12 days of School

Finished up reading The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo this weekend and found that The Old Man and the Sea was originally published in Life Magazine. Since we have those archived copies, I looked up the date and pulled the book. There it was! Wow! I e-mailed the Language Arts department and let them all know that we had this incredible resource and one of the teachers e-mailed me back and hopes to use it next year when she teaches that section. Can hardly believe the year is almost over! Took in a lot of books today which is a great thing. Printed up the textbooks out slips for all the teachers and cut them up (some had two or three teachers on a page) and had our volunteers put them into their boxes. Processed one teacher magazine and two for the library. Packed up the Introductory to Physical Science books we had borrowed earlier in the year and sent them to their home. Checked out a class set of Animal Farm. Took down my steampunk calendar and started getting June's calendar together.

Fer How Long?

Went over to South High School this morning and took some Vision lessons from Mrs. W over there. So I brought back her take on all that to Sprague and played around with that on the computers over in my area. I learned to block them all, and open them up for individual requests. I created a screen for the blocked computers and got that up and posted with messages "All Library books are due June 3rd. All textbooks are due June 10th or when you are done with them. Please see Librarians to unlock this computer." and some book covers and a background. It turned out nicely. We just need to train the kids on it and get practice for next year. , Processed in a magazine for us, checked in books and cleared a billed book, got in more Animal Farm from West and processed those in. Put books away in the back, worked on repairs on the old Life magazines. Had a wonderful poet in today speaking to English classes from a local university and we closed the library so they could work with her. Taught Mrs. M how to work the Vision program so she'll try to get it up and running on Tuesday morning when we get back. We are heading into a four day weekend here on Memorial Day and both Friday and Monday are furlough days. Wish I had somewhere to go!

June 3rd

That's when all the library books are due! So I made up two of our outside bulletin boards up today to let the kids know. I also worked on my Vision skills and set up a meeting with Ms. W over at South to see how they work it. I can do some stuff, but I'd like to learn more and can't get it off the manual. Checked in and out, put money in print accounts, did some repairs and worked the front desk this afternoon after Mrs. M left for the day since Mrs. H had a lesson to teach in a classroom. It was busy up there fielding all the kids' questions and helping them!

Repairing Origin of the Species

Somehow that just tickles my funny bone that I've been repairing Darwin's Origin of the Species! The book needed some gluing and some new tape on the frayed edges, and we'll laminate the cover with the next set of laminating we do and it'll be ready to go back on the shelf - could I say it's evolved? :) We had an Instructional Assistant come to me today to get book information for a student who will attend in the fall. I guess they will need online versions of the texts we use so she was getting ISBN's and copyrights, publishers, all that information for the person that will work with the student. Two of our aides were working in the back and had some music on really loud, so I started dancing as I took some books back. I may have scarred them for life! Ms. L was looking for a quick book for the end of the semester and since we are all out of Animal Farm, I suggested The Adoration of Jenna Fox and she thought perhaps The Hobbit, so I said how about both. So she checked out Jenna and will see if that will work. Had two teacher editions of texts turned in that were not cataloged, so I did that and put them away. Processed in three magazines for us. Checked in a class set of the Fit and Well books. Judson Middle School sent us some books they thought were a bit too old (age of reader wise) for them and gave them to us, so I removed some of the stickers for our own processing. Mrs. H gave me the new Booklist since it was their Fantasy and Sci Fi edition and I found a few that I thought we should have. We had a book with no barcode on it so she created a new one and I put it on the book and taped it all in. Had students in the blue lab last period that were getting a bit out of hand and when they made a sexist comment, I spoke up (of course!) letting them know that it was inappropriate. It's tough to be a Mom to a school full of kids, but it'll be worth it one day.

The Reader

Sincerely, just a normal day, nothing too exciting. Checking in and out. Had some kids checking in their class texts for the year since they are done with them - yeah! Worked on repairs. Funny to think I repaired Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species today :) Put money in print accounts. Cleaned the sink in our workroom, it was getting very grody. Tonight as I left, we had a student come in and check out books and as I drove out of Sprague, we have this lovely flowering tree, half in flower, half in leaf. This student was sitting on the stone benches under the spreading branches, her long hair flowing down as she had one of her new books propped open on her lap reading. A lovely sight to see on my way out.

Karma

So, I started this book called Surfing the Himalayas. Today a kid comes up and we start talking and he loves to snowboard, so I told him about the book and he was so interested, I pulled it out and checked it out to him. Must be Karma! Mostly did repairs today. My computer was very slow. I worked up a skit for the video announcements on Monday about getting in textbooks and library books, so I hope the kids will do it! Made up a list of Fahrenheit 451 books that are out and the ones still out from the previous class Ms. A took to Ms. G and she's going to make sure that kids get them in! We got in about three today already, so hopefully the rest will come in so everyone gets one. A teacher was looking for a student and couldn't find her on our check in sheet, so as she headed to the office, I decided to get more sheets since we were at the end of the last one, turned the page and there was the student's name! She did come in! So I hustled out the door and caught up with the teacher as she was half way through the office and caught her! So she came back with me and looked at the time. So, it was good! Our practicum student is a biology teacher so she went through our science section and pulled books to destroy, so I spent the last part of the day destroying (in the computer) the books and marking them out to be picked up for surplus next week. Have a great weekend!

Bad Splat

So Mrs. H texts me this morning to bring in Bad Kitty to meet someone, and it is Splat the Cat that her friend had gotten her. They spent the day together on my bookshelf hanging out. Helped a parent calling about books she needed to return to get her son's report card. So I helped her out with that. Two of the books she had, but two were missing. I referred her to Bookbyte to get the lit book since she can get it much cheaper there and can't afford to pay our replacement cost. I send a lot of students and parents there when they need the help. Mostly did repairs, put money in print accounts. Checked in and out books, monitored the computer lab. Processed three teacher magazines and four for the library. Cleaned out some of my Groupwise folders for the summer since we were asked to do that. Pulled more lit sets for Ms. A's 8th period class and some other books as well for their banned book section.

Finding Justice

One of our teachers was doing a poetry section and a student wanted to know if we had any books by Donald Justice, and we did! So I pointed him in the right direction and saw him later reading it. At the end of the afternoon, we found he had dumped the book on a fiction shelf on his way out of the library. hummmm. Helped a student print out a brochure. Put a lifering in on a computer whose monitor has a buzz to it when it's on. Worked on and finished up the changes that needed to be made on our inventory. Checked in and out books, put money on print accounts. A student's keyboard wasn't working so I checked and someone had just unplugged it. I plugged it back in and it was working. Billed an old Biology book, but our bookkeeper said that it was too old to go back now, so she took it off. Cleared our Main Frame of 3 found books. Processed in two teacher magazines and six for us. Helped our practicum teacher and Mrs. H go through the science books to see which to surplus and which to keep. Pulled Lit circle books for Ms. A's class. They are reading about 10 different books, about five students to each one. They did two classes today and will do another tomorrow.

Optimus Prime

One kid checking out books today had Sharpied that onto his student ID card, made me laugh! Today Mrs. H was gone and so it was a busy day. Lots to check in and out, money into print accounts, more repairs, worked some more on the inventory reports we had done, putting books into 'lost' accounts (they were supposedly on the shelf, but not there) and taking billing off for books that were in and had been billed. The art department took all the old stuff we had cleaned out of the cabinets and a lot of the old notebooks we had lying around as well! So glad to see that they will get used rather than tossed! Set up the Infocus machine and computer for the use of the cheerleader meeting tonight before I left.

Monday, Monday

Worked on repairs today and finished cleaning up the back room from when we were back there during testing! Checked out a class set of The Bean Trees and took in some Literature and Language books in exchange. Monitored the kids at the computers. Put money in print accounts, checked in and checked out books. Our computers were really freaked out this morning, so had some issues with that. Gave Ms. A a list of the books she has out. Showed our practicum student how to put books into the 'Maintenance' section of the Insignia program.