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

Day Six: Does that go in the 1XX or 2XX field?

February 20, 2009
7.5 hours

8 hours of cataloging. Books upon books upon books upon books. I learned many wonderful, fantastic, useful things about cataloging.

Gahanna shares a catalog system amongst all the schools. Each item is searchable by all schools. This adds a layer of complexity. If you change a record, you change not only yours but all those within the district.

The first spot was the district’s catalog. If I couldn’t find the exact item there, I was to go to various shared databases. Luckily for me I never had to do one piece of original cataloging. That scared me to no end!

The key, I learned, is knowing the ISBN number. I never knew that one book could have so many variations of ISBN numbers. I finally gave up searching by title or author as it so rarely provided a useful result.

Cataloging has always held an appeal for me. To me, cataloging is the math of library sciences. Each item has a specific pathway, a specific formula used to ensure that any user can find the information. This formula has coding that must be followed. This puzzle solving is just one of the many reasons I love library sciences!

It was a long day, exhausting, looking over-and-over records. However, it was a fantastic day.

46.5 of 100 hours completed

Day Five: Being a school librarian

February 11, 2009

7.5 hours

Let’s see… what could possibly be going on right now that could be an overwhelming concern for the library???? Oh yea… that little thing called a BOOK FAIR that is being held as part of SCHOLASTIC’S MIDDLE SCHOOL NATIONAL CONTEST.

My-oh-my was the library a central point of “busy!” While the book fair was not held in the library (in order to keep the library open for classes), it was the central meeting point as well as the storage location. T-shirts arrived for all the volunteers. Chafing dishes came in at different times to help hold the food. 5 Texas sheet cakes showed up late afternoon. Volunteers came in & out all afternoon to ask questions or drop off materials. It was chaos – well organized chaos.

My duties were to keep the library functioning while Lisa ran errands & worked with volunteers in preparing for Family Night. I checked in materials, shelved books, answered reference questions, helped find materials & shelved books. I felt torn that I wasn’t doing enough as I watched Lisa or the volunteers race in and out; Lisa reassured me that what she really needed was to know the library could be open and functioning.

A teacher had emailed Lisa, “Can you put together a cart of books on Roman & Greek gods & goddesses?” Lisa asked me to put the cart together. I must admit I wanted more information about the “whys” of the need. As this was an English teacher, what books was she looking for? Books with stories & myths or of historical facts about the role of Gods and Goddesses in Greek & Roman culture? During the morning I began pulling all the libraries’ Roman & Greek gods & goddesses books. I began in the 200s looking at titles, pulling books & reviewing the back cover & table of contents. Then I used the catalog to look for useful books that might be in other areas of the non-fiction collection. Before taking them to the teacher I had Lisa review the books.

The afternoon had students come down two-by-two to find books they had located on the catalog. Some students waltzed right over to the stacks, found their books and came to me for check out. A few wandered over, skimmed some books & came back asking for help. One girl came in and said, “This is the book I want.” Most of the students I knew from my time subbing so I could use some familiarity to ask questions, guide learning & then push them to think about the topic.

What today provided me, more than anything else, was a time to look at my future profession. I thought about teacher requests, stack layouts, student volunteers, information literacy & so much more.

39 of 100 hours completed

Day 4.5: Wanna buy a book?

February 10, 2009

2 hours

For the past few months, Lisa, other teachers & tons of students have been planning for The Wizard of Oz book fair. This is the second book fair for this school year; the decision to hold a second was influenced by Scholastic’s Middle School National Contest. The first place prize: $2,000 shopping spree at a Scholastic Book Fairs warehouse and a visit from Michael Phelps.

Everyone has been working incredibly hard to organize this book fair. Everything emulates the movie: the yellow brick road, the field of poppies and then arriving at the Emerald City gym (which hosted the book fair.) This book fair was held in conjunction with Parent / Teacher conferences on Tuesday as well as the book fairs “family night” on Wednesday. Family night includes showing the movie, $5.00 dinner (that is donated food from local eateries) and book reading.

Everyone’s focus is on Wednesday leaving Lisa with NO volunteers for Tuesday night – NONE. I volunteered to come in as it would be a great time to ask LOTS of questions about planning a book fair. Lisa & I talked about working with Scholastic, ordering books, returning books, using profits and so much more. It was a crash course in book fairs.

31.5 of 100 hours completed

Day Four: Putting my creativity to the test

February 4, 2009
8 hours

My morning started with attending the staff meeting. Lisa wanted to introduce me to the staff. Sitting in I found that some things never really change; staff meetings are staff meetings. 

Lisa went with her small group to discuss while I sat and read the cataloging manual she created for me. I read the materials three times quizzing myself as I went along to make sure I really understood what I needed to do. As Lisa was not back yet I decided to read over the note left by the sub (Lisa was out the day before) to see if there was anything I could do. The sub had put the books she had checked in on the cart of books waiting to be cataloged and processed. Lisa returned to find me pulling those books and putting on the appropriate cart.

We then went to set up the computer so I could begin cataloging. That computer just plain hates me; it didn’t have the program I needed and Lisa could not give up the main computer with the program. STANDSTILL. Lisa is up to her eyeballs in finalizing details for next week’s book fair topped with her absence the day before; she wasn’t sure what to do with me. She felt just awful but asked if I could shelve books.

Shelving books is a great task for me. As I put books away I see what titles are circulating as well as become more familiar with the collection. The space layout, I have determined from my shelving time, not that way I would want it. I spent some time trying to decide how would I reconfigure it and how would I get support for it.

After I finished shelving I organized the magazines. That’s a nightmare area too that I would need hours upon hours to decide how to better handle. J

I felt just awful asking Lisa, “Now what?” but without anything to do I realized I had to do just that. She looked around the library and then spotted the trouble spot: the bulletin board in the hallway. Eureka! The hallway bulletin board hadn’t been changed since December. My job was to change it to something that reflected Black History Month.

The first thing that popped into my head was the Coretta Scott King Award. Lisa thought it was a great idea if the library had enough of the winners. My first job was to then take the award winner list to find what titles the library had. The library over 20 titles from the past 9 years winners!

The rest of my day was spent in creating the materials I needed for the bulletin board:
1. One - three sentences bios on each book
2. Titles with the labels (i.e “2008 Author Award” or “2007 Author Honor Book”)
3. Synopsis of the Coretta Scot King Award
4. Photo & Synopsis of the award seal
5. Scan & print the book covers

That took most of my afternoon. Thankfully I was subbing in the building the next three days so I finished compiling the material & hung the bulletin board during my conference period. I must say it is not an “award winning” bulletin board but it is a pretty good job for a first time.

29.5 of 100 hours completed

Snow... Snow... Snow... and more snow

No practicum this week due to the onslaught of SNOW!

Day Three: Other uses for the library

January 21, 2009
7.5 hours

This was my first day back since last week & it was also the students. Friday had been a snow day, Monday was the holiday & Tuesday was a professional work day. As the semester was to end on Friday but could not due to the cancellation, Wednesday quickly became Friday. It was a bit chaotic for both students & teachers.

Lisa was behind due to the days off. She is preparing for a second book sale for this school year & for the poets' visit with a poetry slam. She set me to work on finding not only collections of poetry but professional guides for teachers. The list needed to include both the school library's collection & the local public library. While it did not need to be comprehensive it needed to be as diverse as possible.

That's how I spent nearly my entire day: Looking through the school's shelves & catalog as well as the local public library's catalog to create a bibliography. After coming up with the list, I did some online searching to see what resources might exist to support or enhance the texts. At the end of the day Lisa shipped both her list of lesson plan ideas & my bibliography off to the teachers.

While the morning was nearly silent, the afternoon was a boisterous one. As I mentioned the school was still finishing up the last semester so finals, presentations, etc. were taking place all day. Classes did not come to the library for their typical time as they had to finish up. The afternoon, however, brought in 1/4 of the 7th grade to set up for presentation that would take place *in the library.* Students moved tables, set up two screens, two laptop / projector carts, microphones, a podium & chair seating. They practiced their presentations. The last 1.5 hours of the day were the presentations that brought in various city representatives, the superintendent & other school officials as well as fellow 7th graders. It was a spectacular presentation; the students did an incredible job.

For Lisa & I it was difficult to be able to do our work. The stacks were filled with unneeded tables rendering it impossible to reach them. The lights were off so the only light was from the glow of our computer screens. With so many people in the library typing away seemed rude to the presenters & guests but we were also not invited guests. We watched the first 1/2 and then went back to our work.

Of humorous note, the computer I was using froze up or shut down at least twice during my poetry investigation. A few times the web moved so slowly it shut down on me. It made the process even longer & a bit more frustrating. I did manage to finish (thankfully). Lisa asked me to look at some of the books for ordering for the upcoming book fair; she is grouping the books by theme. Three times I tried to log onto the computer to access the web to no avail. Both Lisa & I laughed about it agreeing it was just time for me to go home. =)

21.5 of 100 hours completed

Day Two: Time to show 'em what I got

January 15, 2009
6 hours

I awoke that morning early thinking about all the things that could go wrong with my book talks & the ways to overcome them. Nervously twitching back & forth in bed I went over & over my book talks again.

Then I found out that there was a two hour delay! Agony I tell you, pure agony.

Upon arriving at school, Lisa grabbed me & we headed to the teacher's classroom. Not only did the two hour delay pose a problem but the library was in use ALL DAY. Thinking quickly, Lisa asked the 6th grade English teacher if I could do the book talks in her classroom bringing a cart of nonfiction for students to pull from. The teacher agreed; Lisa got the times I needed to present & I raced back to the library to start pulling nonfiction.

Already nervous, these new additional bumps were just making me crazy. As I pulled books I took a deep breath reminding myself that I needed to roll with it.

"This is part of the job. Things can change in a moment's notice & you have to be ready to change with them."

Slightly calmer I made a cart of books for Lisa's review. Only one was pulled as she rightfully thought it was a bit above a 6th grade introduction.

Lisa asked if she should come with me or not. I asked that she skip the first one allowing me to try this out on my own but attend the second. Feedback would be needed but I wanted one under my belt first. Off I went, rolling my cart & reminding myself that this was going to be just fine.

And it was. Within moments of beginning the first book talk I was calm. This was fantastic! Telling children about books, just enough to pull them in, was absolutely incredible. Apparently I did a good job as 3 of the 4 books I talked were checked out! I was flying HIGH.

At lunch the teacher came down to the library; Lisa, unfortunately, was out of the room at that moment. The English teacher thanked me for what I had done, telling me what a great job it was. Then she burst my bubble. She had misspoke to Lisa; what she really wanted was biographies & autobiographies ONLY. Could I, possible, bring only those this afternoon?

Of course I said yes.

Lisa came into the library to see me removing all the nonfiction from my cart & zipping off to collect the requested books. She apologized profusely. I told her it was an outstanding learning experience. This is what it is really like. Lisa pulled a couple of books giving me enough to share them, not real book talks but enough to help pull students in.

The afternoon presentation went well. Again students checked out 3 of the 4 books I shared. Some students didn't want the well known individual so together we talked about what might be the right choice for them.

What was left of my day I spent shelving books. Having always loved shelving books, I was quickly again enraptured. Shelving provide me with some great thinking time about my day as well as better familiarity with the collection.

Some pertinent thoughts:
1. When pulling materials for teachers, I must be fully sure I understand not only what they are asking for but what they plan to do with the materials. This will help prevent some errors like I had experienced. It will also allow me to pull (or highlight) the best items for the lesson.
2. A familiarity with the collection is a must. Trying to recommend books when you are not sure what you even have is nearly impossible. Students do not like the "Well we might have something..." answer.
3. I really need to start reading more & more YA books.

14 of 100 hours completed

Day One: Jumping in with both feet

January 7th, 2009
8 hours

Arriving at my practicum I was a bit nervous. Lisa, my SLMS mentor, & I had met on numerous occasions previously. However, this was when the rubber met the road & I had to really do something. I had subbed in a middle school library within this district so I knew some of the ins & outs but nonetheless I was nervous.

Lisa welcomed me & showed me where to put my belongings as well as other needed details. We then went over a list of three possible projects (but not limited to only these) for me to work on that semester.

1. Catalog new books & then process for shelving
2. Put together poetry lessons & material ideas for teacher in preparation for the poet visit.
3. Put together a non-fiction bibliography & booktalks that represents the diversity of nonfiction.

This portion only took us about 1 hour or so. Then I was cut free to start project three... since I was presenting it the following week!!!!! Having never done a booktalk nor being quite sure what was within the collection I spent the remaining hours of my day reviewing books, pulling some for possible booktalking and creating a bibliography.

Well that and worrying endlessly.

8 of 100 hours completed