Happy Holidays

Today was our last day before our two week Holiday Break. We had advisory and I had a class of freshmen today so I had to walk them through setting up their CIS accounts and getting in their classes. Did repairs today, checked in and out books. Took down the December Calendar and put away all the books I had on my shelf. Turned off all the computers in the labs after they were done for the day. Put away the books that had been turned in. We had a Winter Solstice CD in our collection so I put that on my computer and played it all day. One student said she was really enjoying it. Cleaned out one of my book repair carriers, it had gotten messy, so I cleaned it out and rearranged stuff, threw other stuff away that was old. Happy Holidays all, see you in January!

Rolling Eyes Smiley

Distributed out the laundry basket of books, contacted the other schools and boxed up the texts and sent them back to three other schools. Monitored the computer lab, we're trying to get really particular about the students when they are sent to study and making sure they are working on a project and not just messing about. Checked out a student who is moving over break. Boxed up more books for surplus and a few others that needed special packaging. Checked out Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Mr. S's class. Cleaned up 2 schools borrowed books reports so that what I have down matches what they have down. Two schools to go! Did some book repair. Checked out the CIS instructions for tomorrow, and I couldn't find them, so I emailed Mrs. A to get another copy of that and she brought it over. Pulled some more books to display on the shelves. Helped a student with his diversity project. This is a project that Mrs. H works on with health classes. Since she wasn't here today I got to help out. He needed to find magazine articles on people who are living with schizophrenia. So I helped him get on the Gale website and put in some names to show him how to do that. He was very negative, told me he'd already read a book and finished that part of it and would never read another book again, hated the diversity but was told he had to do that one. (Wish I had a rolling mom eyes smiley for here.) Maybe he was just having a bad day, I hope it gets better :)

Laundry Basket of Books

Took in some more books for repair. One student was studying Romeo and Juliet missing 4 pages, and another book, The Adventures of Huck Finn had derogatory statements all in black sharpie pen around the edges of two pages. It's really shocking sometimes that things like that still go on. Made change for a student, put money into print accounts. Checked in and out books. Directed students in the computer lab to be sure they were working on projects. Got in 20 Ordinary People and sent them back to McNary. Sent a note to a student that he is the only one with a borrowed copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God that is still out. If he turns it in, I can box those up and send them back. I went through the borrowed book list and reconciled it with what we say we have borrowed. I made a list of books we need to order for replacements. I deleted out old texts and transferred others. Did some more book repair. Towards the end of the day a father came in with a whole laundry basket full of books from his garage. Four were from his daughter here from Sprague, others were from two other middle schools, some were from other students. When I looked at his list again, she still had a bunch of books out that she'd been billed for! One book had gotten wet and molded all the top half, so he took that back, along with another book from a middle school that had molded as well. I worked with him and the bookkeeper to get us all on the same page.

Sealed

Finished stamping and lining out the withdrawn books and boxing them all up. Spent some time working on the 'books we need' list. Checked some of our older books for newer copies and got that all done. Processed in People, Time, Newsweek and Popular Photography. Put money in print accounts, checked in and out books. Had the aides pull books to display on the shelves since we have some room now. Heard that we had gotten in the Buen Viaje 2 workbooks and dashed over to the office, and no books! We only got a 'they are backordered' slip :(

Packing Up

Spent a lot of today withdrawing and packing up books. They will be picked up while we are gone on break, so I'm working hard to get them all done and ready to go. Checked out a class set of World History to Mrs. S. Checked in and out various books to and from students all day. Worked on our list of books we need to get into the library when we go to Powell's next Monday. Some of our series are missing the first book in them, some classics we need to update, etc. Did some repairs on books as well. Finished up Mr. M's dictionary and I'll bet he was glad to get it back!

Done

Finished up the fiction weeding today - Huzzah! Supervised the students who elected to come into the library rather than go to the assembly. Checked in and out books all day here and there. Worked on repairing Mr. M's dictionary and started to repair Mrs. M's lit book. Fixed a torn page in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

New Books

Finally we get in three boxes of new books from processing. Yeah! We have new books to get checked out before the break. I did more weeding in the morning and then helped cover the new hardbacks the rest of the day except for another evaluation of a King Arthur presentation. They really are fun to watch!

Mr. S's List

Wednesday the 9th: Finished off Mr. S's list today. Then I went back over all the books and made sure that we actually did have copies of all of them. I returned his list and made a few suggestions for additional authors like Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and Siobhan Dowd (it's for honors British Literature). Then back to weeding. We have an entire 3 shelf (well, 6 with both sides) cart of books ready for Mrs. H to go over. I also did a lot of check outs today, random kids coming to pick up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and other books.

Orchestra, Choir & King Arthur

Processed in 3 teacher magazines and did Time, Newsweek, People, Thrasher and Asimov's for the library. Checked out two classes of Literature and Language and checked in their Ordinary People. Packed up ten Fahrenheit 451 to ship to another school. Had a parent call on a damaged text book, so I told him what I had written on the 'issued to' page. He asked if I could send him the note, so I printed off a copy and got his address and put it in our mail. We had the orchestra come in today and play a piece so I actually came over and just listened to these incredibly talented students. Then for lunch the Rotary came and we had to close down the library for them and the choir came in and sang. For 4th period I received a request to 'evaluate' some class projects and watched students give a presentation on King Arthur. They had a PowerPoint, used the document camera for their Truth or Myth segment, made a board game, a scroll of the knight's 10 Commandments and made a video! The video was a great mix of storytelling and knightly mayhem! It was great fun! I also worked and almost completed Mr. S's Honors Brit Lit list. Since we are weeding books, Mrs. H got the list of books he asks his students to read and we went over it to make sure they stay on our shelves and don't get put to surplus! I checked the whole district to see which are available here and what other schools have that we could borrow from. When we get done with it, I'll give it to him and then he can see if he would really like any particular books brought in on our next PO to get more books.

Internet Agreements

Started this morning helping a student check out from school and cleared her from textbooks and the library. I went back over emails to make sure I was on track and found one on intermet use agreement that was supposed to be done last Friday! Opps! So I found the training on our Academy of Training and Learning on Internet Use and did the training and completed the test, printed out the form and turned it into the office. I worked on a repair for Mr. M. Checked to see if we could lend ten copies of Fahrenheit 451. Did more withdrawing and weeding. Set up Literature and Language books to be checked out by three classes tomorrow and one for Wednesday, 109 books!

Friday!

Today I came in and immediately the fire alarms went off - really, I don't think I did anything but out we went! I was very glad I had my über coat on since it was only 25 degrees out. We came back in and started the advisory period and I had seniors again for the CIS. They got a lot of work done! Worked on more weeding and packing up old books today, I'm into the M's so I'm halfway around! Found a new book to read, Abundance by Sean Jeter Naslund (she did Ahab's Wife which I loved).

Weeding

Today I mostly spent working on weeding out the old fiction books and made it all the way through the P's! Mrs. M was gone today and her sub did a great job, she even repaired and did some weeding herself. Checked out two class sets of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and various other books. Mrs. H had to leave at 12:30 for a meeting so I got to be in charge of library for the afternoon. I had one set of kids make sure they got all the surplus boxes marked 'Surplus Books' and after I withdrew a cart of books, I had another set cross out all the Sprague marks and stamp them 'withdrawn'. Sometimes I'm surprised at which books have been fairly recently checked out, but there are some that when I check their last check out list and see no entries, I'm not surprised at all! I've been looking for older books, with the old barcodes on them. My saddest find was Bless the Beasts and the Children, one of my favorites when I was in high school - it had never been checked out here :( I sadly put it on the cart to be sent to surplus.

Out with the Old

Moved books and shelves around today for the books I processed in yesterday. Went through a box of donated books to make sure we had copies. We had this amazing two volume set of Gone With the Wind I sent to LMSS for their rare/historical collection. Processed in a Newsweek and People magazine. I showed a teacher some of the repairs I do. She's proctoring with Mrs. H and wanted to see how to fix pages. She felt so bad she uses tape! So I did some stuff for her to see. Did a lot more weeding today in the fiction and nearly have an entire cart ready for Mrs. H to check before we withdraw and pack them up for surplus. Did the usual check in/check out. Checked a student's SASI account to see his damage fee hadn't been removed from his account. They didn't pay it, but he came in and did work to pay it off. So I took the payment off. Showed some more students today how to search for subjects in the library - these needed books for their diversity project. I also found a book we thought was missing, our new The Art of Racing in the Rain! There it was on the shelf as I was weeding, right where it belonged!

Mrs. M's Calendar

Tuesday December 1st: Mrs. M is an incredibly talented artist and today she thought she'd paint some icycles on the bulletin board up by her. One of our aides titled it "There's snow better time to read". By the time she was done, we had an original art work for our board! My board looks very sad by comparison! I'm truly impressed by her talents, she's amazing. Processed in the new C21 Accounting Advanced books and the new Fashion Marketing and Merchandising. Packed up the excess Bien dit! workbooks to send back to processing, finished getting my 'winter' books on the calendar shelf. Did a bit of weeding. Checked out Sentence Combining and Nineteen Minutes.

3 Weeks to Go

We have officially three weeks of school left before the end of the year. Huzzah! Today I checked in The Adoration of Jenna Fox and checked out Freakonomics. Helped two students on our search computers and showed them how they work. Tore down the old calendar and worked on putting up the new one which is nearly done, just needs a few extra tweaks. Pulled books for that. Took down all the Nanowrimo posters. Did a lot of magazine processing since I was on vacation in Italy last week visiting my lovely granddaughter! Processed in ten teacher magazines and twelve for the library. We got in new books and I had an aide unpack one set and I will work on the other tomorrow. Pulled Nineteen Minutes for the class that will come in tomorrow and brought back out Sentence Combining for Ms. L.

$30,212,000,003,033.00

Wish we had that kind of budget in the library! But I made a simple mistake of putting money into a student print account, and then going to scan in a book I was checking to see if we should withdraw it and the code got put into his account! Good thing I caught it! We all had a laugh about it and thought he'd be able to print off that until he was like, 100! We fixed it! So, I withdrew a set of books that our substitute had pulled off our Least Circulated Items list and packed them up. Mrs. H went through them to make sure it was all right to pull them. I also started going down the fiction book section and did all the W,Y & Z authors and pulled those off for her to approve also. Did some repairs, and very busy putting in money for print accounts since grades are due as well as senior papers! Worked the CIS this morning for the seniors and also had to juggle the video announcements along with the book fair dvd and Channel One this morning.

The Last Three Days

Well, a lot has gone on these last three days. Four class sets of books checked out, the Scholastic Book Fair arrived. Money into print accounts, books repaired (yes, The American Experience!), books checked in and out, monitored the computer lab. What can I say? It's been busy! One of my favorite things, I got to repair an old annotated version of The Wizard of Oz. Awesome book with the old illustrations, very, very nice, but ours was breaking out of the cover, so I took about three days to work on it a bit here, and glue a bit there and today I finally got to put it back on the shelf in much better shape than before. I found a kid in the computer lab that was supposed to be at in-school, so I sent him off. Worked on a very old dictionary repairing it.Processed in some more teacher magazines and magazines for the library. I was happy to see our October issue of Smithsonian showed up! I watched the Book Fair several times when things got busy and helped push in the big silver display cases and did some unpacking. Just a lot of helping students, lots of constant little business stuff to do.

Safety First

Today I brought in my camera and took pictures of our computer labs and the cords and wires we have all over the place. Mrs. H needs to compile pictures and what needs to be done for the safety committee and really wants to get the labs in good order. She's tripped several times going back and forth helping students, and Mrs. P has also tripped over some of the cords. It's just not a good situation. I hope the pictures will help. I spent most of the day repairing The American Experience books. Checked in and out some things, put some money in print accounts, helped a couple of kids log into the computers, monitored the computer lab and got ready some Geometry Connections Volume 2 ready for check out tomorrow. Asked a teacher if they were coming in for the books I pulled last week, and they won't come now until after Thanksgiving break. Another teacher asked for Freakonomics and Nineteen Minutes for her kids for after break as well.

Veteran's Assembly

Friday - November 13th: This morning Mrs. H decided to close the library for the Veteran's Assembly. I sent in a picture of my son who is a Sprague graduate in the Army and my daughter and son-in-law who were both in the Air Force. They didn't have enough pictures to show, but they did have everyone stand up that had a family member currently serving. There were a lot. When one of our speakers asked for a show of hands on how many had a family member who had served or was serving, it seemed like nearly everyone raised a hand. I was glad we attended. Since assemblies are not mandatory, some people got mad that we didn't have the library open as a space for them to use during that time. That is terrible that people couldn't even come for a half an hour of honoring those who have made our freedoms possible. I checked in books that were left on my desk, took money from Jill from the kids that give her money to put in their print accounts and locked that away. Ms. B needed a book last night and I had already shut down so I entered that information this morning. Finished covering Nineteen Minutes and let Mrs. G know that they were set to go. I opened up the new labels we got in to process some magazines and they were the wrong format! Mrs. H found the number for the correct kind and ordered some for us. Processed three teacher magazines and Mad, Imagine, The New Yorker, Thrasher, Sports Illustrated and Popular Photo for the library. The magazines were a real mess today, which is good because that means people are using them but I had to straighten the rack and the spinner rack out twice today. I also went into the office and had to sign for my plan for Thanksgiving week which was easy for me since I'll be on vacation anyways! Did a bit of repairing and got to put back on the shelf an old 2nd edition copy of The Two Towers! That was classic!

Manga Club

Today Mrs. H had to leave early so I watched over the Manga Club until Mrs. D could arrive. They are an amazing group, full of energy. I covered books while I hung out with them. Requested a quote from Goodheart Wilcox on the Fashion Marketing and Merchandising books for Mrs. S. I got that quote in and got it ready for Mrs. H to send to the office. Mrs. H had brought in all our new books we picked up yesterday at Borders. We get a great discount and I love getting the chance to buy books for the school. I brought in my laptop so we could check and see which books we needed, did we have this title? and checked out what we needed in some of the series. Some things Borders didn't have so we added them into the Baker and Taylor order. Checked in and put away the Demco order for book repair tape. A student brought in an Environmental Science book that had the back cover torn off. I told him he'd get a repair charge and he was all right with that. I went into the main frame to bill him, and it locked me out again!!! Handed out workbooks, got in a 2 textbooks out slip all signed so I checked out a second book to the student, helped an aide with some shelving questions. I found some misshelved books today as well and put them away. Got almost all the Nineteen Minutes covered. They'll be done tomorrow!

Covering Minutes

Right away a student asks for a movie, and we have to find out that he doesn't want to watch it in our back room, but wants to check it out and take it home, so we do that for him. Updated the staff email from my mailbox and deleted out frequent contacts as well. Got a class set of Sentence Combining ready for Ms. L, but they didn't come in. Maybe on Friday. Processed four teacher magazines and Time, Newsweek, Discover, PC World and People for us. Ran the barcodes for Nineteen Minutes and had a student finish stamping them, put in the barcode and number the books. Redid the Industrial Arts shelves for the new Automotive Excellence Volume 2 books and then checked out a class set to Mr. L. He sent aides up to take them down to him. Checked out two transferring students and cleared them off Trac-it and the library. I noticed that Mad magazine wasn't coming monthly, so I looked it up and they are now only quarterly! No wonder! I recounted our print money for Mrs. H and took it into the bookkeeper. And I started covering the Nineteen Minutes books today.

Nineteen Canaries of Excellence

Well, all right. So there were three books we got in today for processing, Nineteen Minutes, Hitler's Canary and Automotive Excellence Volume 2. As well as some label protecters. I processed in all the Hitler's Canary (just 8), and the Automotive Excellence (50 plus 4 teacher materials). We started to work on Nineteen Minutes. I let Mrs. H know we had gotten in all the copies for that PO# so she could tell our bookkeeper to close it. I had the aides begin breaking in the spines and stamping so that was a help in getting those done. I gave Ms. O the Lincoln's portraits I had gotten in from the State Library Tour, and also found her a copy of one of Lincoln's inaugural speeches that I found on an archive site. She will put them up around school during February. I couldn't find the one I'd done with Washington's speech, and I know I had it. Laminated the covers for Hitler's Canary and did some other stuff that was back there as well. Put money into accounts. Let Ms. W know that yes, I would be going to Italy over Thanksgiving week (yeah!).

Helping the ASVAB

Advisory today and I once again ran the CIS in the blue lab. We had seniors today and they were searching for scholarships. The last part of the day I helped out with the ASVAB scoring just by handing out all the summary reports to the class that came in. Did more repair work with The American Experience books. Checked in and out books, and also got to talk with an exchange student who is here from Italy! That was very cool since I'm going there over Thanksgiving week. Checked in books from a couple of students that are leaving us. Talked with a counselor about waiving fees and passed that along to Mrs. H. Had a student get a cart ready for Monday with First Aid books. A good week with lots of repairs getting done. Huzzah!

Yaawwnnnn...

Today was a rough day. I felt like yawning all afternoon. Must be the weather system moving in. Spent most of the day repairing The American Experience. I helped a student make double sided copies for his teacher and another student was finishing up some posters for his teacher, and wanted them laminated. Since Mrs. M had turned the laminator on, I went ahead and ran them through, then did the rest of the piles that were waiting. Processed two magazines, The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated. Yaawwnnn....

New Cover

The pictures are of my Nanowrimo stuff. The 2 posters are outside my textbook window out in the hall, so you can see into the library too! The other is our long little board outside the workroom door with a quote from the founder of Nanowrimo and in the glass of the door you can see a sticker that this is a noveling place! I started the day working on repairs, but that soon went out the window! Mrs. H was working with two different classes on diversity projects and with Mrs. M gone, I was fielding questions, checking out books, requesting books from other schools and that kept me busy for that entire period. I had a student come in and ask to laminate a bunch of posters for recycling and since the laminator was on, I went ahead and did all his right then, and then did a pile of stuff that had been waiting. We had a student return a book without its cover, Rooftop, so I made a cover for it, and Mrs. H had a cover we needed to work on along with a new bar code for The Jungle, so she showed me how to bar code the books and I did both of those and laminated the covers and I think they turned out well. Monitored the computer lab this afternoon, processed in the new teacher edition of the Chemistry text, checked out Old Man and the Sea for Mrs. P's class. Then back to go through The American Experience I had worked on yesterday and see what they needed worked on today.

I Have a Cat!

Today I came in to see a wrapped package by my desk. When I opened it, there was an original art picture from Mrs. M! It's a cat and I love him! She is so talented! I had brought in an easel for my art and now he is proudly displayed on my shelf. (See picture on my previous post!) I checked in the books on my chair, looked for more writer resources for my NaNo kids and discovered two of our books on writing are gone - ! Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott has flown the coop, and Thunder and Lightning by Natalie Goldberg hasn't even left a scorch mark on the shelf! I looked around a bit, but nothing. I worked on my new cart of American Experience books and got them all into their first gluing today and then switched to some of our ChemCom books that just need some basic corner gluing and edging. They didn't replace those in the adoption in 2008, so they will be around awhile.

Art Around

Found some books piled on my chair when I came in today, so I checked them all in plus a few other books on my desk. Processed two teacher magazines and Transworld Skateboarding, Asimov's, Time, Newsweek and The New Yorker for the library. Another school wants to borrow The Stranger so I queried the appropriate departments and if I don't hear from them tomorrow I will lend it out. We haven't used it since 2004. Mrs. H had a new list of art books, so I checked to see if the district had any, and we actually had one of them, and the district had three others. Not bad! Then I got out all these art prints that I'd gone through the other day and placed them all up around the library on top of the book shelves. I thought it looked spectacular, and Mrs. H really liked it too. Mr. C came in after school and loved it. I took down the art project from last year, japanese messages on tin that kids didn't come in and take home and put them up on a shelf above where the art posters are. I also put money into print accounts, put together our display cases with art books in them and did more repairs. I had all my last cart of books to repair done, so I loaded up another cart. We had a request for Old Man and the Sea for two classes on Wednesday, so I let her know that was fine, and that for 1st period they'd need to get them from Mrs. M since I'm not in yet. I also forwarded that to Mrs. M so she'd be prepared. My Nano kids came in and I have four now signed up with one still playing soccer who will join us when that season ends. They each got onto the website and a couple even began to write. All five have received workbooks (thanks to the marvelous Mrs. H) and I'm excited to see how they do! Two returning Nanoers, and three new ones! :) I stayed with them until 4, and after my 'work' hours, I volunteered to paint over the dewey book illustration Mrs. T had started before they transferred her out of Sprague. She never got around to finish it, and so we finally decided to just paint over it. It will need another coat, but the first coat covered fairly nicely.

Calendar Day

Friday October 30th: Today I spent a lot of time taking off all the old calendar and putting up the new one. I used a lot of my November stuff from last year, so that went well. The background I changed to leaves and it turned out well. Did checking in and out, cleared a student who was moving. I had come in early because I had to pick up my Mom from Rehab and meet with the nurses on care, so Mrs. H said 'sure you can come in early and leave early' so the day just flew by! She is so sweet! Right before I left, she told me to come with her and we had our pictures taken for the yearbook by Mr. M's staff. Good thing I wore a nice shirt today!

Little Book Projects

Thursday October 29th: Finished up covering books. I also transferred over the books that were out to the now retired Mr. M to Mr. H. Four pages worth! Ms. K came in looking for an ExamView Pro for the Physical Science with Earth Science teacher resources and she couldn't find one, so I went back and found one for her. Looked through all the art panals we have in the back to have an art theme for the library this month. A parent needs to replace a text and I gave her the ISBN number so she could search for one. I let her know that these were fairly new texts, so the odds of her finding one cheaper were slim. So we'll see if she does. I had a stack of books waiting for me to work on, just little odds and ends of stuff that needed to be cleaned up. Some needed to be cleared from billing and my Main Frame ID would again, not let me in! I sent a 'life ring' to the tech department that again, I had 'prohibited access' on my screen, so frustrating! They usually fix it, I can get on, then a few days later when I access it again, it locks me out! Last time they even gave me a new password! Argh! I also had a student today that needed some homework help, so she pulled up a chair to my desk and sat across from me and I helped her out a bit, but she did most of the work all by herself. Some kids just need to know someone is watching and there to help. She was happy she got it all done. That was a nice moment.

Issues

I only have two other American Experience books left in my repair pile. They just needed some extra gluing and they'll be done tomorrow! Then I get to load up another cart and start with a new batch. We had a parent come in today who got a bill for damages to a Physical Science with Earth Science book. He wanted to see the actual damage and it is currently checked out to another student. I took him up to administration and he talked with one of our administrators and decided he'd have his student come into the library for a couple of mornings and work off the charge. So the student will learn something about the library and hopefully take that with him. We had the little preschool kids in today and trick or treat in the library. They were so cute! I loved the little girl with the batgirl costume since Mrs. H's outside world name is 'batgirl' (due to batgirl being the librarian in Gotham City Mrs. H tells the litle girl). I emailed a publisher for prices on The World of Fashion Merchandising. I told him 10-15 copies and he needed a definite number. So, I asked for 2 quotes, one for 10 copies and one for 15. *sigh* We had a student, the same one from the other day that was really pushing my buttons. So, I caught him today again looking at gamer sites, so I spoke to him. Then I told Mrs. H about him and she went to talk with him. He ended up going back to class and talking with his teacher and she will be talking to us about him. We always want our kids to be successful, but he needs to follow the same rules that any other kid has to follow. I think we made some positive connections with his teacher and hopefully things will be better from here on out. I spent the rest of my time covering books. Finished up the Freakonomics and the First Aid books.

NaNoWriMo Meeting

So, my husband took the van today, and again the Miata breaks down on me on the way to work. I can't believe it! Mrs. H again drives over and picks me up. I had made it about halfway, so I was a lot closer! She is such a sweet person! Checked in and out books today, processed three teacher magazines and Time and Newsweek for the library. Had our aides work on getting the Sprague yearbooks straightened out. More work on The American Experience and the new corner repair technique turned out fabulous! I showed it to Mrs. H and Mrs. M. They were both impressed! I made room for our new novel sets: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Someone Named Eva, The Wave, Freakonomics and I Have Lived a Thousand Years. Since I didn't have a car, I just stayed after school for my Nanowrimo meeting at 7pm. I had one student come to the meeting and I set her up with a workbook and gave her some information. She's on the soccer team, so she won't be able to come the first few weeks, but she still is very excited about it and will work on it at home. I'm very excited for her!

Of Mice and Sterility

Monday the 26th: We got to thinking about the fact that we were starting to clean the keyboards, but hadn't thought of cleaning the mice! So when we get a chance to clean, we'll make sure the mice get cleaned up too! Barcoded a teacher text. Processed People and PC World magazines, checked in and out books. Put lots of money in print accounts and spent most of the day working on The American Experience repairs. I tried a new technique I learned in the book repair class at the conference. You take a chewed up corner and make book particle board and form it into the book corner, wrap with waxed paper and clamp it for the night. We'll see how it turns out tomorrow!

The Lost is Found

I've been wondering where one of our flat carts has gone off to and I found it last night as I left the orchestra concert - it was just sitting in the commons off to the side - I wonder how it got there? The cello quartet was amazing and I asked Mrs. H (via email - she is sick) if we could have the quartets come and play in the library once a week. That would be fabulous! We had homecoming assembly today, so we opened the library to 140 kids and I patrolled them as they hung out. It was fun to talk with and see what they're doing and watching a few LOL cats is always good for a laugh. Finished up the new-to-us Foundations of Algebra books today, worked on repairs, and seemed to just be answering a lot of questions all day. Our French teacher wants some of the activity workbooks returned and wants some vocab/grammar workbooks in their place. We checked the PO# and found that we never paid for the activity workbooks, they were just a gimme from the publisher. So we will see what we can work out.

Bien dit!

Finally the rest of the new French workbooks and teacher resources are here! I processed in the teacher resources and unpacked all the workbooks. Ms. B will be in tomorrow to let me know how she wants them processed for her kids and if she wants them covered or not. Had to play a DVD this morning for Advisory and had juniors again in my computer lab this morning for updating their CIS transcripts. The computers worked fine and they got a lot of work done filling in classes, credits and grades. Had students bring back Student Tape Manuals for refunds, handed out Bienvenidos workbooks. Checked out a student who is moving out of town, he brought in all his books and he is clear to go from our part of the checklist. Got in a ton of magazines for processing today, three for teachers, and BMX Plus, Orion, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, Shape, Shonen Jump, National Geographic Traveler, Spin, Sports Illustrated, there were a lot! Also unboxed and began to process the Foundations of Algebra Year 2 Volume 1 that were sent over from South. Put money in print accounts today, checked in and out books and stayed after work to be the adult supervisor for the Manga Club since Mrs. H is under the weather. The library was buzzing all day long and I love it when students are engaged, excited and getting work done! Well said!

Yeah! Books!

We have boxes! Lots of boxes full of books to process! I spend most of the day working on them with Mrs. H's substitute. We got in The Wave, Freakonomics, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Someone Named Eva, I Have Lived a Thousand Years, Working with Young Children and First Aid/CPR books! Lots to do! I entered in all the new ones and printed up barcodes. I had to redo a bit of the Working with Young Children teacher materials, but it looks better now. I also let Ms. S know that those were all ready for her and students by the end of the day. Got in one Hot Rod magazine for the library and processed it in. Tracked down the Bien dit! workbooks that we've been waiting for. I called the publisher and found out their ship date and when it was signed for at Central Stores, so I gave all that information to CS, and they said yes, they were in, but had never been sent to us, so they were on their way! Yeah! I then worked on starting to cover the paperbacks we got in. Had quite a few students come in to get books that they already had checked out. I sent out a few '2 Textbooks Out' slips for their parents to sign. A very busy day and hopefully we will get all the books ready for checking out tomorrow.

Diabetic Vampires

Ms. M comes to me to tell me a kid checked out a book on someone with diabetes and brought it back because it was about vampires. Mrs. H came back and said yes, it is about diabetes! Too funny! Checked in and put away The Arrival and Immigrant Kids from Ms. O. I had one book with a funky bar code, so I fixed it. I also had to fix a barcode from a Calculus book that was turned in. Mrs. S called and asked if I could look up a book from a student that graduated in 2005! I looked and no, it wasn't there. Mr. W needed me to send him a PO#. I had put a book into the mail, and after a week it was still there because the delivery driver needed a pick-up ticket from Mr. W before he could pick it up! So, he is sending that. Checked out The Adoration of Jenna Fox and checked in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Processed five teacher magazines and Time, Newsweek and Popular Photography for the library. Checked out Abraham Lincoln's DNA for Mrs. A's genetics class. We had a chance to get more Foundations of Algebra books so I immediately pounced on getting the Year 2 Volume 1 books that we are always so short of. I then sent an email to our math Department Chair to see if she wanted any of the others. I also printed up some posters to put around school for National Novel Writing Month and had the aides tape them up around school. My announcement didn't get read, so I wrote and asked if they could read it tomorrow and Thursday. I worked on more of The American Experience, doing some additional taping and gluing. Can I say again, I just love my job? It's my sweet spot!

Monday, Monday

Today was an easy day, came in and got The Adoration of Jenna Fox ready for Mrs. G's students and checked them out. Got the next class set ready for tomorrow's class as well. Also got ready Abraham Lincoln's DNA ready for Ms. A's genetics class. The first time they've been checked out so I'm excited about them. Handed out various books today, checked in a bunch of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Spent most of the day on repairing The American Experience. The gluing I did last Thursday dried nicely and I worked on gluing other spots and some were ready for taping and back on the shelf. I wrote an announcement for Nanowrimo to advertise for next month and got a meeting date set for a parent information night as well. I also let Ms. W know that I would not be going to Italy and wouldn't need to use my vacation for that week.

Like a Flash

I know you're all thinking that I must be writing about a flash drive, but no! Today was an Inservice/Grading day so Library Media Assistants only work a half day, so for me that means just under 3 hours, but hey, 3 hours is easier to clock! Processed in the 60 Analysis books that came from South yesterday and got them onto their shelves, and then we got in our new Hunger Games books, a class set of 40 and I processed them and had to move three titles around so H.B could fit in their new home on the shelves in our novel section. I did a couple of repairs on The American Experience, and it was time to go!

Heroes in White Vans

This morning my hubby takes off and I didn't have the spare key to the other car! So, he played hero by getting back in our white van and bringing me keys. Then off to my mom's to pick up her suitcase and pack with clothes for her stay at rehab, and as I pull away from her garage, the car dies and refuses to start. I call Mrs. H to tell her I'll be in as soon as I can and she quips a "I'll come and pick you up!" and soon another white van with Mrs. H's smiling face pulls up and takes me into work. It's so nice to have heroes in your life :) When I finally got to work I had an e-mail from Mr. S that he'd like his class to pick up the Prentice Hall Literature Platinum books so I quick reply that they'll be ready, throw a class set on a cart and moments later they arrive and we check out the class set quick and easy. Mrs. P also needed books, the Prentice Hall Literature Gold books and with the set we just got in from Follett and Ms. M's wonderful repair skills, we had plenty for two class sets (and still some to spare!). Mrs. P came in with her class around noon and they were pretty excited to see the books were in very nice shape instead of the bedraggled Velveteen Rabbitish books that have been hutching on the shelves. Finished up comments on the science books. I could still do some more tweaking - isn't it funny how you go along then think, 'wow, this could be added for more clarity' - but I will do that later. Processed three teacher magazines and a Sports Illustrated and Seventeen for the library. Then I cleaned up the spinner rack with the older issues and straightened it out. Monitored the computer lab and told a student not to be sitting on a photo long enough for me to get a screen shot. He said he wouldn't, but it was in a forum post, again, I said, please don't look at it long enough for me to get a screen shot - I'm slow and not real quick. I'm happy to report that Thrasher was much appreciated today and I found it in two different places in the library. I did some repairs on The American Experience books, getting some spine gluing done and set. Then we got in our 60 extra Analysis Vol. 1 copies, so I got them ready to process in. As I cleaned out the green computer lab, I found a book shelf had broken a hook and was falling down, so I got some new pegs and fixed it, reading the shelf. Mr. B was nearby and leant a helping hand so most of the books didn't crash on the floor! Another hero for the day! I also checked out two students today, one off to the online classes, another moving over the mountains. Took in a 2 Textbooks out slip from a mom, checked in and out books, the usual - maybe I should call it CICO?

Thrasher's Back!

Processed in magazines this morning. Five teacher magazines and seven for the library. People, Newsweek, Time, The New Yorker, Teen Vogue, Discover and Thrasher! We used to get in Thrasher which is a teen skateboard magazine and when they left the magazine wholesaler, they got dropped off our list. So this year, I made sure we got a new subscription to them and yeah! Some of these kids will be so happy to see it! I put it back in its spot on the rack and I'll be looking to see when it gets read! I'm very happy since I had a lot of kids asking for it. Processed ten additional Bienvenidos workbooks off our new pile for check out. I checked out one, and also handed out a lot today from kids that bought their own. I helped a student look for his book and when we couldn't find it, suggested a 2 Textbooks Out slip for him to take home, and he did. I cleaned off the shelves by my desk, getting rid of some extra books and setting them on a cart to be put away tomorrow by our aides. Repaired a book on roller coasters. Spent most of the day working on cataloguing the science comments again. One more box of stuff to go and what we have on hand will be all accounted for. I keep finding other stuff as well and will need to clean up some more in Trac-it. The students were only here half day today as the sophomores did the PSAT test. There was a staff meeting in the library this afternoon, then it was pretty quiet for the rest of the day.

Never Mess with a Librarian

I cleaned up the boxes I had left from yesterday. Handed out Bienvenidos and Chem Lab Notebooks. Mrs. H left a tile on my desk that says 'Never Mess with a Librarian'. She had received them from her Chairing the OASL conference last weekend and she shared one with me and one with Ms. M. I checked out diversity books for the health project kids. I also packed up the old science books for surplus. Worked on more science comments for most of the day. Felt much better today!

Sick

I came in and sent off my evaluation for the PowerPoint class I took. Checked and answered e-mails. We received an e-mail from Mr. M that he was holding hostage several Lord of the Flies, so I checked them out to him. Who is now holding who? I unloaded and checked in the longed-for Bienvenidos workbooks and let the spanish teachers, the department head and our bookkeeper know they were in. I repaired a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin. I got into the Main Frame and billed the kids that damaged the Signing Naturally DVD's. I was not feeling well. My mother had emergency brain surgery on Saturday to evacuate and drain a blood clot and the stress of that and a really horrid tasting can of soup Sunday night caught up with me. I had thrown up that morning and felt a lot better, so I went in. However when I started to really drag and felt every minute was about an hour and got dry mouth, I knew I wasn't being productive and not sure of what I really had (not wanting to spread anything around) so I went to Mrs. H and told her I was sick, went to the office and signed out for the day. My first sick day. (btw, my Mom is doing well and after some rehab should be back to her normal self!)

Commenting

Worked on some of the set up for NaNoWriMo for next month. Laminated an old poster we had on our graphic novel roll out bookshelf that keeps falling over. This should fix him up! Emailed Mr. W on the science books we got in late yesterday. Checked in and out texts. Checked the book I glued yesterday and it was ready to go back on the shelf. Tried to log in on the mainframe again to bill students and again it told me I was prohibited access! I sent in a lifering request to tech support services. Processed in some teacher materials for a novel set. Checked out World Literature to the block class. Worked on a project with the Physical Science with Earth Science teacher materials. When I originally processed them in, there were so many pieces that I couldn't see making a new entry for every separate workbook, so I just lumped them all together under the main teacher text code. I had a teacher come to me last summer asking what he had out, and I said he had out a PSw/ES. He asked me which one, and I couldn't tell him. Very frustrating for both of us. So I thought that each barcode has a comment section and I could put all that information in the comment section and have it available for everyone. So, I could look up a barcode and tell him (or her), "Oh, that's a chapter resource, fast file on Stars and Galaxies - a little thin paperback with about 40 pages" and if they wanted to really know, the ISBN number for that particular product. I got in nearly all the PSw/ES materials today that we have on hand. Tomorrow is a Statewide Inservice Day. We are on furlough for that day, but since I have been working on the committee, I will attend the Oregon Association of School Librarians conference for tomorrow and Saturday. Tomorrow I attend a book repair workshop and tour the State Library. Saturday I shall present a workshop on NaNoWriMo and just help out for the day. Mrs. H is the chairperson for the conference and she is an amazing lady with who, what and how she gets things done! We are so lucky to have her here at Sprague! She brings that same attitude and 'let's get this done' work ethic into our library every day.

Cart Full of Science

Today I finished up labeling all the shelves and redid all the endcap directories. The directories had so many markings on them of new stuff that it was getting a bit ridiculous. I had a father come in and talk with me about the Bienvenidos workbooks for Spanish - I explained to him about the new teachers, the extra classes that appeared and we had no idea that so many would be in them last spring! He was very nice and I gave him the ISBN number and told him to check Bookbyte. Gave out a lot of computer login numbers today. Helped a student print out song lyrics for a class, and another with how to change to page orientation. Put a book away on a shelf and for some reason, another book caught my eye, so I pulled it off the shelf and it had come unhinged! So I took it up to Ms. M since she had the new glue bottle for that kind of repair and glued it back together and put some Human Anatomy books on top of it (they are really heavy!). Checked in and out books during the day. Loaded up two carts of World Literature books for checkout tomorrow for a block class. Ms. S came in this afternoon saying they'd be down 8th period for them. Logged in the upfront print cash. Processed in four of the Buen Viaje workbooks for check out. Mr. M said we could do two each (student tape manual and student writing manual). We had a student checking on that so she came back and I checked her out a set. Deleted some old texts out of Trac-it. Mr. N came in with some students and they asked if they could check out the Gardner's Art Through the Ages CD's, so I got them out of the back and checked them out to the students. After they were done, some students checked them back in, but some kept them. Lastly I had Mr. S come up with a whole cart of old science texts and bits and pieces of things they were cleaning up. Some were old Biology that we had surplussed out during the science adoption summer of 2008. Others were materials teachers had picked up from various sources. I will contact Mr. W tomorrow and see if he wants to come by and see if they want any of these kept just for teacher reference. I also again asked our wonderful techie guys to loan me a camera to take pictures of my bulletin boards so I could post them. They are angels! You can check out the October 1st post and the 'Monday Training Blues' post from October 6th!

Disappointed

Went back to numbering shelves today, and thought I'd clean up the Prentice Hall Literature Platinum list so that I could get some more room. Deleted off books that have had no action since 2004. I finished up numbering the shelves and scooched over the Respect for Acting, and two other small sets of books and had enough room. Processed a teacher magazine, Time, Newsweek and New Yorker. We got in some new Buen Viaje workbooks and I notified the Spanish teachers and our bookkeeper as to the amounts now available. We had our October classified staff meeting this morning and talked about being sure we were getting in breaks and lunches; treating all of our Sprague community members the same way we'd like to be helped; vacation time and procedure; our furlough days for the year (like this Friday is a non-work, non-paid day - before we'd have an inservice activity and get paid for that), there will be three this year. Took about 45 minutes. This afternoon I was monitoring the computer lab and one student that I know was on an inappropriate site. I was shocked and went up to him letting him know that he should not be on there. He was very contrite. He sent me an email apologizing and also came into the workroom and apologized again, face to face. Sometimes you just have to be a mom to these guys and let them know how things may turn out down the road. I hope he takes my advice and makes the choice to stop that behavior. I was really disappointed in that. Just before I left I got a phone call from a woman wanting to have information on our author visit of Lauren Kessler (she wrote one of the books highlighted for the Oregon Sesquicentennial - Stubborn Twig). I had no idea she was coming, but I looked it up to see that she will be at Sprague on Friday for the Social Studies Statewide Inservice day. I didn't know if the general public could come, so I checked with the office and they didn't know either, so I transferred her to our Office Manager for more information.

The Monday Training Blues

Got in to work, (da da da dum)
Strange people were there. (da da da dum)
Some crazy training (da da da dum)
All in the blue lab chairs,
And I've got the blues, (Waaaailing)
Got the training day blues (da da dum)
Can't use my desk too much cause
I'm stuck with the Training Day Blues....
So, I spent most of the day in the back room cleaning up stuff that needed some attention. I finished moving all the teacher materials around and there's lots of space on that rack now. Got one of our aides to clean up the magazines we have in boxes for kids to use for projects they need photos for and that's all straightened out now. Got another aide to work on reorganizing all the backstock magazines we hold for a year or two. Another aide moved some unused science texts up to the back wall so we could make room for the Physical Science with Earth Science that came in. I worked on renumbering the shelves. We also began to move the Prentice Hall Literature Platinum books around since the new Prentice Hall Literature Golds took over three of their shelves. I did finish up my October cancer awareness board on the inside (while the group took a lunch) and did the outside bulletin board as well. (Da da da dum!)

Ribboned Out

Today I nearly finished the calendar but I ran out of ribbon! Drats! But it did come together nicely. I put at the top that testicular cancer was the most common for men ages 15-34 and that breast cancer affected 1 in 8 women and is the 2nd most common cancer for women. I also got together a scattering of books, some non-fiction and the others fiction. A nice collection. I put on my families run-ins with cancer: my mother-in-law who passed away this summer from pancreatic; my step father who died from lung; my father-in-law has had both lung and prostate; my mother and sister-in-law both had breast - my sister-in-law passed away from it. I had a teacher say she would bring in a ribbon, another a scarf from her cancer walks she's done. I had the juniors in for the CIS advisory today, they were updating their courses and work history today. The computers were operating smoothly and with speed, and the students were all very engaged taking care of those items! It was a good day in the blue lab. We got in two boxes of books, one of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Cutcher. I had one of our aides and one of our students on release that period help break in the spines, stamp and then put in barcodes and number the ends of the books. They helped shift books so we had room on the shelf for these and labeled the shelves. They did a great job and between us three, it all got done. Cleaned up the workroom today so it is cleared up of boxes and piles of things to do. Processed in the three remaining Physical Science with Earth Science books. Checked in and out texts, took in some regular library books. Checked out a class set of Immigrant Kids and The Arrival to Ms. O. Locked up the DVD/InFocus cart in the viewing room before I left for the day.

Golden!

Got all the Algebra Connections Vol. 1 finished up this morning, with much thanks to Ms. M! She is amazing! We had two classes come down and check them out this afternoon. Also got in our new-to-us Prentice Hall Literature Gold books in. They've been refurbished and should be around for awhile. Though I did find two I will probably send back for highlighting and marking in the text. Stories are timeless and these classic texts have already been around since 1989, so they are a bit worn, and lost. So, with this set we should be good for another eon of student use! I did some clean up on this title in Trac-it, checking out how long books have been lost (some were lost back in 2000, I don't think they will show up!), or when they were billed (insert lost comment here). I found a gap in numbering and numbered them in there and won't have to move too many shelves I hope! Though now I think we will run into the Prentice Hall Literature Platinum books and will have to move them down. Processed a teacher magazine and Shape magazine. Contacted another school about the books they've lent us, but have disappeared. Again, these are from 2000 or so (Y2K??). I spent some time with another of the librarians who has moved to the textbook side at another high school and gave her some detailed instructions on withdrawing things from Trac-it. She was very appreciative. We had three damaged Physical Science with Earth Science books that we sent off and got the replacements in today. Worked a little bit on the calendar, but didn't find the right ribbon, so off after work today to get in the right stuff so I can finish tomorrow. I also sent out an email to all staff for them to bring in ribbons for family and friends to put on the calendar to honor those who have/are battling cancer. Our governing board is also doing something for the month, I got an email from their advisor so hopefully we can send people either way.

Marking Shelves

They were doing the ASVAB in the library this morning until 11, so I worked on moving around the Biology books to make room for new ones and the new set of Physical Science with Earth Science. When we got back in I processed two teacher magazines and a Newsweek for the library. Checked out a class for the new Physical Science with Earth Science and made sure the whole science department knew they were available. Ordered two more boxes of the Bienvenidos workbooks. Worked on the 60 new Algebra Connections Vol. 1 we got in today. I printed up barcodes, then split them between the three of us because they really need to be covered before we hand them over to students (they're paperback). Ms. B wants them before 3rd period tomorrow, so that shouldn't be a problem. Off to my last PowerPoint class!

Broken Doorknob

I put my key in the back workroom door today and it's not working! The whole doorknob is off kilter and looks like someone kicked it or maybe tried to crowbar the handle off. Mrs. H has already looked into it, sending an email to custodians Mr. B & B. I finish up the processing of the Physical Science with Earth Science and send back three that are damaged to Central Stores processing and also send out the Auto Fundamentals books to McNary. I process the Java 2 books for Mr. R, and a teacher edition of the Biology book for Mr. W. He is very appreciative of the work we do. Mr. C from Follett comes back and since Mrs. H had told him to go ahead and buy the old Cest A Toi books (level 1), he locked in the books last night and came back this morning to pack them up and ready them for shipping out to their warehouse. He had a check all written for them and ready to go. He also took on consignment some of the level 2 books. I straightened up the rest of the surplus books. Mr. W gave permission for the Biology books to be loaned to another school, but they had already gotten them from somewhere else but really appreciated the offer. Mrs. H and I also sent out the request for more of The Sixties books. I had gone through my emails and just checked with her to see if they were ordered and when we checked, they hadn't yet! So we got them ordered and set up a system for us to keep on track to make sure things got ordered. I will take in the orders, check on the prices, print up the prices off the appropriate website and hand all that over to her. She will write up the official request and then give all the copies to me to file for future reference. Mr. B comes in and begins to work on the doorknob and tells us that last night when he was cleaning the floors outside in the hall, he heard a thump as he went by the textbook window and thought he'd hit the outside counter lip (which he does all the time), but he guesses that this time he whacked out the doorknob! So, no one tried to break in after all! Mrs. H and I talked about the new calendar for October and she thought we should do one on cancer awareness. We have a book by Lance Armstrong and I look for it, but it's not there. Mrs. H says to look at the regular shelves instead of the biography section we have and it's there, along with about five other biographies, so I properly shelve all of them. We have a lot of books that deal with cancer, so we will heighten awareness of breast and testicular cancer for our young ladies and gentlemen. I'm thinking pink (breast) and violet (testicular) ribbons for the A/B days.

At Last!

I had dropped and broken my camera at Yellowstone this summer, so I went to Mr. R and Mr. A and asked to use the tech camera to take a picture of my bulletin board for September, so they made sure I wouldn't drop it by using the neck strap! Then a nice student tech uploaded the photo and I posted it to the first day of school (New Oly Day). Very nice! I got a call from tech services and I have access to the main frame again. Mrs. H is doing her page in our school paper, The Torch, and asked me to write a little blurb for National Novel Writing Month. I host the blue computer lab from 2:45 to 4 pm every school day for anybody that wants to try and write a novel in 30 days. I love doing it! So I wrote up a small paragraph and it will go in her 'Hot off the Shelf' page. I processed a People and The New Yorker magazines. Answered emails - one from our science department head who needed a count of Biology, Physics and Fundamentals of College Physics so he could be prepared for next year. Another question from Mr. H on the materials from Mr. M. He wants to send some of the texts back (Mr. M had 6 pages of texts checked out to him!) and keep some so we will work that out. I look for The Art of Racing in the Rain, one of our new books I had seen on our 'New Books' rack, and it's not anywhere I can find in the library and supposedly it is in! This week is Banned Book Week, so I throw up a quick bulletin board about banned books on the board by our workroom door. We get in our borrowed copies of Bien dit! and more Foundations of Algebra Year 2 Vol. 1 and I process those in and let the teachers know. Then we get in the new set of Physical Science with Earth Science books. At last! Mr. W ordered 90 books to cover the rest of the freshmen class. I know of one class that didn't get any, so I emailed them first to come and pick them up after I processed them. I spent the rest of the day working on them, found 3 copies that need to go back and am holding off printing more labels until I've finished breaking in the rest of the books. We also got in our tech books that we are getting from South since they were just going to surplus them and our Follett rep came by and wants to buy 50 of our Cest A Toi Level One books. So we left a note for Mrs. H since she was in a meeting.

Access Prohibited

We are on Advisory Schedule today so right into the computer lab and turn on all the computers. My scheduled sophomore class will be here right away and none of the computers are on! I spend the advisory with Ms. K's class getting them into the CIS website, updating their personal information and working on the Skills Assessment they are doing for today. The computers are slow, but at least they are working today. I got an email from Mrs. S this morning if we could send down 37 World History books down to her room, so I load them on a cart, check them out to her and get one of our aides to take them down in the elevator to her class. She needed them by the end of 2nd period. A student asked how many books he had out so I looked that up for him. Got in ten Foundations of Algebra Year 2 Vol. 1 and processed those in and let the math department know they are here. Mrs. H brought over my NaNoWriMo workbooks for this November. I can't wait to hand them out. We only got ten, but that should do us. I reset the new workbook prices for the year, a couple had gone up and took the email from Mr. M on how the Spanish workbooks match with classes that are a bit easier to figure out. Contacted McDougal publishing on the status of the French books we had ordered to see how far we've gotten on the back orders and hopefully they will be in week after next. Processed a Sports Illustrated. I got the billing info for a damaged DVD and when I went to bill the student, I was told "Scheduled Terminal Access Time Expired - Access Prohibited". Hummmm. I sent in a tech request on that one. They called later and had no idea what was going on and will check with someone on Monday as to what that possibly meant. Handed out a lot of Chem Lab Notebooks today and unpacked two more boxes of them to put on the shelf ready to go. We had a student in with these amazing rainbow pants. I had to say something. I asked if he did reading rainbow and he said he hadn't thought about it! Withdrew the rest of the Cest A Toi books and teacher materials. Packed them all up and labeled for surplus and cleaned up the Trac-it base once they were all gone. Mr. H asked me to send him the check-out record for our retired Mr. M so I printed it up and put it in his box. Wrote up a workbook request for another Mr. M. Talked with one of the librarians at another school about how we label our magazines. One of our teachers wants to have five of the books that another school is getting rid of so I sent the request and they will send them here instead of to surplus. I love it when we can share! I asked some questions to Ms. M about Trac-it since she was one of the people Mr. A used and got feedback from when he created the program. I asked about deletions and could I also just delete books as well as withdraw them. I also asked about the 'Repair and Compact Data' tool. I had never used it and was kind of afraid to do it, but she said that she did it about every four months so I clicked and it says it worked! I finished up the day reorganizing teacher materials. We had a lot of space on the east side of the rack and the west side is jammed and overflowing to our magazine rack so I started moving materials and using the space more efficiently! Happy Friday! Off to take a nice walk in the afternoon sun!

I Had a Good Title for This One

Got in today and we got in new books! Introduction to Health Science Technology, so I processed those and made sure the teacher knew that they were in. We had two aides during that period and I showed them how to break in the spines and stamp the books, they loved working on them. Cleaned up emails today, filed some, deleted old ones. Sent off 15 Mathematics with Business Applications to McNary. Boxed up almost all of the Cest A' Toi level one books today (there was a lot!). Our surplus pile in the back is growing. Checked out a student who is moving out of state. Asked South if they still needed Geometry books, since we just finished checking them out and we did have extras, but they are fine. We had some extra help today so we set her to work on reading shelves. I knew where our last help had ended, so she took over from there and let me know where she had finished. Handed out workbooks to students that had purchased them, checked in and out textbooks, put money in print accounts, looked up login numbers for students. Sent a request for a quote on a damaged DVD for the sign language class. I close up the library again since Mrs. H was sick today. Nite, nite Library!

Auto-Motivation

Today I got busy with packing up all the two full book cars of auto shop books that Mr. L had asked us to withdraw. Mrs. H is going to ask if anyone would like them before we surplus them out. They are withdrawn and ready to go, either to another school or off to surplus. I also worked on the C'est A Toi books that have been replaced. I cleared all the level two and three books today, withdrawing and packing up. I worked on the damaged Biology books, cataloguing them and charging the students as well as an Economics book. Processed in some Snow Falling on Cedars that were donated by a teacher, 2 hardback books and two teacher resources. Ms. M had asked another school for Ordinary People and they sent us an entire class set, so Ms. L-D is very happy she won't have to purchase any. I got those all in the system for her class to check out tomorrow. Helped a lot of students with their computer log-in numbers today, and put money into print accounts. Checked in and out texts as well as handing out workbooks. We each need to talk to our supervisor about our personal goals and school climate goals for the year, so I sent an email to Mr. W to set up an appointment with him. Mrs. B asked when workbooks would be coming in and I sent an email saying that no workbooks had been ordered and attached an order sheet. Closed up the library tonight since Mrs. H had a meeting to go to, shutting down lights, letting the students know we'd be closing up early. Found a binder from a student and he came in to study, so I brought it over to him, he was relieved we had it. Then off to my PowerPoint class at West.

Main Frame

Today we packed up boxes to send back. We had received a box of books from a publisher and Mrs. H decided not to even look at them and send them back, with books to return to other schools we sent back 9 boxes. We also packed up some Accounting workbooks to send back since they weren't the right set, along with some other accounting workbooks as well. That department is going to do all their workbooks online now and save the paper. Processed ten new issues of magazines and got them out on the display rack. I sent an email to North HS about a Teacher's Edition of Developing Child. I apologized and blamed getting asked if I'd like a senior discount last weekend, but I couldn't remember why we were getting it and she called to ask me to send it back! We weren't supposed to get it! We are running out of Spanish workbooks and Mrs. H, the head of the international languages department and I talked about what was going on with those. I took my list of students to bill from damaged textbooks and discussed with our bookkeeper how to do this. She asked if we could just take care of these and log them into the Main Frame. She just didn't have time. So I spent the rest of the afternoon on the Main Frame billing the students $5 each for time and materials to work on them. Mrs. H put my blog and hers on the library web page (yeah!), and of course, checked in and out books individually throughout the day and handed out workbooks that students had purchased.

Documentation

A student came to me this morning and said that there was a girl in the bathroom laying down on the floor who wouldn't respond. I immediately called the office to report and headed to the bathroom. Ms. H was in the bathroom with the girl and said she was breathing. Security came and called the paramedics and they made the decision to transport her. A great working together of the whole body of the school. I hope the student is doing all right. I worked on the excel spreadsheet I started for charging the students who came back with damaged texts. I went through the Trac-It system and also added in all the comments for each text. I handed out workbooks students bought. I asked for more Physical Science with Earth Science texts. I sent an email to a department head about a text, revisited the pricing for that text. Asked Ms. M to borrow Ordinary People from other schools. sent Mrs. H the PDF file for the NaNoWriMo workbooks. I processed some teacher magazines and talked with Ms. M about that she has magazines from a family member that could be used in our detention room. I showed a student how to log into our search computers and use them. He wanted The Bourne Identity.

Magazines Done!

Glad to have all the magazines from the summer all done, catalogued and on the shelf with the older new ones on the check out rack. All magazines off to teachers and all that stuff put away. Put money in print accounts and picked up all the extra change this afternoon before we left. Notified our math department that we have begun to run out of certain texts. I had to turn away a couple of students late today, our freshman class is larger than when the texts were purchased, and with lost or missing books, it makes the problem worse. Helped a student look for a book on the art from the Berlin Wall. We didn't have anything and she said she'd look at Salem Public Library (an excellent resource). I updated our card catalogue of teacher purchased magazines so we can keep a tab on what and when we get something in. Checked out a few second texts to students. They have to fill out a form and have a parent sign that they are responsible for 2 copies of the same title. We have a few students that due to certain conditions keep one copy in the class and one at home. Checked out textbooks to a few more classes, checked in and out regular library books. Another great week in the library!

Doubling

Thursday, September 17th:Came in this morning to a request for a class room set of American Government books, and got them on a cart, checked out to a teacher to discover that Ms. M had already taken care of all of them! So, I checked them back in. Good move on her part to be sure that they would be ready for 2nd period, but a bit crossing of wires on that one. I'm sure we'll get better as we work together more! I finished up withdrawing all the Century 21 Accounting books and have them all boxed, labeled and ready to send out. We also talked with the other school and they are buying 10 of our workbooks as well, so their bookkeeper and ours are transferring monies to appropriate places. Did more magazines today, more texts in and out, workbooks picked up. The day just flew by.

People & People

Spent today again dealing with many individual student requests. Checking in books, checking out books, picking up workbooks, a pretty constant flow all day. Checked out more class sets of books, but on a much smaller scale. Worked on more magazines and got all the teacher copies put out for them, and it seemed like I worked all day on People magazines cataloguing all the copies since June. I also worked with South HS with our old accounting textbooks. We received a grant and got new copies, so our accounting teacher told us to go ahead and surplus out the old edition. When I got a request for 10 - 20 of the old edition copies for South, I let them know that we had 65 we were getting rid of, and would they like them all! We got a very nice, Yes! A good chance to share resources with other schools. I withdrew the first lot this afternoon, boxed them up and sent them out. Got a request today for Beowulf to be checked out tomorrow and Geometry Connections. I'll be able to get other work done! We also got in our Demco order and can begin repairing books! Ms. M took a whole cart of Prentice Hall Gold and will start on them, a good thing! We have plenty of repairing to work through all winter!

212

That's about how many class sets of books we've checked out in the last 5 days and over 6,000 texts have gone out to students. I finished up cataloguing the Physical Science with Earth Science texts and moved on to getting up the magazines that accumulated over the summer. I've gone from Asimov's up through PC World. Had a lot of individual student requests today. Dropping off texts from classes that they dropped to checking out texts for classes they picked up, or didn't have their ID with them when their class came up. I love that Ms. M had her students write up reviews on books and she was placing them around the library this afternoon like what they do at Powell's. Very nice!

Cataloguing Damage

Today we checked out books again all day long. We were running out of Physical Science with Earth Science and I started cataloguing all the damaged books so we could check them out. We still have a class to go and only about 20 books left. Mrs. H helped me today to finish up tagging all the books so the last class could check them out today. I thought an hour would be fine, but ended up checking out so many classes that I needed the extra hand. We had some great aides in today that helped putting class sets together and I think we have mostly Biology books to go, with just a scattering of other books. We made it through the Prentice Hall Gold literature books, which really surprises me since we had such a huge freshman class. Had a few teachers come and pitch in when I didn't have the time to pull books, they are amazing people! Got in a lot of individual students today as well, dropped a class, picked up another so I checked in the dropped books and checked out the new class books. Put money into print accounts. Helped students get logged into their computers. Nearly back to a normal work day. I also got approved to take vacation time and just time off to visit my granddaughter over Thanksgiving! Thank you!

Scan Boldly!

Friday - September 11th: Another day of massive checkouts. Some of the students are timid about scanning their ID cards so I tell them "Scan Boldly" which was a take-off from Martin Luther's 'Sin boldly' but the students saw it more in a Star Trek "Scan boldly where others have scanned before" idea. Very cute! We also cleaned up the library from texts that are done with check outs and put them on carts in the back. I talked with our bookkeeper on the Physical Science with Earth Science texts that were damaged. I didn't have enough time last year to get those all catalogued before we left for the summer, so that will be my #1 priority on Monday. I looked for more Wir, die Jugend texts for Mr. J and added in Their Eyes Were Watching God books we had sent over for a class here. We also had CIS advisory today and my computer lab was down. Only one girl was able to log in. The techs spent a lot of time after the kids left working on reconnecting the lab properly. I will try and remember to spot check computers before advisory next time, but kids had been in before school and had no problems.

Stacks and Stacks

More and more books today. I had my monitor screen shutting down and had to stop and check the cords to find that the power cord was coming unplugged. When I put the scanner over to the library side, it rubs against the power cord plugged into the back of the screen and over time had started to disconnect it. That was a simple fix! We all worked hard today to get all the kids checked out and ready for classes. We were checking out books right, left and center (Ms. M, me and Mrs. H). I put together 4 classroom sets of books for teachers to take to their class as well as all the classes we've done the last two days. Started to check out regular library books to kids. Had to hand enter students that had just come into school. Tried to only set out books that were in decent shape. I have book piles in the back that I want to work on before I check them out. With all the repairs I did last winter and what got repaired over the summer, things are definitely better than what they were last year. I'm working to pull the repaired books for check out and keep the ragamuffin books for their Extreme Book Makeovers!

56 Sets

We shifted over 56 classroom sets of books today. We ran all day long. We got a few things done today on the side, but mostly it was all books, all day. We had a few teachers ask to come in off the list and we took care of them as well. We set up for more classes tomorrow, but not with the thoroughness we had today. So we'll really have to be on our toes tomorrow! Our American Experience books I tried to only pull the ones in fair shape or that had already been repaired. We have lots that really need a lot of care. I also put together a display box of our 'Textbook Hall of Shame' for the students to see as they came in to the library. We had tables stacked with books all over the library, carts by me to roll over for the classes that came to the textbook window. After work I had signed up for the PowerPoint class over at West Salem HS to learn how the program works so I can help the students in the computer lab this year. I'll be doing that on Wednesdays for September.

New Oly Day

Spent most of the day getting the textbooks ready for checking out tomorrow. Ms. M did a great job getting carts loaded and out on tables. I added more teachers to the list, most were going for Friday's and Monday's times so I had plenty of room for them there. We also had to complete the district's mandatory training for the year. We had to take the test at the end and I scored 100%. I also put up the new September calendar, mostly recycling the calendar from last year so it will be all ready when we open the window tomorrow. I also discovered that when some workmen were in last week they did not reconnect the power and cables to our Channel One equipment. I figured out the connections and we had Channel One and the local TV all up this afternoon. We only had freshmen today, and we went out to the freshman BBQ and mingled a bit with the kids in the Commons. I also requested getting some vacation time during Thanksgiving week to travel to Italy to see my new granddaughter. We won't have students that week at all, just conferences, and I only have 2 work days. So, I hope that it will all be approved. The big check out push begins tomorrow!

Making the List....

I finally got the final textbook pick up list all done and ready for us to load carts up on Tuesday. Checked in teachers, checked out teachers. Looked up prices and numbers of books we need to meet the demand for the incoming freshmen. Found another teacher text for Environmental Science so we don't have to purchase one. Got prices for additional teacher texts. Worked with Ms. B on her french books to see if she could get on-line access for her students. Talked with a lot of people on all sorts of subjects. Got some extra Their Eyes Were Watching God books to get sent over, and sent to them a class set of Frankenstein. Got labels printed up for the french texts and our new assistant Ms. M got all those books for processed today. Labor Day weekend approaches! See you on Tuesday!

Job Alike Meeting

A myriad of meetings! We had our all library staff meeting this morning over at South High School and covered a lot of information. When I got back to Sprague, I worked on our textbook checkout list. We have so many classes that need their textbooks right away, that we put together a list so we'll have those texts out in the library on carts and ready to go. The students come in, pick up a book, scan their ID and book barcode and off they go. It works very quickly. I had a lot of emails to go through and got them all done by the end of the day there. Talked with Ms. B about the french books, Mr. A about science books, Mrs. S on economics books, answered other emails, and I got a new chair! So Mr. B helped my put it together and it is wonderful!