carrots and goals

Today I'm thinking about the online class I've been taking (PBS: Communicating and Collaborating), the goals I'm considering for next year, and another book I've been reading just for my own improvement, The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. Somehow in the summer I always find myself working on ways to improve the library/my service for the following year. So, since putting it all into black and white helps me get it done (even if I don't look at it again, writing it down sinks a goal into my subconscious somehow...), here are my work-in-progress goals for next year:

1. Booktalks: Hard copy, podcasts, video, blogs...some of everything. Really get some cool things going for getting the kids excited to read. Something to help them get into AR...but also to graduate from it. Book clubs or something excellently cool. Start with my own reading, what I can find done by others, then build to getting kids doing them, sharing, publishing...
2. Technology: Keep learning web 2.0 tools and how to use, share, grow. (A wiki would have been better for working out the AR labeling work we did last year, and for the summer library program--but I didn't know that, didn't know how to do one. That needs to change.)
3. PR: (witness the carrot book!) I need to say thank you lots and lots more....need to actively solicit ideas for ways to improve library services. I want to get to know each teacher well enough to be able to pick a carrot for them that would be a perfect choice.
4. Organizational: New system for circulation, new file cabinets, kids helping more with routine tasks, whatever it will take to get cleaned out and slicked up and not spend time hunting for pieces of paper I know I have somewhere.

Sort of the overarching goal: make the library the heart of the school--best loved, most important place.