RRISD Book Cart Drill Team Takes 2nd Place

Our "Alice in Wonderland" themed presentation fighting against censorship was a hit at the Texas Library Association conference!  RRISD won 2nd place this year. Mrs. Young and I were 2 of the 13 RRISD librarians who participated. We had a blast!

Texas Library Association Conference 2016

Mrs. Young and I were so excited to attend the 2016 Texas Library Association Conference in Houston last week.  We missed Forest North a lot, but we came back energized with lots of new ideas about how to make the library even better for our students and staff!

I participated in a session called "Speed Dating the Bluebonnet Books."  Librarians pay to come to this session to raise money for the Texas Bluebonnet Award, and they get to rotate around about 20 tables, meeting authors or Texas Bluebonnet committee members to get background and programming ideas about the books.  They also get many of next year's books for free and can get them signed by the authors.  As an outgoing committee member, I showed up to help, but Doreen Cronin was unable to attend because of the terrible weather affecting Houston.  Suddenly, Doreen's publisher, Michelle, and I were in charge of presenting Ms. Cronin's book Chicken Squad, to all of the rotating librarians!  We came up with a short presentation and had a blast presenting it to tons of librarians!

Ursula Vernon, author of Hamster Princess

Cassie Beasley, author of Circus Mirandus

Josh Lieb, author of Ratscalibur

Joel Ross, author of Fog Diver

RRISD "Hip Hop Librarians" Practice for State Competition

The RRISD "Hip Hop Librarians" have been working since winter break to get ready for our entry in the Book Cart Drill Team State competition at the Texas Library Association conference.  We practice late in the evenings and write and record our songs on the weekends to get ready for this celebration of libraries and reading! I write the songs with some of my fellow team members, and do all the singing and rapping myself!  We have two new members this year, featured in the very front of this photo, including Forest North co-librarian Mrs. Young!  We're hoping to defend our state title and win the competition again this year.  Fingers crossed! Check out some of our older performances in these videos below:

2010

2011

2012

2015

Hip Hop Librarians at TXLA 15

Here's the official Hip Hop Librarians Book Cart Drill Team performance video from the Texas Library Association Conference in April!

RRISD "Hip Hop Librarians" win state Book Cart Drill Team Competition

Mrs. Fournier and her librarian friends get so excited each year to compete in the Book Cart Drill Team Competition.  This year was especially great because for the first time, we won!  Check out these videos of our performances, and our article in the San Antonio Express News all about our win!  Mrs. Fournier helps write the words, and does all of the singing and rapping on all of the songs.  She has helped with engineering some years, but not in the 2014 song. She edited some of the movies below, and is working on editing a great version of the 2014 performance, as well.