Day 12: Listening to your peers

April 10th, 2009
7.5 hours

Last week I spent a good deal of my time creating two poetry bibliographies.  One was nonfiction poetry collections & the other verse fiction.  Lisa & I were both pleased with the results & they were set out for student use.

 

OELMA listserv, as April is poetry month, was filled with lists of verse fiction titles.  Lisa knew that many of these titles the library had but were not upon our list.  My first task today, then, was to search out the catalog, find what titles we had & then updated the verse fiction bibliography. 

 

Again this brought us back to the catalog’s user friendly skills.  What if a student went to the catalog & typed in ‘verse fiction’ or ‘poetry’?  A good quantity of verse fiction books would not appear in the results.

 

My afternoon was spent looking at ILILE website; Lisa asked me to find possible lessons plans aligned with not only the state standards but the grade / content curriculum maps & were possibilities for collaboration.  We discussed what teachers were very interested & wanted collaboration & those that did not; this information helped me tailor what types of collaborative plans would be appropriate for which teachers.

 

Many of the plans would work but needed some tweaking to fit into the school’s style.  I printed off the plans along with a recommendation sheet of how I proposed making changes.  Lisa will review those & next Friday I will put together the packets.

 

93 of 100 hours completed

 

Day 11: Subject headings: Who is the authority?

March 26, 2009
7.5 hours

April is National Poetry Month!

Lisa celebrates this month in magnificent ways. This year she has invited two poets to come & speak, collaborated with the 8^th grade English teachers on a poetry unit and is holding the second annual school wide poetry jam.

To help prepare & get students & teacher excited, I created an annotated bibliography of poetry materials for teachers; the list contained materials available at both the school library & at the local library. The bibliography highlighted not only great books of poetry but teacher resources for incorporating poetry in lessons or units.

Today I created an annotated bibliography of poetry materials for students.

Digging through the online catalog to find materials I discovered two things:

1. The materials needed to be listed in two fashions: poetry collections & verse fiction. The separation would allow for a greater use of both lists as well as a quicker guide to what students were seeking. By listing verse fiction on a separate bibliography, some students will be exposed to a new style & may find a new like for poetry & verse.

2. Your catalog may not be your friend. Some of the verse fiction that Lisa & I knew was within the collection did not list poetry or verse in the subject headings or the summary. This created a big problem for us as we wanted to try to list the numerous great offerings the library media center had! Lisa sent me online. Starting with public libraries & library sources, like VOYA, YALSA, etc, I started looking for any listings of verse fiction. Then I had to search the catalog to determine if the book was within the collection. It was a time consuming process.

As I was working on the project I thought back to both my introduction to cataloging & my school library media center cataloging courses. In both we discussed creating a user friendly catalog. Will the Sears (or other selected subject authority) provide subject headings that the students will use? Is there a value to adding non subject authority headings if it makes the materials searchable by the end user?

85.5 of 100 hours completed

Day Ten: Authors visit!!!!

March 18, 2009
7.5 hours

What a splendid day!  Both Michael Salinger & Sara Holbrook visited the school today. The morning was spent with presentations by the authors.  Each grade had a one hour performance of performed poetry as well as great information about the writing process.   At the end students asked incredible questions about writing, inspiration, careers & much more.

The afternoon was a nearly two hour poetry workshop. Michael & Sara taught students both writing & performance skills.  Students had an opportunity to share their own poetry.

What an incredible day! 

78 of 100 hours completed

Day Nine: Teaching

March 13, 2009
7.5 hours

This is where the rubber hits the road.  Today I teach.

I have taught in a classroom before; I have been a substitute teacher.  I know how to teach.  I can create lesson plans & I have taught lesson plans created by other teachers.  I have even taught an interdisciplinary course that required me to create the plans with another teacher. 

So why did this teaching experience make me so nervous?  I have not a clue.  Maybe it was the number of teachers in the room.  Maybe it was the value of the material being taught.  Maybe it was that I was teaching another’s plans but not as a sub I knew the students would not go over it again.  Maybe it is just my own nerves getting me worked up.

The class was not coming until the end of the day so the majority of the day was spent in traditional routine.  Books were checked in & shelved.  Students came in for classes & study halls.   Materials were pulled for other teachers.

At the end of the day the students came in.  Lisa & I talked about last minute details; I asked her to jump in at any moment if I forgot details.  Off I went… and it went smoothly.  I forgot a few assignment related details but Lisa & the classroom teacher jumped in creating this almost seamless instruction.  When the lesson ended & the students were sent off to start their work, many came to me asking specific questions related to their I-Search.

What a wonderful day. 

70.5 of 100 hours completed

Day Eight: Processing those new books

March 4, 2009
7.5 hours

Remember that day I spent in glorious cataloging?  I do.  (That is the slightly sick side of me:  I do love to catalog!)  Today’s focus was on preparing those books for circulation. This meant stamping with the school’s name & address as well as putting on the appropriate covers. 

My focus was on paperback books.  I know that paperback books are more common in a school library due to student’s preference for the format & the media center’s ability to purchase more due the lower cost.  Knowing how to prepare paperback books is an important skill that requires a great deal of patience!

Lisa explained the process to me, slowing down her quick pace to be sure I understood the step-by-step process.  The first book sat upon the counter taunting me.  How was I going to cover this book without making a mess of the cover or otherwise ruin the book?  This is not my library – these are not my funds – these are not my materials.  I started with the first book that seemed to fit nearly perfectly into the precut shape.

A few books into the process & I felt more comfortable.  A bit of fear still loomed but I knew I could manage it & mistakes were bound to happen.  My ability to recover from them was a more important piece. 

The best part: watching kids review the books I had just finished with a few snatching one up. 

63 of 100 hours completed

Preview of Day Nine: Teaching those needed skills

February 27, 2009
1.5 hours

In preparation for teaching a lesson, I went in today to observe Lisa teach the lesson to another group of students.  The lesson is a key one to good librarianship: information literacy & citation. 

The 7^th grade is working on an I-search paper about careers.  They have been provided a solid outline with what information should be within this paper.  What the teachers have asked Lisa to contribute is not only quality print but quality online materials; they have also blocked time in the assignment for Lisa to teach students about information literacy as well as how to find & use the materials.

Quietly sitting in the corner of the room with the handout I scribbled pages of notes.  Giggling to myself I realized I had more notes than if I had palnned the lesson myself.  The challenge ahead of me is to not only teach the content the students need but do so in a way that pleases both the classroom teacher & Lisa. 

I will teach the lesson on March13 – plenty of time to prepare!

55.5 of 100 hours completed

 

Day Seven: Playing Librarian

February 25, 2009
7.5 hours

Lisa was sick... so I was the librarian. It was fantastic in an overwhelming, scary kind of way.  Don't get me wrong; I didn't save the world, balance the library's budget, procure additional funding, order books, teach lessons or so many of the other important tasks that SLMS's do everyday. What I did do was manage some of the minutia of the day and that was a wonderful learning experience!

I became better acclimated to SIRSIDynix. Many districts use this so spending some real time managing it was a great opportunity. Checking in and out books, renewing items, checking on “what do I have out?” were just some of the tasks I managed to get right. Placing holds is one I am still unsure of how to do.

A few students had overdue books; this meant I had to make some judgment calls about letting them check out the one they “really, really, really NEED!” It was tough to determine the right answer since it isn’t my library. I realized that I need to dig out my policy manual and make sure it is handy when I am at my library.

Throughout the day I spent a great deal of time asking myself questions that started either, “If this was my library, how would I…” or “In my library, how will I…? Let me share a few of the many questions I asked…

The main stacks are at one end of the library with the entrance at the other. When I was I in the stacks shelving books or helping a student, teachers & students could come in & out without seeing me. That’s not what I want – but how do you help patrons if you cannot leave your desk?

A great problem to have is circulating materials. Everyday there is at least ½ a cart to a full cart of materials to get back on the shelf. Lisa is only one person and has 2 sporadic ½ volunteers. How do you get the materials back yet keep up with all the work that needs to be done in the day? What kind of student volunteer program could be created?

All of the English teachers have at least one period a week blocked for library. The rationale is this gives students a good space to read and ample materials to choose from. However, it frequently turns into students circulating the stacks like vultures on prey – hoping to not be noticed when they dive down to hide from their teacher & chat. It does not help that there are reading nooks tucked into the stacks, which as you may recall are at the opposite end of the librarian’s desk. How will I ensure that students have this great freedom to read yet prevent abuse of it? Is it worth preventing if it interferes with those who are reading?

54 of 100 hours completed