Traces

A very cool book I looked through today while Mrs. H and I were having lunch. The story of a family on the Oregon Trail and along with it, true stories from people who did it. Lavishly illustrated with photos, paintings, drawings. So many good books to read right now! Did some more working with the new Destiny program and found that I could check out the billed books to someone (I tried it on me) and then declare them 'lost' and it would put the note into the book and to the person responsible. I'm now checking to see if I can do this, and if the program won't add another charge into our billing system. I don't think that that piece is on line yet, but if it is, I'll have to find another way around it. Still worked on numbering the America Pathways. Went in early since Mrs. M didn't come in and with a Manga Club meeting right after school, I can leave early - Huzzah! Dressed up piratey for the day and had good fun with the kids. Got to help some kids with books and did some checking in and out of library books! Yeah! Mrs. H got us in the peel off back return date slips to put in the books, so we are doing that and nice to have that so the kids know when their books are due.

Crunch

Really just sat and crunched numbers today for the America Pathways books getting their book number entered into the notes of the new program. Got to close up the library after Mrs. M and Mrs. H left today, checking in and out library books! Yeah!

Little Oly's Bookmarks

Today Mrs. H had a sick kiddo at home and when we got an email from the Little Oly's preschool for trick or treats tomorrow, I of course responded yes! To make sure we had something to give away, I made some special Little Oly's bookmarks, printed them up and had them laminated for tomorrow. They turned out really nice. I did more notes in the America Pathways books and also added in the billing and paid notices. Had a student find a book that he paid for on Friday to get homecoming tickets. Had another book come in as well from last year that was billed so I got that cleared up. Dealt with a lot more students than I normally do since Mrs. H wasn't there after Mrs. M left. Processed in six magazines for the library and one for a teacher. Sent a book back to another school - we had sent them to ECHS and a lady there sent it to us to find out who it belonged to, but since it was transferred, I don't have that information, so I sent a note and sent it back.

Music

Today I worked on Mr. S and his Music Appreciation class. We have no books for this particular class, and the only other option in the district they use them all year. I found two texts and got a message to the rep and they are sending some sample copies to us already! What service! Worked on putting notes into the America Pathways books so we don't have to renumber the 900+ books we have or renumber the shelves. If we put in a note, it will come up with the old book number whenever we look at that book. So I started working on that, and checking to see how that would work and if it was worth the effort, so I think we'll go ahead with that option. Had a lot of students trying to get their book fines taken care of so they could buy homecoming dance tickets. Homecoming game tonight and dance tomorrow! And, yes, the back of my head is still sore from Monday.

Numbers

Decided to work on renumbering our most used books today, so I renumbered Journal of Finn Reardon and Glencoe Health books and started to do the Fit and Well's. A pretty normal day, checking in and out as well.

15 Additional

Got to work and had Mrs. H going 'look in your in box!' So I finally got my computer up and there was a notice from our office asking if I'd like 15 additional minutes added to my day which makes me full time and full benefits - I said a resounding 'YES!!' The library has literally been begging for years for my position to have 6 hours and now we have it! I'm so excited! Worked on Nanowrimo notices today and asked Ms. A if she'd like to be on a notice for contact and she was said yes. Worked on getting a jam out of the copier and a teacher came by after I had pulled everything apart 3 times and found the bit of paper stuck in a little space I hadn't noticed - at least that got it working! Did some repairs, talked to our textbook guy about the Chemistry teacher resources and he had done part of the job, but had forgotten about putting them back together, so glad I was able to remind him. Processed in a magazine. Got in a box of preview books, and they were all jumbled in the box, so I put them on a cart and sorted them out for Mrs. H to go through. It'll be easier for her if they are all ready to scan and decide yes or no. Put the Dime books back in our back room. The teacher isn't quite sure if they will maybe use them again or not, so for now we will keep them. It was 'Tea Party Day' for our Alice in Wonderland homecoming theme so I wore a pretty black hat and stuck tea packets in it and got a lot of compliments from kids. (Though Ms. S looked stunning in her 'mad hatter' outfit - no way I competed with that!) Checked in and out books. The usuals for the day.

Boring...

After all the excitement yesterday, today was rather boring. I turned in all my paperwork from yesterday. Did repair work today and checked out some books. Got in our 23 Spanish Mastery 3 books for Mr. C, so I took him a couple. He will have his class come in tomorrow morning and pick them up. Had a lot of concerned people ask me if I was all right today. That was nice. Talked to Mr. A our custodial lead about all the dust that is still in the back because of the bond work - he will see if he can get us a good vacumn to get all that up. I started to pull off our Abraham Lincoln's DNA books to wipe them down, and really, that would be just too dusty to do everything that way and get stuff all in the air, so a vacumn would be good.

A Dangerous Place

Was going about my day, repairing books, checking books out and it came to lunch. One gal had her lunch out and I scolded her and she left. Then a couple of students came in chewing, so I went over and they were just finishing their last bites as I gave them, we've already talked about this, and they got up and left, saying 'f****** B****' many times in the course of their exiting. One of them left her phone and so I took it, knowing they'd be back and I was planning on taking it to the office, pretty sure of who it was. I got Mrs. H to look her up and got her full name and student number and was getting ready to head to the office. The student came in and I asked for her name, she wouldn't give it to me, so I said we needed to go to the office and talk with Mrs. W (one of the admins). I just headed for the office and she followed. When we got there, Mrs. W's door was shut, so I asked our security fellow who was around, and he said Mr. S had just gone into his office, so I knocked and asked if he could help. He said yes, so I told him about the student and our interaction. He called her in and she came in, asked for her phone. He asked her name, she wouldn't give it and asked for her phone again. He asked for her name and she told him what it was and asked for her phone again. He said that they would have to have a conversation later and she took her arm, swept a bunch of stuff off his desk (computer monitor, phone, some papers) and then went to run out of the office, and there I was standing and she slammed me up against the door and ran out. wow. So I have a bump on the back my head, a little bit of a bruise under my eye. I have oodles of paperwork to fill out, had to go see a doctor for some documentation...ugh. My head's a little sore, but I'll be back at work tomorrow. I know she has to be accountable, but a teacher came and filled me in on some of her backstory, so I can see where it came from. Still not o.k. to do it, but still, I feel so bad for her.

DECA

Today was the last day of the week and we had the DECA group come in after school, so I came in a bit earlier so I could leave early since the library really is virtually closed. Did a lot of repairs today and checking in and out books here and there. Just a normal day :)

Apple Monkeys

Today Mrs. H got to read to our Little Olys group of preschoolers! It was so cute! They read 'Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree..' and it was so cute to hear the kids mimic Mrs. H and you could hear them 'SNAP' the alligator jaws shut! So cute! I barcoded 125 of our Foundations of Algebra books. Put up some Nanowrimo stickers I got in the mail. Was so excited that Lisa got her nomination for the Crystal Apple approved! What an honor! Jill was on the spot with getting all the paperwork in order and I'm so glad she did! What incredible people I get to work with! Took back the Globe Theatre to Ms. S. Processed in two magazines and did the regular check in and check outs for the day and some more repairs as well.

Junior Library Guild

Did mostly repairs today and then at the end we got in our Library Guild box! So Mrs. H and I carefully opened it and ohhh, ahhhed over all the tasty offerings! She took two books home to read and I took one! Had to kick the kids out of the lab again at lunch today cause someone was eating in there again!

No Mercy

Got most of the rest of my quotes up for the bulletin board, even had a kid by my desk today reading them, super! Checked in a ton of books today, processed in 10 magazines for the library and 4 for teachers. Shut down the computer lab because I caught a kid in there eating a lunch. No mercy!

What?

Not sure what went on today, but I took down the old bulletin board and started my new one on 'Truth'. It's a lot simpler, but I think it should be good. Worked on getting some 'truth' quotes for around the 'how do you define truth?' that I put up. Packed up 70 algebra books for Judson. She will come in on Monday to pick them up. Mrs. M and I won't be in (using vacation time) since it's just half a day. Checked in and out books, did a bit of repair. Looked for a book for a student and another book for a different student. It was a busy crazy afternoon handling the library all by myself after Mrs. H left for another school. Furlough day tomorrow and off Monday, so see you on Tuesday!

Visions

I went and worked on the Vision program today just because at the end of the day yesterday, I found two lunch plates shoved on the floor in the computer lab in between two of the desks that hold the computers. So I worked with Vision, remembering, oh yeah, I can lock all the computers, and make a jpeg picture with what I want on it - cool! So at lunch today there was a big backdrop on each computer saying "computer lab closed today due to eating issues in the lab" Not one kid tried to talk me out of it :) They knew. Did more repairs today, worked the front desk after Mrs. M left at 1 since Mrs. H was still out on her other library visits. It's amazing how much you get to interact with students when you're up there, I rather enjoyed it! Also had to supervise four Spanish students take a test, so I cleared off four tables for them, so they each had a table to themselves. The teacher had sent an aide to watch them as well! I hope they studied, I don't think they could have cheated.

Gone

Mrs. H was gone out on her rounds all day checking in with all the middle and elementary school library assistants since we longer have teacher librarians out there. So Mrs. M and I covered the library all day. I worked on repairs and then went to our classified staff meeting. Came back and shared the information with Mrs. M. Then I went back to repairing my pile. When Mrs. M left at 1:30, I moved up to the front. At one time I had all the web addresses etc, that I needed up there, but I think the bond work this summer and pulling all our equipment messed that up, so I had to reestablish all the links I need to run programs from up at the front desk. Got to work up front and have more time with the kids today, so that was nice! Mrs. H will be gone a lot of tomorrow, but then she should be back home. I closed up the library and went home!

Textbook Guy

Today Mr. C came over and spent about an hour with me and we talked all about textbooks. He'd never worked with textbooks before so he said he learned quite a few things by just coming over and me showing him around. Checked in a class set of Old Man and the Sea and checked out two class sets of Of Mice and Men. Worked on repairs today. Sent an email to Mr. C on the textbook titles (17) we need deleted. He has admin rights to do that but I don't!

Oldies

When we came back from summer break and I was reloading all our teacher materials back on their shelf, I had pulled a whole cart of items I wasn't quite sure about. I didn't know and didn't want to take the time to decide if they needed to go or to stay, so I did that today. A few I did put back, but I did get rid of two pages worth of old products that no one had used in the five years I've been here and were anywhere from eight to twelve years old. It was good to go through all of them, and I have the sheets of what titles need to be deleted to send to our textbook guy since we don't have the power to delete a title on our own.

Head Librarian!

Mrs. H did some basic 'this is how the library works' speeches today to some classes and one fellow held up his hand and told Mrs. H that 'that older lady in the back had to be the Head Librarian because she looked older and ...' So, I guess for a moment, I was the Head Librarian at Sprague in someone's eyes! Worked on my repair pile today, most of which was from checkouts where a book was in bad condition so I set it aside. At the end of the day we had our 180 Read class come in and the kids had to fill out a form. Mrs. H had made it up and one of the questions was: "one of the assistant librarian's is in the back and is Mrs. Willer, go up to her and introduce yourself and have her sign your sheet." So I took the opportunity to walk among the class and chat with the students and ask them about the books they read and found a few of them play golf! So that was very cool! Got through almost three whole stacks of books in various stages of repair and got some back on the shelf already. A good day!

Chemistry

Finished up getting the barcodes together for the teacher resources that ended up in the student text list. Sent those on so that they can be properly attributed and logged in. Had to go to three of the science teachers to look at their stuff to get titles and ISBN's, but it was so worth it. Sent those in. Got together the names and ISBN's of the additional Realidades 2 teacher resources that got sent with the last shipment of books. Checked in and out books all day, got a couple of books finished with repairs and got them back on the shelf.

Keeping it Real

Realidades 2 that is! Got in our barcodes today for Realidades 2 and got them all checked out to students! That was the best part of the day. I was so excited to tell the teachers that we were finally ready for all of that. We were one barcode short, so I asked for one more and our lovely Mr. C textbook guy sent me one on a PDF file and asked me to print to see if that would work and by crackie, it did! Checked out three classes of Realidades 2. Worked some more on the Chemistry teacher resources that got mixed up with the books, finished up the repairs to the American Government books. Did some more repairs. Checked out other books as well today, even some library books! Sent emails to Mr. C on some other issues relating to our textbook barcodes. Checked for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for a teacher. Another school is using it, so she will go with Of Mice and Men instead. Found a student who loves to do Nanowrimo and sent him to Ms. A for an article she's doing on that event. Sent an email to staff about our park next door that there is a trail work party on Saturday. Since it uses part of our parking, I thought some might be interested in helping out. Had a former student who came yesterday with a visitor badge and today he came and was hanging around and helping out and when I noticed he didn't have a badge, I sent him to the office and they said no, he couldn't stay. Glad I noticed and that he now has 'official' word on that. 

I Speak for the Pages...

Worked on the last of the repairs to the American Government books and just have two to go that need some extra tweaking. Worked on repairing The Lorax, a page got ripped out. Checked in and out a lot of books today again. Worked on the Chemistry items that didn't transfer over correctly. Found a teacher resource CD for a teacher who was very excited I found it.