Blog

This week we had a short school week as a result of the short fall break that all can appreciate thus far in the in the school year, ending the first nine week marking period and half of the first semester. Library work this brief week entailed the continuous process of re-shelving books to the appropriate shelves, assisting the school librarian with preparation of a field trip for the school leadership team to attend the National Civil Rights Museum, Public Forum.

After the school leadership team departed with the librarian, I was honorably mistaken for the school librarian by an MCS worker who informed me that he would be updating the wireless connection in the library. He asked “Are you the library person”? I smiled and said no I am just assisting her right now, and asked him if I could help him with anything (as if I could he was tech savvy, enough so to be installing a wireless system) during my time of service in the library for that period. He did not really need my help so I politely continued shelving after he was set up at a computer work station.

I also learned how the librarian handles gift items to the school’s collection. She basically has a form to be completed for each donor. Then the items are review and researched for appropriates for patrons and the environment. If the items are found to be suitable they are processed via Atriuum and added to the book holdings and listed at no cost. The school librarian did admit that gifted items can be a headache.

Shelving, shelving and more shelving. I got more acquainted with Dewey this week. Throughout this week I shelved more books than I can count. My week began with reorganizing the Professional section of the library. As I pulled books I ended up with several books from every section and found my self working in every collection. I also continued my work of removing fines. I assisted a teacher(Band) with a printing job. We had extened home room this week.My home room students were exposed to the “We the People” exhibit that is on display in the library. The students also got a chance to learn and explore the Dewey Classification system.

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In addition to documenting damaged equipment in the library this week, I spent time getting my practice in as a Circulation Librarian. Thank God we have come a long way since the days of Charles Folsom. Many teachers had students check out popular books (The Giver, The House of Dies Drear , The Outsiders,Dracula etc.) that were in our class set section. Mid week I completed inventory sheets for damaged materials and assisted in completing a work order for the library printers that had a malfunction. I delivered a book receipt to a student’s class due to delayed printing issues. Examining the “We the People Book Shelf” was the highlight of my work in the library this week. Interesting enough, that I came up with several ideas and shared them with my school’s Library Information Specialist and mentor, on how to expose our school’s stakeholders to the fascinating resources that we have acquired as a result of a grant. I envision forming a book club to examine all 17 books this year. This can be accomplished via various platforms. One way is to solicit 17 teachers to choose a title from the collection to explore as a class. Other concepts would be to form a book club among students, or use the rich resources for the fall or spring Think Show (formerly known as Student Exhibition)project. I will share other ideas as the year unfolds. I tested a CD/cassette player that I thought would be written up as damaged because it was so old, so I thought we should get rid of it. To my surprise the LIS said we would keep it(if it works) even if it is very old, because we still have a collection of cassettes with good information. “Wu la”, I pressed play and it worked, so we kept it. This task sparked another idea, “Music in the Library” as I shelved books and listened to Ray Charles sing Georgia and other tunes. My week in the library concluded waiving fines via the Atriuum system. Although it was a very busy week it was most rewarding.