1150 pages of Art

September 25 & 26: I spend Thursday working on additional texts that were ordered. My favorite today has to be Gardner's Art Through the Ages. These are massive volumes, 1150 pages each and one of the books I look at and go "ooohhhh, I want to read this..." They are incredibly beautiful and kids check these out and take them home for the rest of the year. I have to laminate the covers and while I feed them through the laminator there's a flash of light and a teacher hurries away clutching a camera. I ask Lisa and she says "oh, he's always popping in to take pictures during the year." I carefully process and cover each text and inform the teacher that they are now ready to check out. I also process the CD/Roms that come with each one, and I voice concerns that they are just in paper sleeves. We discuss perhaps a better holder when it comes time to check them out. Every Friday is book repair day and when we don't have assemblies, it is CIS (Career Information System) advisory and I'm in charge of the lab next to me. This week the Juniors are putting together their transcripts from last year and entering them into the system. Then they also have to fill out three sections of 'My Plan' and write two to three sentences describing what they are doing and how that fits into their plans for after school. One fellow loves bicycles, so we talk about what classes he might take, avenues to explore in making his passion a lifestyle. Afterwards, Lisa ends up leaving for the day since her son has gotten hurt and BJ is also sick for the day. Our sub mostly covers books, and I check in on our aides making sure they know to read their shelves (each aide gets a fiction section and a non-fiction area they must keep in alphabetical or numerical order, clean and make sure their section has books right up to the front of the shelf). I put the our new number holders with their signs on top of the shelves (many thanks to woodshop!). I put up the 'fiction' and 'reference' signs up, then the '000' to '800' up for the nonfiction. I'm not quite sure where our '900' sign went! I had sent some metal book carts down to metal shop to get them rewelded. The carts were so wobbly even without books I was afraid they would collapse on someone. They are beautiful! Sturdy! Even spray painted! I also spend time repairing Edith Hamilton's Mythology books. They are very battered and by the time I leave for the weekend, I have a stack, edge taped, cornered and hinge glued with a weight on so that I will come back Monday to finish the spine ends with my wings! They will be beautiful! I also work on items for Banned Book Week that starts next week. I get to do the little bulletin board outside the back library door. I pull a list of the 'Challenged' books from 2008 (books that are not currently banned, but may be) and take the books that are currently in our library and textbook depository to highlight on the board. Caution tape anyone?