The daily life of a Middle School Library Media Assistant.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Happy Holidays

Today was our last day before our two week Holiday Break. We had advisory and I had a class of freshmen today so I had to walk them through setting up their CIS accounts and getting in their classes. Did repairs today, checked in and out books. Took down the December Calendar and put away all the books I had on my shelf. Turned off all the computers in the labs after they were done for the day. Put away the books that had been turned in. We had a Winter Solstice CD in our collection so I put that on my computer and played it all day. One student said she was really enjoying it. Cleaned out one of my book repair carriers, it had gotten messy, so I cleaned it out and rearranged stuff, threw other stuff away that was old. Happy Holidays all, see you in January!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Rolling Eyes Smiley

Distributed out the laundry basket of books, contacted the other schools and boxed up the texts and sent them back to three other schools. Monitored the computer lab, we're trying to get really particular about the students when they are sent to study and making sure they are working on a project and not just messing about. Checked out a student who is moving over break. Boxed up more books for surplus and a few others that needed special packaging. Checked out Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Mr. S's class. Cleaned up 2 schools borrowed books reports so that what I have down matches what they have down. Two schools to go! Did some book repair. Checked out the CIS instructions for tomorrow, and I couldn't find them, so I emailed Mrs. A to get another copy of that and she brought it over. Pulled some more books to display on the shelves. Helped a student with his diversity project. This is a project that Mrs. H works on with health classes. Since she wasn't here today I got to help out. He needed to find magazine articles on people who are living with schizophrenia. So I helped him get on the Gale website and put in some names to show him how to do that. He was very negative, told me he'd already read a book and finished that part of it and would never read another book again, hated the diversity but was told he had to do that one. (Wish I had a rolling mom eyes smiley for here.) Maybe he was just having a bad day, I hope it gets better :)

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Laundry Basket of Books

Took in some more books for repair. One student was studying Romeo and Juliet missing 4 pages, and another book, The Adventures of Huck Finn had derogatory statements all in black sharpie pen around the edges of two pages. It's really shocking sometimes that things like that still go on. Made change for a student, put money into print accounts. Checked in and out books. Directed students in the computer lab to be sure they were working on projects. Got in 20 Ordinary People and sent them back to McNary. Sent a note to a student that he is the only one with a borrowed copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God that is still out. If he turns it in, I can box those up and send them back. I went through the borrowed book list and reconciled it with what we say we have borrowed. I made a list of books we need to order for replacements. I deleted out old texts and transferred others. Did some more book repair. Towards the end of the day a father came in with a whole laundry basket full of books from his garage. Four were from his daughter here from Sprague, others were from two other middle schools, some were from other students. When I looked at his list again, she still had a bunch of books out that she'd been billed for! One book had gotten wet and molded all the top half, so he took that back, along with another book from a middle school that had molded as well. I worked with him and the bookkeeper to get us all on the same page.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Sealed

Finished stamping and lining out the withdrawn books and boxing them all up. Spent some time working on the 'books we need' list. Checked some of our older books for newer copies and got that all done. Processed in People, Time, Newsweek and Popular Photography. Put money in print accounts, checked in and out books. Had the aides pull books to display on the shelves since we have some room now. Heard that we had gotten in the Buen Viaje 2 workbooks and dashed over to the office, and no books! We only got a 'they are backordered' slip :(

Monday, December 14, 2009

Packing Up

Spent a lot of today withdrawing and packing up books. They will be picked up while we are gone on break, so I'm working hard to get them all done and ready to go. Checked out a class set of World History to Mrs. S. Checked in and out various books to and from students all day. Worked on our list of books we need to get into the library when we go to Powell's next Monday. Some of our series are missing the first book in them, some classics we need to update, etc. Did some repairs on books as well. Finished up Mr. M's dictionary and I'll bet he was glad to get it back!

Friday, December 11, 2009

Done

Finished up the fiction weeding today - Huzzah! Supervised the students who elected to come into the library rather than go to the assembly. Checked in and out books all day here and there. Worked on repairing Mr. M's dictionary and started to repair Mrs. M's lit book. Fixed a torn page in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

New Books

Finally we get in three boxes of new books from processing. Yeah! We have new books to get checked out before the break. I did more weeding in the morning and then helped cover the new hardbacks the rest of the day except for another evaluation of a King Arthur presentation. They really are fun to watch!

Mr. S's List

Wednesday the 9th: Finished off Mr. S's list today. Then I went back over all the books and made sure that we actually did have copies of all of them. I returned his list and made a few suggestions for additional authors like Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and Siobhan Dowd (it's for honors British Literature). Then back to weeding. We have an entire 3 shelf (well, 6 with both sides) cart of books ready for Mrs. H to go over. I also did a lot of check outs today, random kids coming to pick up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and other books.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Orchestra, Choir & King Arthur

Processed in 3 teacher magazines and did Time, Newsweek, People, Thrasher and Asimov's for the library. Checked out two classes of Literature and Language and checked in their Ordinary People. Packed up ten Fahrenheit 451 to ship to another school. Had a parent call on a damaged text book, so I told him what I had written on the 'issued to' page. He asked if I could send him the note, so I printed off a copy and got his address and put it in our mail. We had the orchestra come in today and play a piece so I actually came over and just listened to these incredibly talented students. Then for lunch the Rotary came and we had to close down the library for them and the choir came in and sang. For 4th period I received a request to 'evaluate' some class projects and watched students give a presentation on King Arthur. They had a PowerPoint, used the document camera for their Truth or Myth segment, made a board game, a scroll of the knight's 10 Commandments and made a video! The video was a great mix of storytelling and knightly mayhem! It was great fun! I also worked and almost completed Mr. S's Honors Brit Lit list. Since we are weeding books, Mrs. H got the list of books he asks his students to read and we went over it to make sure they stay on our shelves and don't get put to surplus! I checked the whole district to see which are available here and what other schools have that we could borrow from. When we get done with it, I'll give it to him and then he can see if he would really like any particular books brought in on our next PO to get more books.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Internet Agreements

Started this morning helping a student check out from school and cleared her from textbooks and the library. I went back over emails to make sure I was on track and found one on intermet use agreement that was supposed to be done last Friday! Opps! So I found the training on our Academy of Training and Learning on Internet Use and did the training and completed the test, printed out the form and turned it into the office. I worked on a repair for Mr. M. Checked to see if we could lend ten copies of Fahrenheit 451. Did more withdrawing and weeding. Set up Literature and Language books to be checked out by three classes tomorrow and one for Wednesday, 109 books!

Friday, December 4, 2009

Friday!

Today I came in and immediately the fire alarms went off - really, I don't think I did anything but out we went! I was very glad I had my über coat on since it was only 25 degrees out. We came back in and started the advisory period and I had seniors again for the CIS. They got a lot of work done! Worked on more weeding and packing up old books today, I'm into the M's so I'm halfway around! Found a new book to read, Abundance by Sean Jeter Naslund (she did Ahab's Wife which I loved).

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Weeding

Today I mostly spent working on weeding out the old fiction books and made it all the way through the P's! Mrs. M was gone today and her sub did a great job, she even repaired and did some weeding herself. Checked out two class sets of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and various other books. Mrs. H had to leave at 12:30 for a meeting so I got to be in charge of library for the afternoon. I had one set of kids make sure they got all the surplus boxes marked 'Surplus Books' and after I withdrew a cart of books, I had another set cross out all the Sprague marks and stamp them 'withdrawn'. Sometimes I'm surprised at which books have been fairly recently checked out, but there are some that when I check their last check out list and see no entries, I'm not surprised at all! I've been looking for older books, with the old barcodes on them. My saddest find was Bless the Beasts and the Children, one of my favorites when I was in high school - it had never been checked out here :( I sadly put it on the cart to be sent to surplus.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Out with the Old

Moved books and shelves around today for the books I processed in yesterday. Went through a box of donated books to make sure we had copies. We had this amazing two volume set of Gone With the Wind I sent to LMSS for their rare/historical collection. Processed in a Newsweek and People magazine. I showed a teacher some of the repairs I do. She's proctoring with Mrs. H and wanted to see how to fix pages. She felt so bad she uses tape! So I did some stuff for her to see. Did a lot more weeding today in the fiction and nearly have an entire cart ready for Mrs. H to check before we withdraw and pack them up for surplus. Did the usual check in/check out. Checked a student's SASI account to see his damage fee hadn't been removed from his account. They didn't pay it, but he came in and did work to pay it off. So I took the payment off. Showed some more students today how to search for subjects in the library - these needed books for their diversity project. I also found a book we thought was missing, our new The Art of Racing in the Rain! There it was on the shelf as I was weeding, right where it belonged!

Mrs. M's Calendar



Tuesday December 1st: Mrs. M is an incredibly talented artist and today she thought she'd paint some icycles on the bulletin board up by her. One of our aides titled it "There's snow better time to read". By the time she was done, we had an original art work for our board! My board looks very sad by comparison! I'm truly impressed by her talents, she's amazing. Processed in the new C21 Accounting Advanced books and the new Fashion Marketing and Merchandising. Packed up the excess Bien dit! workbooks to send back to processing, finished getting my 'winter' books on the calendar shelf. Did a bit of weeding. Checked out Sentence Combining and Nineteen Minutes.