each title within the series is prominently displayed. The winner of each round is displayed with a picture of the cover of book and the other books in the series listed below. The URL for the Google Form is displayed in the center window under the date announcing when the winner will be announced. This URL changes after each vote. In addition to emails to students and staff, this program was publicized on the daily video announcements, and on a flat screen in the library. Below is a sample slide from the digital display.

Series Madness

 

Vote for your Favorite series from the top 4 checked out series books in the IMC.

One series has been eliminated.

In future I would begin planning this type of program with more lead time than two weeks. With a month's lead time students could set up their own brackets. Early planning in the fall would allow one to use the March Book Madness program at http://marchbookmadness.weebly.com/ This would allow sufficient time to order the books, promote the program and run it. The best thing, in my opinion is that people, including students like contests/competitions.