The daily life of a Middle School Library Media Assistant.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Spring Break!

Last day before our Spring Break (and it also happens to be Holy Week as well! I remember when break was always Holy Week). Worked mostly on the Unused titles list today and got through most of the A's, B's and C titles. It was a little more complicated than I thought with print dates, last used dates, publisher, how many copies at our school and how many, if any, at other schools, condition, so quite the decision process. Checked out a lot today as students got ready for spring break, some to just enjoy reading and others to get caught up on homework! Ta-da! We'll be back on April 2nd!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Buccaneer Bunnies

Today I got the wonderful opportunity to read to our Little Oly's kiddos! Mrs. H had to be somewhere else and she asked me to read so I picked Henry and the Buccaneer Bunnies. One of our aides and Mrs. M helped me made newspaper pirate hats for all the kids (17!) and I had one as well and I had a fabulous time! I hope the kids did too! Deleted off 46 titles and had our amazing Mr. C get them off the database. Checked in what was left of Homeless Bird for Ms. J. She had been very ill and students helped themselves, so she still has 13 of them checked out to her. Checked out our new US Constitution the graphic adaptation to Mr. T. Checked out all the ASL things out to Ms. H. Started to work on the unused titles list. Took down both the bulletin boards by me. Not sure what I'll do yet, but have an empty slate! Arrrggghhh!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

656 Titles - 12,495 Barcodes

Huge immense project is done! I had to look through 656 different titles and fixed 12,495 barcodes! Huzzah! Now I'm just doing clean up and sundry items on our catalogue list. Hopefully now we can have our filter come off and that will speed up checkouts a bit plus help out LMSS when we get textbooks in so they can batch add instead of just one at a time! Checked out lots of Great Gatsby's today as well. Feeling good about leaving for spring break with that out of the way! Another Huzzah!

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

61 Titles

I am almost at the end of the barcode list (Huzzah!) and went through all our old deleted titles today and there were 61 'wd' titles I trolled through. Most of these books I've never seen, were deleted years ago and yet there were still copies in the system, so I took all of them out and deleted them so now we can clear up space and delete these old titles. Checked in and out books today. Worked through a billing report from Insignia so our bookkeeper could check and see which books went through on the billing yesterday from Mrs. H's update on the program. Books will be declared automatically 'lost' and will be billed after 30 days of being overdue. Mrs. S said that the data I gave her seemed that all was in order and we are good to go!

Monday, March 18, 2013

?

Was busy like crazy all day but what I did, I'm not sure to cause all that! Did more barcodes and communicated with teachers on who had what. Like all our Good Foods and Introduction to Culinary Arts books were still all counted here, even though our old teacher took them with her when they sent her off to another school. We still have woodworking books even though they were all given away when we lost our woods classes. So I am hunting down where they went. Processed in four magazines and one for a teacher. Checked in and out various individuals all day. Love my job, even when I can't pin all I do down for the day!

Friday, March 15, 2013

Half Day

Great opportunity to crunch more barcodes, so I went in and did a bunch. Did withdraw two students who came in but did 1045 barcodes in my three hours!

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Marley Brothers

When I see some of these old old books that we still have on, I just want to sing the "We're Marley and Marley" song from Muppets Christmas Carol. Did lots more barcodes today and packed up more boxes of surplus books. Cleaned out old barcodes and titles. Checked in and out books for various students.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

1499

My official barcode count this afternoon, though I'm sure I was a little more with all the other things I did like deleting horridly old books that have been wandering the depths of the database for centuries. Processed in five magazines for us, and two for teachers. Also ran the front desk this afternoon after Mrs. M left since Mrs. H was at a meeting. Found out my last official day of work is June 21st!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Much Better

Felt much better today! Cranked through more barcodes and am down to four pages left! Huzzah! Processed in one magazine and loaded more boxes with surplused books.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Collywobbles

My stomach was on its grind thing today, and I made it through work, but barely. Canceled my afternoon activities even. Came in to one of those huge tupperware boxes on my desk filled with books from the new baseball couch cleaning out his office. Got them all packed up except for one anatomy book that looked fascinating, so I handed it off to our anatomy teacher who was pleased to see it.Processed in one magazine, helped a teacher find a remote (I wonder if it worked?) and did more of my '0' barcodes today. Glad that day is over!

Friday, March 8, 2013

1329

Still worked on barcodes today and got through about half my pages up to this point. Today I converted 1329 barcodes. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself! Processed in five magazines for us, one for a teacher and boxed up four boxes of surplus books I withdrew yesterday for the pick up the week of March 18 -22.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Wireless

Came in this morning to find two techs in the textbook room with carts and boxes to enhance our wireless at the school. Many students and staff will love it! We already have quite a few kids that have their own laptops they bring and don't forget their phones - yes, they do even assignments on their phones (as well as Facebook, etc...) Worked more on barcodes today and watched over Manga Club until Mrs. D came in just before I had to leave. Checked out various books here and there. Took in another class of Algebra 2 V1 books for the V2 books. Had students come in after lunch to my lab and one computer had a number 7 missing off the keyboard and a different keyboard (just two down) had a 6 missing. What? Why? I had to go through our 'bone' pile and find another 6, but the 7 wouldn't work (different model) so I traded keyboards so it would have all its parts. Really? Just amazes me how kids think its all right to break, steal and disrespect what they have here. Talked with Mr. C about our damaged books problem and he explained it a bit better to me and we also talked about when would be a good time to do training, so I suggested one of our half inservice days, that there was one next week, and then another on May 3rd. He appreciated that and said the May one would give him time to get some good things going for us to work on. Withdrew 108 old library books who are well past their 'use by' date.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Novels

Slogged down through all the teacher barcode changes and then headed into the novel section. Ouch! Sent an email to Mr. C about old books that we just need to delete and he was thrilled that I was already working on removing them from the system. Also had a talk with our bookkeeper on books that got in the system 'damaged' when they were just lost from a kid and after calling LMSS found that there had been a glitch in the system and they will hopefully get everything all back in its right place. Checked in and out assorted books and got three class sets of Algebra 2 V2 ready to go for tomorrow.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

85

Today I worked on the barcode list. I knew a lot of the teacher resources only had one or two items on them, so that worked out fabulous to get through 2 1/2 pages of Mr. C's list. The last item though had 85 items I had to change! Spent most of the day doing that. Processed in two magazines for us and one for a teacher. Checked out various things during the day. A long day at the desk behind the computer.

Monday, March 4, 2013

World Lit

Finished doing the status, renumbering and moving of the World Literature books today. Checked out a class set of Wild Children to Ms. O. Checked out various Wuthering Heights. We have our honors kids getting copies and so I ask, do you want just the text? Or the text with notes and criticisms? Most take the notes, but a few just go for the text. Checked in two books that came over from South. Also checked in some left behind books from a teacher's room that she brought over. One was a replacement copy we'd just bought a year or two ago for our very poor condition P.H. Lit Gold books. It had gotten soaked and though it was dry now, the pages were wrinkled, stuck together and mold everywhere. So sad to see. So, I made a billing for damages and we'll see if Destiny gets that into the InTouch billing system. I sent an email to our bookkeper to keep an eye on it.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Shift

Today was a hard day for the school. Students remembered an amazing girl who killed herself a year ago. A group got together and taped a daisy to every locker in the whole school. It was beautiful. As I went in to talk to the security guards and police about my theft, a student was taken into the Oly Forum to be told their father had killed himself. My theft went way down the ladder of importance and impact after seeing that. My things can all be replaced, but a daughter, a father, irreplaceable. Finished up the Writer's Inc. today, all statused, tagged, renumbered and put back on the shelf for my big shelving shift. Did the World of Fashion Merchandising as well, but that was only a few copies. Processed in six magazines and one for a teacher. Cleaned up the library for the weekend and locked the money away since there will be an event this weekend.