The daily life of a Middle School Library Media Assistant.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Ta Ta for Now!

So, work is all done for the summer! Came in to see a big truck backed up to the school doors and they had taken all our surplus books! Yeah! I cleaned up in the back today. The tracks on our telescoping shelving had lots of stuff that had gotten down in there, dust bunnies, in some cases dust dragons, so I vacumned all the tracks out, then swept and mopped back there. Then I helped Mrs. M and put labels on the backs of books, turned in my keys and badge, had our last lunch together. Checked in some books for students. Then I cleaned off the top of the shelving in the back and found four textbooks that had been just slid up there! I should have kept my Zombie Shelver poster up! Rearranged all the boxes together on just the front shelf instead of all over the place. Checked out some more books - lots to read over the summer! See you in late August!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Magazines Ready

We've been getting in magazines the last couple of weeks, so I took time today and processed all of those. There were quite a few! They will go on my "check out what you missed over the summer' rack when we get back! Processed in some miscellaneous texts and did some general cleaning up. I think we're about all ready to leave for the summer! One day to go!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Cleaning Up

Today I put away all the rest of the textbooks, all the teacher materials (had to make some room there) and checked out all the books we have in the repair shelves to make sure they were all on the list for our bookkeeper this summer. I also picked up all the magazines and put away all the extra issues and repacked that aisle in the back workroom. Two days to go!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Ordering

So today Mrs. H and I sat down and got together all the orders for magazines and textbooks. If we had our wish lists all approved, we'd spend $75K on the new books teachers have requested. We took all that into the office and handed it over to the office manager. She and the principal will decide if and what will be ordered. I will just have to wait until August to see what/if anything was ordered and if it came in. Almost got all my desk cleared off today, though there still is a lot to do. Three days left to go and I'm sure we'll use all three. Mrs. H is now gone for the summer, I helped her pack up and cart things out to her car this afternoon after I was done working.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Last Monday

Today was "get it all done because they run the billing tonight"! So, all three of us pitched in and got the billing done, though Mrs. H and Mrs. M left just a bit for our bookkeeper to finish up since they had to leave. I worked on regular textbooks for a bit, then finished off the science books. I called the bookkeeper at 4 pm to say "I'm done!" It's our last Monday, four days to go for this school year. We also had some help today, a gal from South High School came over and did all the inventory on our fiction section - that was amazing!

Friday, June 18, 2010

Black/White

So, today I worked on the science books, documenting the damages and I billed all the Chemistry and Biology books. We had the library media end of the year luncheon and that was really nice. I printed up reports of out books and had we had some help to check on them! My most common thing to erase today? Name: Michael Jackson Issued: Black Returned: White. I guess there's some science going on in that!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Staff Book Talk


Today we had the end of the year staff breakfast. It was a lot of fun! I did some work in the back fixing up a shelf that had broken and reorganizing that, when I heard Mrs. H asking "Debbie? Where are you? We're on!" So, I grabbed my books and we did a tag team of books for the different departments. For languages we had The Language of Goldfish for them to consider a class for next year. Admin we suggested When You are Engulfed in Flames. We got a lot of good laughs. Checked off teacher lists, put away other books. I checked over the Chemistry books for damages (the pic is of our Physical Science books and what students have done to them) and got them all put away when I was done along with other books we got in during the day. Mrs. H and I went to Amadeus for lunch, a nice change! I ended the day checking the books out list for the America Pathways texts and found one for a student. I checked it in and he had two others out, and I tracked them down, there they were on the shelves and so he is now all clear. I couldn't get on the Main Frame today, but I will be billing all day tomorrow! I sent a request to technology to get it working for me and I know they will!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Zombie Shelvers

Today we took in nearly 2000 textbooks and got them all put away. The last day of school. I made a cutout and when you found a book mis-shelved, you got to yell out 'Zombie Shelver!' and stick a pin (o.k. draw a pin like line) on the figure! It was a long day, but I was glad to get that all done - whew!!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Mrs. H's Birthday!


How cool is that? Mrs. H's birthday is today and in amongst all the books coming in we tried to have lunch together and a bit of cake! I came in late yesterday and helped her best friend D decorate and took cake home so I could bring it in today! She was quite surprised and probed me all morning about who did it, and I finally fessed up about noonish. My son came in and helped today and though we took in a ton of books, still have a lot out there, 5,000 still to go. I figure about 1K are teacher texts out, but that still leaves a lot of kid books that need to come in and tomorrow is the last day for classes. Can we say "help?"

Monday, June 14, 2010

The Good Son

Today my son came in to help put books away, and with him and the extra help we had from other students, we got all the 1400 textbooks put away that we took in today. That's about all we did today, though I did take some more of the senior out books and checked to see if they were here or not and found one out of the chunk of about 15 I checked. That's all I had time for! I came in at 7:15 since the kids were gone about 1 pm, there was no real reason for me to come in late and stay late today - so I shifted. I'll do the same tomorrow.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Books and More Books

Just checked in lots of books today - Mrs. H let the seniors know they needed to get their books in before they get grades/diplomas/transcripts, so we did get a lot of them cleared today, but still about 90 or so need to get on the ball! We had some good help and got a lot put away today and Mrs. H was staying there for graduation so she was going to get the couple of carts put away we had collected at the last of the day. Graduation is here and it isn't raining! Since we meet out at the football field, that's a plus in my book! Happy Graduation Class of 2010!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

8989

That's the number of texts still out after today's books came in. Checked in and put away books all day. Processed two magazines, worked up billing for some texts but couldn't get on the main frame to actually do the billing. Mrs. H and Mrs. M went to the Senior Award Ceremony while I held down the fort. Worked on checking the Physical Science with Earth Science texts that came in so we can bill now rather then next term - that was such a hassle last year. I have five to bill for damages already. Tonight I am working on a new design for my blog - since our school colors are orange and brown, this seemed perfect!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Almost a Thousand

Last day for seniors and we got in nearly a thousand books - we still have a lot of seniors that need to turn in books (almost 200!), but more like the numbers we needed to start getting back on the shelves. So, most of today was checking in and putting away books. I also reorganized the Gardner's Art Through the Ages books - these are massive 1150 pages huge! Last year the shelves weren't set quite right and they ended up not getting on the shelves the way I wanted them, but they should be all right this year. I also took over putting all these away personally to make sure they were properly shelved. I was working up a sweat today and won't need to work out tonight! Mrs. M brought in a case of Pepsi and handed me one about 10am, and I really it already by then! It's nice to have someone making sure you have what you need to get through a long physically demanding day!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

398

We were hoping for a ton of books to come in today and we only got 398.Still well over 10K out! We still have 342 seniors that books on their accounts! Only about 30 came in today and turned books in and cleared off their tabs. Drats! But we were very busy all day and the aides just about kept up with all those books coming in. I only had a few I did at the end of the day. Cleaned up old e-mails, checked in a lot of books, processed two teacher magazines and four for the library.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Pizza Party

Mrs. H had a pizza party for all our aides for this semester. So I got a couple of pieces for lunch today myself! She really amazing with all the balls she juggles. I cleaned up some student reports. We generally put students in as '10' rather than '2010' for their graduation year. So I went through reports and cleared up the stragglers that had gotten entered the wrong way, probably about 25 or so for all the grades. Ran reports for staff on what they have checked out for textbooks. Did some repairs and did check in books, put money into print accounts, and processed three magazines. Seniors have finals tomorrow so we're hoping to get more books in than we did today. I thought we'd get in a ton of books today, but perhaps they're cramming for the last two days!

Friday, June 4, 2010

Inventory

Yep. That was about it today. I did process in a magazine and check in some books, but the main part of my day was inventorying the non-fiction. I made it from 000's to the mid 700's somewhere. So, several thousand books and our missing rate wasn't too bad! To be continued after the weekend!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Boxing Up

Today I packed up all the 900's that were left, which were still quite a few. Mrs. M was gone today so I did a lot of money for print accounts. Helped students trying to copy, unjammed the printer. Worked with some more publishers. One set of books a teacher would like I had the hardest time tracking down the site, the books, the rep that would serve us! Seemed to take forever. An old student brought in books from several years ago and I checked them in. She still had two books out, so I sent her to Bookbyte for the others. Speaking of Bookbyte, I had another student who lost his America Pathways book bring in a replacement copy. It had what looked like a Sprague barcode on it, so I scanned it and it actually checked in under a different student who had been billed for it!?! Someone had turned it into Bookbyte for cash! So, I reprocessed it. Where's that rolling eyes smiley when you need it? Mrs. H checked in her DVD's and we were missing some since we had moved everything into her office. She gave me the names and I remembered one set of three and thought how I might have filed it - under the word ten, or the number 10, and there it was, still with our regular teacher materials. At least we found it! Checked in a lot of books today, the seniors are starting to drop off the excess!

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Prayer

Heard in the library today. One of our cellists came with the strings orchestra and played this song today. It was very beautiful and a wonderful moment. Processed in two magazines, sent out textbook requests to several publishers. Got into the main frame and checked a student who said he had paid off a text. He did, so I marked that in Trac-it for him. Had several teachers come and look at our book pile and one of them found Touch the Earth in there, so I rescued it and sent back to reprocess it at LMSS. Did some repairs, took in a lot of books and print account money. Checked books out for students. Finished up the calendar.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Billed!


Mrs. M printed up all the overdue notices this morning so we worked together on getting them sorted. Looking up each student and their first period class for distribution tomorrow. We had 524 notices to do! Then I withdrew another cart of the 900's books we're surplusing. Ms. O came and took some books, then Mr. J. I sent out a staff wide e-mail for anyone else to come and partake of the book bounty. Better they go to teachers than the burn pile. I worked on my torch for the calendar. I had a student today come up and look at the calendar and say he was almost ready to cry since he'll be graduating on the 11th! Just a few days away! I got my review and Mr. W was very nice, bringing it down to me. I was looking for a motto or something for the bulletin board and found these four in the Olympian student handbook, set in the olympian rings with 'Olympians' in the fifth ring, worked out perfect for me and the four sided set up here.