The daily life of a Middle School Library Media Assistant.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Replacing Textbooks Help for Students

The first Tuesday of the month is our classified staff meeting. We discussed the current issues with the budget and I got to share with the team that there are other ways for students to pay for textbooks than just paying our price. We have a wonderful operation right here in town called Bookbyte that buys and sells used textbooks. Another option is Amazon, they also have a used textbook division. Our newer books are about the same price (sometimes more since we often get a school discount) but the older books can often be had for much less. One student I helped had $100 worth of texts she needed to pay for and through Bookbyte only paid $20 to replace them. We do need to make sure that when they do buy a textbook through another source that they use the correct ISBN number since many books have several editions out and we need to make sure that we are getting the same issue that we are using not to mention a book that is within a school usable condition. One of the staff asked that I send out a staff email with the information so I did that after we left. I pulled books for today and helped a student save a document to a flash drive. I processed magazines and had a DVD brought in to see if we could use it for announcements and it had an error message and was ejected. I let the staff announcement liason know that it wouldn't play before announcements were done. Checked in and out individual students, took in two class sets of Algebra Connections Volume 1 replacing that with Algebra Connections Volume 2. Tipped pages, ran the front desk after Mrs. J left, compiled the list of books that kids had requested during our winter book wish list, sent off Witness to Ms. C, got our aides working on reading shelves and they were pleased that they had found a "Z" in with the "L's" and put it where it belonged. I got approved today to take vacation on Thursday since we have a very special guest coming to town to work with my husband and the Capitol Calligraphers for a workshop. I'm excited! I ended the day sending out an email to two of our teachers that I had forgotten when we scheduled text pick-ups that the library would be closed 1st and 2nd period tomorrow while they run the ASVAB test, but I would have the window open as soon as the test was over and students could come by and pick up their texts anytime the rest of the day. We have a small fridge for our lunches in the back workroom, and the ice had built up so thick the door wouldn't close anymore, so I put the few things in there into Mrs. T's fridge and unplugged it, leaving in the bowl and lots of towels in case it spilled out. No sense in running the fridge when the door won't close, and not very cost effective either.

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