The daily life of a Middle School Library Media Assistant.

Friday, May 28, 2010

3 Day Weekend

Took down the old May calendar today and put up the new June one with all the notices about senior activities and finals. Checked in/out books, but didn't do any repairs today. Amazing that school is almost over, 13 days left! A grateful heart here for our service men and women (including my son) and the sacrifices they make everyday in their time on duty. I will be sure to honor them over the weekend.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Cosplay

Today was the last Manga Club meeting for the year. Since I have an outfit I wear to the renaissance faire, I decided to wear it to be one with the Mangas. Did repairs today, processed in two magazines, checked in and out books. Took off the workroom door bulletin board and put up a 'All library books due NOW!' message. I helped out with the Manga meeting and was awarded a Pepsi for my effort!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The 900's

Did a lot of checking in and still some checking out. Checked in 2 teacher class sets and let her know she was missing some. Went in the back and shifted two whole bookcase sets to make room for Grapes of Wrath which worked out nicely since I had a couple of others I had packed in and now they have some extra room as well. Relabeled all that. Withdrew more of the 900's that Mrs. H went through. And more repairs when I had some time. Got my notice that I'm coming back next year, so I signed it and put it in our office manager's box for processing. Can you tell my granddaughter is still visiting and these posts are very short? I hear her! Goodnight!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Grapes of Wrath

Checked in some of our holocaust sets today, shipped out a teacher request. We got back in our LMSS Lit Set of Out of the Dust and so I checked it all and got it ready to ship back. Mr. C came in and asked me about what was I looking at for a book talk. So I told him it would be about 15 minutes highlighting the sci/fi/fantasy books we have in the library and asking them what books they'd like to see come in. He said he was good with that and s next fall we may do that. We had some students ask to use our back room to shoot their video. Lots of books came in today, Mrs. H and I also worked on the withdrawn/destroyed books. We also got in 32 Grapes of Wrath and I processed them in.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Boxer

Checked out a block class of Animal Farm today and took in a class of American Experience. When I read Animal Farm myself, my favorite charactor was Boxer the draft horse. I still remember his work ethic. Took in books all day long. I did repairs in between everything. Took in money from print accounts, reset computers. Processed in a magazine. Got a lot of the repaired math books back on the shelf today.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Charles A. Sprague Collection

Today I got in a couple more quotes for texts. I also worked our Charles A. Sprague collection. He's the school namesake and we have three shelves of books that I suppose were from his personal library. Some of those had gotten around the library and I checked all the books to withdraw (we don't check them out) and made sure they were all dusted and the shelves clean. I also withdrew our first couple of carts from the 900 section that were pulled and reviewed. We have a new lab going in this summer and the shelves will be pulled off, so Mrs. H had her student intern go through and pull stuff that hadn't been checked out in years. China Today! from the 70's is probably not real relevant anymore! I did inventory on the rest of the semester one math books as well.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Items In

Today I did work on more textbook requests. Had a quote in that had the wrong name on it and the rep changed that for me. Though it got a bit much today, and I cleared out and set in their own place all the orders that are all done, quotes attached and approved. Just about have the spreadsheet all set. So that felt very good. Then it was on to other things like inventory on 'in' items like our Volume 1 books that have come in. Showed Mrs. H's mentor student what I do on book repairs and let her work on some of the pile I have. Cleared off all the extra books off my shelf so they get put away. Checked through all our repair books that they were checked into repair and found some in our unusable pile.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Requests

Got in more textbook requests today. So I contacted more reps for quotes, revamped our spreadsheet adding in publisher contacts and attachments. Finding books getting the right information, adding in requests as well. Checked in a teacher class set of social studies books. Took in print money, checked out/in a class of Algebra 2 students. Inventoried our texts in counts, taking the books that are not in, and claiming them as lost.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Turn Around

One of our aides received a 'Turn Around' award, so today, Mrs. M and Mrs. H were invited to come to the luncheon for these amazing kids that have turned their lives around. I was honored to stay and watch the library so they could attend. I processed 5 magazines for us today and 2 for teachers. We got in numbers from the English department on how many of texts they would need for the incoming humongous sophomore class and I did some inventory on what the report says we have and what is actually on the shelf. After my colleagues left, I moved up to the front desk and stayed up there the rest of the day. I had a substitute teacher read shelves for us. Mrs. H's student teacher worked on the repairs for our Chemcom books. I had aides put away a whole cart load full of books - and I helped with that as well. I also found a big mess in our poetry section and I think it's all straightened out now. Put money in print accounts, checked in two classes of Foundations of Algebra Year 2 Volume 1 and checked out two class sets of Volume 2. Had another student claim they never checked out a book that we are billing them for. We explain to them that for now, yes, that should be a book of theirs since we never check out a book without their student ID. Checked in a set of books that a teacher had checked out. Another teacher set of materials for a social studies class. Billed two students because when they turned in their Foundations books, one was missing the front cover, and the other was missing the front and the back cover. Helped a student print up their brochure and, I'm sure there's more, but it was quite the blur! Congrats to our aide, she really deserved the award and I'm so proud of her!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Arturo or Joanna?

Today I had a student scan his card and it said he was Joanna! So, I took him off to Mrs. K to see what was going on, it seems our Trac-it system was mixed up, so I got his number and Joanna's and checked them out. It seems that Joanna had two numbers, hers and his! So I edited her wrong number to him! Processed three magazines in for us. Answered an e-mail for a math class to come get the Volume 2 books tomorrow. I had a student working on a project and then he was just messing about on the internet, so I sent him back to class and sent his teacher an e-mail that he should be coming. He never did go back to class. Another student wrote on his screen that he couldn't focus because I was watching him, and his last P.S. was unacceptable. His teacher Mr. C was there, and I showed him the screen shot. Mr. C made him apologize to me and I had him come all the way over. He finally looked like he meant it, so I let him go. I helped a student with some Algebra work and I think we did all right! Then I spent the rest of the day working on repairs.

Friday, May 14, 2010

New Assistant!


We were visited by a new assistant today, my absolutely adorable granddaughter Ferynne! She visited some of her dad's teachers from when he went here, and some of my old work buddies from the cafeteria, and even checked out my desk and scanner. We had so much fun! But, other than that, I created an excel sheet for the textbook requests and we are already $10,000 over what we're supposed to spend! Did some computer monitoring, money into accounts, checked in/out individual books and some repairs. Yeah! It's Friday and I get to go home to see more of Ferynne! Bye!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Gone

Mrs. M was out sick today, and Mrs. H had to leave at 11:30 to interview for the AVID program and then off to a library meeting, so I was the main honcho for the rest of the day. I worked on getting more quotes and finalizing all the textbook orders. Along with checking in and out books, money into print accounts, helping a student print out her brochure on the new color printer, running to catch the phone, finding books that were shelved but not checked in from the notices that went out yesterday. I truly can't remember all I did today, but I was busy! At the end of the day I also stayed late volunteering to watch the Manga Club since Mrs. H couldn't be there.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Camerata

Today the orchestra camerata came and played in the library to help prepare for their competition on Friday. They were amazing! What a gifted group of students! We had a group of students in working on the computers and one was supposed to be looking up a book by an american author, and really wasn't, so I suggested one to him. Got in some more magazine and textbook requests. Processed nine magazines for us, talked with one of our department heads on numbers of texts for next year, helped set up the library for the camerata concert. Talked with a book rep on getting some texts cheaper than their website showed. Then for the last time this year, we had to close up the library for AP testing. So I looked through books Mrs. H had her proctor student pull. She looked through them, and I did as well, I found some of our Charles A. Sprague collection in there! Then I repaired for the rest of the day. Had to turn in some students. Two of them were extremely rude during the camerata concert and when I asked them to be a bit quieter since they were being taped, they got very indignant, how ould they do their work if they weren't allowed to talk and why were we letting the orchestra in to play anyways? Oh my. Some others were gaming, so I turned in their names to their teacher.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Library Overdues

Had to immediately check out a block class set of Old Man and the Sea when I got in. Then I worked on contacting Prentice Hall for a set of AP Biology books and some teacher resources to go along with that. Processed in four teacher magazines. Then Mrs. M had printed up over 600 overdue library book notices and I worked the rest of the day on looking up classes to deliver the notices to. Tomorrow 4th period they will be in classes waiting to be distributed. Did the check in/out today, print account money, checking on books for kids and did a book review.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Quotes

I was flying from the moment I stepped in today. Got ready two class sets of Hunger Games for Ms. A. Checked in two classes of Algebra 2 Volume 1 and checked out Algebra 2 Volume 2. Checked in some borrowed Antony & Cleopatra's from another school and some Brave New World's from a different school. Put money into print accounts, checked in/out a lot of individual students. Did some research for a teacher on magazines for her classes. I worked a lot on quotes for textbooks today. I talked with a rep from a company and we found a way to possibly save $500 for a teacher on some online access workbooks and found that if they are not used, we can use them next year. I also checked publishers and distributors on pricing, getting the best deal we can. I printed out the quotes and the orders, stapled them to the requests so the office manager has everything right in hand to order in July. I also talked with our used textbook rep since he came in today and may get a bigger deal on some extra books we need to supplement some current books.

Friday, May 7, 2010

And more...testing

Another test today, AP US History and we had over 50 students working away all morning. So, Mrs. M and I worked in the back again. Most of the day I spent doing repairs. Added another approval to my magazine spreadsheet. Answered a question from another library on textbooks. Monitored students when we got back in. Had lunch alone today, so I took the opportunity to read my current, Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter. Cleaned up the back room from all the stuff I had laying around all week from repairs during testing. Only one more test to go next Wednesday.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

More Testing...

The library was closed again today for more AP testing, but we had new books to cover - Huzzah! So Mrs. M and I split them up between us. After that, more repairs and then we were finally out into the library around noon. I worked on the magazine subscriptions for next year since I got in approvals from the department heads, starting and working on the new excel spreadsheet I keep for all that. Checked in/out books. Put money into print accounts. Looked at a student record for our bookkeeper and we conferred about that. Helped with getting the library set up for testing tomorrow. We needed more tables so I cleaned off a table in the back so it could be used, and helped Mrs. H's substitute move it out. She also had me count with her how many spaces we had available to get a double count. I got to really talk with a couple of our aides today while in the back and that was good.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Subscriptions

Worked on our magazine subscriptions today. Got in touch with teachers who already have subscriptions and let them know what the new prices would be for next year. Then I let all the licensed teachers and classified staff know that we were getting these ready. They also need departmental approval before we can order. Checked in/out lots of books today. Worked on repairs for awhile. Got ready for working in the back tomorrow since there will be testing again all morning.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Chemcom

Came in today and checked e-mails and saw a class wanted to come and get books so I got ready a class set of Fahrenheit 451 for them and checked them out. Processed a teacher magazine and one for us. Wrote a review for Scarlet and posted that. Finished up the May calendar. Two boxes were sitting on the workroom floor!! Yeah! New books! So I unpacked them and checked them all in. We didn't have the covers yet, but we did cover the few paperbacks that had come in. After that, the library closed for more AP Testing. So, we went into the back and began to repair books. I worked on the Chemcom books. I had asked Mr. W about them as they are really showing some wear and tear and they weren't replaced on the adoption the summer before last, so he asked us to recondtion about 100 of the stock we had. Since we had gotten in new blue tape, I worked on those for the rest of the day.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Six Week Shrine




There was AP testing in the library today when I got in, so I met up with Mrs. M and we repaired together until the testing was over. Since everyone is getting all crazy for the last six weeks of school, I brought in a cloth, a battery operated candle and built a hut of books over the top and made a sign 'Serenity Shrine - 6 weeks to go!' When we got back in, I processed in four teacher magazines, and five for the library, checked out two class sets of To Kill a Mockingbird and the class set of Out of the Dust from LMSS. Caught a kid during the last period watching a keyboard Star Wars film and sent him back to class and let his teacher know about it. Did a bit more repairing and the day was over. Worked a tad more on the May Calendar. The Shrine, the May Calendar and Mrs. M's 'reasons why students don't turn in books' bulletin board! Too funny!!