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