Other Duties as Required Redux

When I tell folks I'm a librarian I'm often told how nice it must be to "sit around and read" all day. I rarely sit and while I do read, it's usually to groups of children and it's most always children's books.


My job is  never boring and some of the most interesting bits fall under "Other Duties as Required". These duties have included everything from serving coffee to walking a pit bull.  Just when I think I've done it all, yet another new adventure pops up.


This week's "other duties as required" included Dumpster Diving. 
We'd received 10 Activ Wands for our Promethean Activ Boards and I'd cataloged them and set them aside so the teachers could come and pick them up.


They were in a box, along with the packing boxes behind the circulation desk.  We arrived the next day and they were gone. Most baffling since the custodial staff never touch what's piled behind the desk unless it has a sign saying "Basura" taped to it.  All the laptops were in their places so we didn't think they were stolen - why would a thief take those and leave the iBooks? 


My assistant, who speaks Spanish called the custodian who told her that the computer tech guy told her they were "trash" and to throw them out.   Still haven't figured out why he came to that conclusion.  Computer guy is sometimes a few fries short of a Happy Meal. 

Slight heart failure - they cost $60 each and were certainly not trash.  


Off the dumpster we trekked.  Lucky for us it's the beginning of the school year & it hadn't rained in some time..  While it was piled full, it was all clean paper and cardboard.  The dumpster on the last day of school is full of sticky party food debris - not to mention animals attracted by sticky party food.


I was the one wearing tennis shoes so I climbed in and started routing around - and there under piles of paper were our boxes, the installation CDs and the wands.  Deep breath and great cheer.


Out I clamored and back to the library we went,, wands in hand.  And no, we never told the teachers where those wands spent the night. 


And I got to add yet another duty to "Other Duties as Required".  Perhaps Dumpster Diving needs to be offered as a library school elective? 

Librarian Porn

It's now July 5th and I am finally starting my summer vacation. I should have about a month off prior to going back to work in August. I'm not sure how the myth that teachers get 3 months off arose. I've been in the biz for 19+ years and I've yet to experience it.

In June I:

1. Worked till the end of my contact time (4 extra days)


2. Picked up required to keep my certificate 18 hours of non contract in-service. Added about 12 more hours to the total while I was at it.


3. Visited my mother (well that does count as vacation but it does nothing for getting things done around the house)


4. With the help of two hard working library interns plowed through a 3 year cataloging backlog. And no, I wasn't paid. I was still better off than the 2 interns who had to pay for the priveledge of dealing with my stuff.

This cart was overflowing with book and the floor was stacked with math, science and language arts materials.

These carts are now full of shelf ready titles and the AV materials are ready to deliver to the math, science and language arts specialists.

Thank you L & A. and a special thank you to Dr. B. for sending the two of you my way!

15 Perfect Gentleman

Thanks to a bizarre chain of events that fell into place without a hitch (Hey, there really is a Goddess who looks after librarians) I hosted my first “name” author last Friday. We’ve had many author visits over the years, but they are mostly the self published type. Pleasant enough folks, but it’s very apparent that the main source of their income and their book sales are their school visits.

Not so Justin Somper the author of The Vampirates series. He’s from London and his American book tour included a stop in Houston to hobnob with librarians during the Texas Library Convention. Conventions aren’t my thing which meant I was the only librarian in Houston who could cobble together a school visit on 2 weeks’ notice.

I tossed up a display and a created Flipchart. I prepped, book talked and handed out the tomes. It helped that the books have very, very enticing covers and subject matter and that Justin has an enjoyable and informative web site. The kids enjoyed the books and looked forward to the event.

All the work paid off. Justin’s visit was worth every bit of effort and more. His rapport with the kids was excellent and he had them mesmerized. We sold over 100 books and made some money Blue Willow Books, the local independent bookstore. Owning one of his books became the newest status symbol and having all 4 meant you were at the top of the heap.

I’ve a group of 5th grade books who are devoted fans of the Cirque du Freak books and since there are some similarities in the two series I invited them to eat lunch with the author. I’ve always catered a lunch for visiting authors (have Crockpot, will cook) and included students. One advantage to not having an active PTA is that I can do my author lunches just as I please. At other schools author lunches are the province of the PTA and consist of the PTA Moms and their own offspring.

The menu is always simple – pasta with meat sauce, good French bread, butter, a tossed salad and something chocolate for dessert Every time I do one of these I’m always amazed at what’s novel.

Once year it was the “real forks”. I hate to eat with plasticware so I always bring my stainless from home. Another year it was the homemade salad dressing and the “real” whipped cream. This time it was the crusty French bread and the unsalted butter. The boys ate their way through 4 loaves, each slice slathered with butter.

"This doesn't taste like the butter from the cafeteria Ms. Moore".

I provided table cloths and we helped ourselves to tables not yet picked up from the carnival and set up a large, square banquet table. 15 boys sat round it, ate massive amounts of food, asked respectful, thoughtful and polite questions and brought tears of joy to the eyes of their principal.
Not one descended into horseplay, acted silly or did anything goofy. There were perfect gentlemen and did themselves and their school proud.

It's days like this that I love really, really love my job.

Tomorrow I'm doing a presentation about "Strong Principals / Strong Schools - along with my ex-principal (who is so good at her job that she got herself promoted) at the Texas Library Association. After I made the list I realized that I'm one busy librarian!

I'm being radical and not doing a PowerPoint. Instead I made an Animoto and a bulleted list of the assorted libray activities I done - at least the ones I can remember!

Principal Supplies/Supports:

Keeps the library "off"the block / teacher planning rotation
Good Budget & an Assistant
Decent computers
New technology
Space
Freedom to decorate and set up the library as I want (Lava Lamps, suffed animals, puppets)
Accelerated Reader
Doesn’t worry about stains on the carpet or messy shelves - kids come first

Librarian Supplies:

Informal teacher colloration
AR T-shirt Day
Library Lunch Club
AR Parties
Trips to Ci-Cis
Trips to Barnes and Noble
GT & PGP Passes

Freedom to experiment with Technology
High AR Point PassesLibrary Lunch Club
Book Swap

Open Checkout
Author Visits
Blogging
Hat Day
Slip into Reading Day
Library Lock In
20/20 Day
Reading Challenges with classes-Allow Food
Family Library Night
Field trips to see authors
Popcorn in the pocket park
Cake decorating

Green Eggs and Ham Lunch
Sugar cookie decorating
Mix it Up day

Author Visits

“Come on Down” for high AR Point passes

Library Thing in the Classroom or the Library

I can come up with all sorts of way to use Library Thing in the classroom or the library. It could become a wonderful source of student book reviews and recommendations. I've learned from teaching my blogging class that kids are much more eager to put fingers to keyboard than pencil to paper.

It's also a new twist on that old chestnut "The Book Report". It's a much more natural activity to follow up a class read with than making a diorama or a poster about the book. I've read thousands of books in my lifetime and never once have I ever had the desire to mark the end of a great book by creating a diorama.

Right now my district doesn't offer e-mail addresses to our students and that's the one obstacle I've been coming up against while teaching blogging. Everything Web 2.0 requires an e-mail address and that's yet another thing our kids don't have. I know they are standard in upper and middle class schools where children acquire their own web page at birth but not at Title I schools. We created the blogs by attaching them to an e-mail address I created on my own personal account. That worked till we started making Avatars. Avatars, we discovered required separate e-mail addresses. I now own about 20 different yahoo e-mail addresses! Where there is a will there is a way.

The district has come a long way toward opening up the web to the students, perhaps personal e-mail addresses are not far behind. One can only hope.

Librarian Video Game

Finally we have our own on- line video game!

http://www.library.cmu.edu/Libraries/etc/

I need more practice - I'm better at Dewey than LC.
And if you know what the above sentence means than you are definitely a librarian too!

13 Things I Need to Do to Get the Library Ready ...for The First Day of School

1. Create the AR incentive charts
2. Unpack the stuffed animals
3. Catalog all the books I found at the thrift stores & garage sales this summer
4. Update my Calendar
5. Change out all the flags
6. Put together the library schedule
7. Create a fall library display
8. Dust!
9. Plan the teacher’s book preview and food fest
10. Lesson plans for the first 3 weeks
11. Finish my Activ-Board FlipChart
12. Lay in a supply of food to bring for lunch.
13. Find the alarm clock!

Summer is over...Whahhhhhhhhhhhhh

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