The View from the Leslie Library Windows: 4 Days - 8,000 Books

Monday, September 29, 2008

4 Days - 8,000 Books

Opening Freshman day was easy for us. I worked on the A/B calendar that sits behind my desk and got it nearly done though it needed a few 'touch-ups' to please me. Since the Olympics had just ended and we are the 'Olympians' I went with a medal theme. Each class got its own gold medal, and medals for book awards for this year graced the sides of the board. Yes, I cut out each letter and number at home over Labor Day weekend with a little help from Melanie. The library got on the freshman 'tour' so we spent the day managing the textbook pickups. I had never done that before so teachers were telling us we could do more than I had planned and they were right. I ended up reworking the plan and emailing it out Tuesday night to have 16-20 classes come in every period for the next four days and it worked really well. Before I left on Tuesday, we had all the carts loaded with the texts for 1st and 2nd period, lined up in the center of the library and spent the days reloading, checking the list, condensing carts to free up other carts, we ran all four days. Teachers and students were patient and the few classes later in the days we hadn't gotten ready for pulled out carts and got their books while we were checking out other classes. We had some great volunteers come in and help us load carts, work on processing books and even help with checkouts from time to time. The next few days for the rest of the week were a bit easier (I had been coming in early to help and staying late to get ready for the next day) and I was down to about working my regular shift. Lots of kids individually coming by to get books for various reasons: 'I didn't have my card yesterday'; 'I just got into that class'; 'I picked up the wrong book, I really need XXX' and other assorted reasons. It was a good week to be busy, my brother-in-law had passed away very unexpectedly on the 1st and it wasn't possible for me to go down to L.A. for the funeral, so lots of work was good. The kids were gracious and the teachers were amazing. So, the tally after Monday the 8th was that we had checked out 8,363 texts in 4 days and by the end of that week, we were over 9,000. Not too shabby.

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What I'm Reading

The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris was a great non-fiction read! Love a good non-fiction! Joseph Lister worked hard, studied hard, never gave up on his ideas that something outside was causing untold numbers of people to die after surgery. His quest to find the answer was long overdue and he was the one to craft it and make it a medical standard. Brilliant!
Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy by Emmanuel Acho was so good. I liked it even better than Stamped. His honest and open look at what is was like for him growing up really brings the issues into focus. Highly recommended!
Verify by Joelle Charbonneau - what if everything went digital which gave the government and people in power a way to change history, past and current. What happened to some words, like the word 'verify' that is no longer in the digital dictionary. Meri has lost her mom and her dad drowns sorrow in liquor. Meri is entranced by her mom's last art pieces and is given a slip of paper (the horror! what about the trees? recycling?) and on it is the word 'verify'. Atlas gives her a dictionary, a paper one and an old history textbook. Meri jumps on the train with him so they can change the world.
Kalahari by Jessica Khoury - what a ride! I even took this home one night to finish! Sarah lives with her dad doing research deep in the Kalahari. A group of students are sent to see if they can qualify for a grant and when her dad goes missing when he heads off after poachers, she is left to take care of them. Her dad doesn't return and the poachers are after them. They come across a white lion stalking them, but wait? It isn't white it's something else. They come across a lab and realize there is a virus, that has been let loose on the Kalahari that could destroy the whole world. So exciting!! Great ending as well!
The Year of the Buttered Cat by Susan Haas with Lexi Haas - Okay. I have to admit that I got this book because of the title. Buttered cats, what an intriguing thought! But the real intrigue is the persistence, the optimism of Lexi. Because of jaundice, she was disabled and this story is about her decision to take a chance on ground breaking surgery to try and get some mobility, speech and live her gifts. She has five she had to find. Read it for Lexi (and maybe to find out about that buttered cat).
Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram. There are spaces only you can fill, and Darius learns this as his family travels to Iran to see his grandfather who is dying. Along the way he deals with his depression, makes a friend, has innumerable Star Trek references and also learns that it's okay, to not be okay. I must admit, I had to look up some of the places he got to visit. What a rich heritage. I thought Zoroastrians were long gone, but no, they are still practicing today in Iran. Great book, totally okay.
The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin - perfect book lover tale of a woman captivated by a man and a bookstore and how she made more impact on her fellow book lovers and the man who got her to read than any bomb that fell during the Blitz. Very lovely!
The Girl From the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat - Lovely WW2 story by Jenny who actually grew up on one of the Channel Islands. Hedy fled Austria only to find her island haven invaded by the Germans. And though she is wary, she falls in love with a German officer. The twists and turns of German occupation test them both as each find a way to help the allied forces win.
Ancestor Approved edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith. I loved these short stories that all center around a modern day Native American Powwow. My fave was Rez Dog and they were all a great window into culture that I have rarely seen. I watched some videos on Fancy Dancing because of this and I would love to attend one, but feel a bit like a looky loo if I did. Fun, eye opening and full of information. Loved it!
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams Loved this fictionalized tale of the daughter of one of the lexicographers of the first ever Oxford Dictionary. As Esme goes from hiding under the sorting table, to one day being a lexicographer herself, we see her story unfold along with the people attached to the dictionary. It was really wonderful as we glimpsed her life and how the words she found and rescued formed the backbone of this novel. Really well done. It will stay on my shelves.