The daily life of a Middle School Library Media Assistant.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Hello Spring Break!

Had another snow day yesterday. Today I got in and did a couple of things, then off for a meeting at Technology. Came back and had some lunch, then got to spend most of the rest of the day putting covers on a new box of books. I checked them all in for Mrs. M, then covered for the afternoon. Got the whole box done! Then off for Spring Break! See you in nine days ;)

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Snow Delay

Didn't the weather get that memo I sent that it's supposed to be spring today? Got a call that we were on a 2 hour delay this morning, but I'm always on a 2 hour delay so I just went in on my regular time. Checked out lots of books today, did some repairs. We have a lovely student aide from Mr. N's class that I am teaching to repair his old art history books and I really enjoy teaching her about how to make all the pieces fit! I had her gluing corners today :) If I stretched just a little from my desk, I could see the snow falling outside during the day. Amazing how it just kept up all day.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Free Speech

Is it really free if it hurts someone? A student posted a picture on their facebook page (during class time no less, on his phone) and stated that it was the librarian at Sprague. He claims that we don't have to look at it and he has freedom of speech to do what he wants. So sad. Mrs. M was the target we suppose and she took offense and turned it over to the school officer. Maybe the student will learn a lesson, we can only hope so. He's taken the picture off, but students come in and look at Mrs. M and giggle. *sigh* We teach them when we can. Processed in two magazines for us and one for a teacher. Packed up the withdrawn bio/autobiographies and did the rest to get them ready for pick up. We had a pile of books in the back we had pulled last year, and went through that as well and kept a few, but withdrew the rest of them. I also went over to the back side of the 921's and pulled a whole cart load from there for Mrs. H to look over. Some of the books we decided to go ahead and keep I made new barcodes for and laminated the covers, doing some repairs on them first. I have a couple of books that need some edge repairs before they go back so I will do that tomorrow. Ended the day at the Site Council meeting, only two to go before the end of the year!

Monday, March 19, 2012

Book of Kells

We have a really nice copy of this in the library, pictures of all the illuminated pages and some of the calligraphy as well, so I put that out on our display rack for kids to look at while they were waiting for help. Came in the door today and was instantly besieged by questions from kids! And that was just about the entire day. Talked to one of the people who is working on the Insignia/InTouch integration about some details, checked in and out books. Helped go through our auto/biographies to sort out the old to surplus with Mrs. H. Then I withdrew them and got a cart ready to head to surplus.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Wearing of the Green

All right, so I didn't, but did process in one teacher magazine and three for the library and more repairs today. Helped a student who had a French book checked out to him and he's never taken French. I looked him up and the text, and it turns out that is was French, but a teacher resource and sitting on the shelf, so he'll be happy about that. Helped an interim teacher with some 20th Century Studies resources. Had Technology do another update on my Outlook (the new email system) and Mrs. H is having the same issues, so I guess a tech is coming over next week to fully dump both our computers - scary!!!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Ides of March

Super crazy day in the library is what Lisa called it when I got there. Though I wasn't there long. Mostly tackled the repairs again (and for many days to come) then at noon I left for two meetings over at Technology. One for the new inventory control project and another for the Insignia/In Touch integration. Whew....

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Repairs

Yep, a heavy day of slogging through books to be repaired. Some did get done and back on the shelf, others in various stages.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

In Touch

Today I came in and worked mostly on repairs today. I finished up the nine magazines for the library and cleaned out the magazine rack, putting a lot of the freebies on our rack over on the counter. They were kind of ragged on the rach since they were all jammed in together, so this is nicer. At 1:00 I left for Technology and we worked the rest of the afternoon on the Insignia/In Touch project. We want the books to be automatically billed so we don't have to notify the bookkeeper, then she does the billing. This way, as soon as we have a lost or damaged book, it will go straight to the billing end of the accounting program! It should save hours of work for the bookkeepers and will be a good thing! It was fun!

Monday, March 12, 2012

Tree Down!

Massive wind and rain storm today and one of the old patriarch trees on the approach to school in the corner of the ball fields came down. It was a beautiful old maple, but I heard that bees were nesting in it and hollowed out the trunk. Did lots of repairs today. Processed in 6 teacher magazines and worked on 9 for the library - didn't quite get them done before I left today. Sat on the phone with technology as to why my Outlook freezes up. It did it 6 times today. Coordinated meetings and closed up the library when it was my time to go.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Dana

Thursday - March 8 - helped Mrs. M today with the memorial books for Dana, a girl here who died last week. Mrs. M did a fabulous job putting together all the notes from the memorial wall we had here at school and today I helped her cut out and bind up the pages. It was hard not to cry as I glanced through the notes, how much so many of the kids loved her, her positive spirit was an inspiration to so many...hard to go on. Mrs. M made covers as well since we had to make 3 books to hold all the notes. Processed in three magazines for us. I also did repairs and the usual's.

Friday for us was a half day. Mrs. M took vacation and Mrs. H went to another school for the half day so I went to Sprague and worked there. I replaced more of the Prentice Hall Literature Gold books, some repairs. Helped a teacher with some book choices, had another classified come in and straighten out our manga shelves. 


Dana, may you find the peace you so desperately needed. May those close to you find their own in dealing with this. My heart weeps for this ending.

 

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Inventory Tracking

Started today with a meeting over at Technology to help work on the new inventory tracking program they are getting up and running for all the things that the district purchases technology wise. That was very interesting and I'm the 'hands on' person who works with inventory every day so I did have a few insights to share which made me feel very valuable. The rest of the day I checked out books, did repairs, sent a box of books over to Barbara Roberts HS and then once I got the 'test' program for the new inventory system I dorked around with that a bit and made some notes on what I found. Mrs. H had to leave this afternoon, so I ran the library by myself for an hour and half or so! Yeah!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Oh my!

I forgot about yesterday! Too busy in my life I guess! Processed in four magazines and did some repairs.
Today I did more repairs and worked on the series of books we had in our latest order and put them all together on the shelf. Did some replacing of the Prentice Hall Literature Gold books, gave a great book suggestion to a student (Incarceron) - did a lot of walking back and forth from my computer to the printer at the main desk!

Friday, March 2, 2012

Grief

Today we came back after a snow day and we had student that committed suicide on Wednesday night. The library was the site for the grief counselors and a place where the students could come and talk and just be somewhere safe. Processed in six magazines today and just about finished up my bulletin board, checked out a class set of Algebra 2 V2 books and various other texts. Took in some late library books and emailed the bookkeeper to get them of the bills. Going home with a heavy heart.