Journal Day 5 ~ 11/24/14

Journal Day 5

1.  How often do schools typically have book fairs?

2.  What are some Do's and Don't of book fairs?

3.  Should I offer any activities or events at parent night - open house for the book fair?

1.  According to my observation library, the average is 2 times per year.  Usually the coincide with an event...parent - teacher conferences, open house, parent night etc.

2.  Do have a book fair, even though it is a lot of work! Do advertise the book fair.  Don't allow students to run/watch the book fair.  Do take an inventory when the books arrive and before the leave.  Do put the small toy type junk in the corner so students spend most of their time/money on actual books.  Do have a penny/change war between classes.  (from neighboring library that I did observation hours with).

3.  You can offer activities, though your main goal is to sell books!  If you coincide your book fair with an event, you'll be less likely to need an activity.  My observation librarian encourages her book club members to be present to  offer tea/coffee to customers while the librarian handles the transactions.

Today was good but exhausting.  It seems that everyone needed me in some capacity all day and all at the same time.  It is good to be needed, but also good to eat lunch!  Computers were slow and often off line which accounted for most of my day.  The tech department informed me that several large downloads by staff and students were eating the band width.  The also need to re-image the computers in my lab.  They have scheduled this during winter break.  Several brand new copies of my order have gone missing....seriously kids...you don't have to steal the books.  I'll let you borrow them, just please bring them back!  With the assistant gone one day a week, teachers often give students their keys to the library to pick up items off the copier.  I believe that they take it upon themselves to "borrow" books while they are in there.  I am going to have to speak with the principal about this issue and address it with the staff.  We should not have to continue to spend additional money to replace brand new copies.  This is a point of frustration with me, that teachers are not respecting the LMC space as they would their own classroom.

Journal ~ Day 4 11/14/14

Journal Day 4

1.  What is the best way to keep staff abreast of things that go on in the LMC?

2.  What can we do with no "decorating" budget that can make splash in our "plain" LMC?

3.  How can I continue to support my beans and book coffee/tea idea after the initial donation from the local coffee shop?

4.   Can I clean out the textbook room of old textbooks?

1.  My Big Campus is a big push for our corporation.  We are encouraging staff and students to communicate more through the learning platform rather than email.  I will create a group for staff in MBC and post announcements and tidbits there.

2.  Pinterest!!!  Who would have thought!  I was visiting another library in a neighboring county for my observation hours and loved all the cool things she had in her library.  I asked her where she got the ideas and she showed me her Pinterest boards!  I love Pinterest and have been a long time user, but honestly it never occurred to me to look for LMC ideas!

3.  Talking with the observation hours librarian gave me the idea of beans and books! (Maybe she found that on Pinterest??!!)  The local coffee shop donated a few months supply of cups, coffee, and tea.  The kids LOVE it, so I wanted to start pre-planning to continue it.  As I was shopping for an old window at a reuse store...that's a whole other Pinterest project.....I found an old candy machine.  I filled it with M&M's that I got at wholesale price at SAMS and placed outside the LMC doors. The kids put a quarter in it between passing periods and WOW!!!! That's a money making thrift find!  I'll change the candy up each month and we'll have beans and books for a long time!

4.  Sadly NO!  I referenced our guidance counselor who is in charge of textbooks.  We can still charge students 15% of the actual textbook cost on their textbook rental fee (even though the books are paid for) for as long as we have them in the building .  Thus they must stay! :(  He laughed when I suggested the LMC retain a 5% storage fee :).

Today was a good day, I actually got to spend most of the day in the LMC doing some housework catch up projects.  The new shipment of Jr. Library Guild Books arrived and were processed.  The kids were just about stalking me over some of the new books. Which makes me happy!  I put up the Thanksgiving bulletin board and showcased some new books.  We rearranges some of the furniture and it makes more sense now.  All of the computers face the wall opposite the check out station.  Now, we can see the computer screens and check out books, make repairs, etc.  Better management practices!

  

Journal ~ Day 3 10/30/14

Journal day 3 ~ Teaching the new Lexile codes.

1.  How long will it take to add Lexile levels to our collection?

2.  What is the best method to begin this process?

3.  Is there an app for that? (leveling books)

1.  A VERY LONG TIME......after spending the majority of an afternoon reaffixing the spine label....this is a work in progress.  

2.  Start now with new books (Jr. Library Guild sends us books monthly) then do a shelf at a time as you can.

3.  Yes there is, however it is somewhat expensive--but worth it!  BOOK LEVELER

Our corporation is moving away from AR and to Lexile levels.  After educating the teachers through this process, showing that it is best practice and evidenced based.  We needed to inform students on how to find their current Lexile level and how to find books in that range in our library.  The lesson went well, the students understand the concept.  A good day it was!  No ......converting the library collection over .....that is not fun and seemingly will take a long time.  We decided to leave all the original info on the spine label and just add Lexile levels to keep people in order while we convert.  The app really helps as you do not have to bring books to the computer and res-helve them.  You can take the iPad to the shelves and not have to transport books across the library.  A great find and well worth the $10.00!

Journal ~ Day 2 9/25/14

Day 2....Teaching the new program Learning.com

1.  How much information does the classroom teacher need to know about the new program?

2.  How much time does the students need to get a grasp of the self paced work?

3.  How to get teacher by-in on the new program..?

1. AND 3---  LOTS!!!  In order to get by-in, teachers need to know how it will help them teach their standards or reinforce them and second...how it will benefit the students in their work for their subject matter.  I also found out that the more the teacher loves it, the better the chances that students will use it as the teacher will endorse the program in a positive or negative way!

2.  Depends on the class and day......I taught this lesson for a solid week to hit all the students and it varied by the day and the class. (and probably me too)  Honors students grasped it quickly and moved along at their own pace.  RTI classes too a bit longer.  Students who were interested in it were quicker than those who lack to see the value in it.  Student by-in is also important.  They need to see the value in what they are learning to adopt it successfully.

Learning.com is a program that reinforces State Standards while teaching important but often neglected technology skills such as building presentations, using Excel, etc.  I presented this new program to the teachers at a faculty meeting before scheduling students.  It took me demonstrating the program before many would by-in.  They are concerned about the amount of time it takes to implement the program on a weekly basis.  Although we worked out the schedule with administration input, it discourages me that I am more excited about the program than the teachers.  It has such value in our emerging technology, I hope all will come to love it.    The students seemed interested.  It is self paced so I am interested to see how far students go on their own vice the amount of time we provide at school.

Journal ~ Day 1 9/16/14

Too many students....not enough help!

1.  How many classes should be in the library at once and still maintain sanity?

2.  What is the best place to schedule library lab time?

3.  How to get teachers to use a schedule for the library?

4.  What is administrations role in enforcing this?

1.  ONE!  Too many students in the library create craziness  in the library!  Teachers should remain present while their class is in the library.  If only sending a partial class while she remains in the library, it is ok if more than one teacher sends students, but should not exceed what is acceptable in terms of behavior management.

2.  The best place is on the teacher shared drive under "library Schedule".  Teachers can open the calendar that the librarian places in the folder and "sign up" for library time.  if the slot is full- they would need to find a different time or talk to the teacher who occupies the space to see about trading.

3.  Inform administration and staff on the new procedure in the library.  Explain why there is a need for the new procedure and that learning and safety are of the upmost importance to the LMC.

4.  Administration can reinforce this by talking over the need for the new procedures and the procedure itself in faculty meetings.  If there is a problem with a teacher continuously abusing the new procedure, ask administration to talk with the staff member. 

To was pure craziness!  Too many students without supervision in the library created behavior issues.  With only a part time assistant, it is difficult to have supervision at all times and still accomplish administrative duties that I am assigned.  the solution to this is have my assistant be consistent on her schedule so we can publish the calendar in the teacher shared drive and teachers can sign up for lab time.  The new procedure can be implemented and tweaks made as necessary.