Great Kid

Came in this morning to see one of my favorite students come into the back with some laminating, so he and Mrs. M and Ms. A all got talking. How wonderful to have such an amazing student. He's off to Harvard in August and will be missed! The three of us all stated that if he ever ran for President, we'd vote for him! Processed in one magazine, Orion. I love that magazine, just my style. Finished packing up all the rest of the boxes to go to ECHS - I had to let her know there were 11 boxes coming, and be prepared! I also broke down and asked XXX for their back door report on barcodes and book numbers from the old Trac-it Program. Until those old books are replaced or weeded, we really need a way to quickly and efficiently find the old books on the shelf. As the new books get into the back, we'll of course, not need the old numbers, but for a system that will work, we really need it (shuuush! don't tell anyone we have it). Worked on renumbering the Prentice Hall Literature Gold. Replaced old falling apart copies with some replacement books we had purchased last year and I had on the shelf. No sense in just letting them sit there, time for old books to move on and new ones to get into use. Moved up to the front counter today after Mrs. M left. Mrs. H had a meeting at one of her elementary schools so I was the last library assistant in the building. Made every one of our 7th period release kiddos sign in on our tabulation sheets and collected over a page of signatures from them. Dealt with front desk duties for the rest of the afternoon and an issue with our bookkeeper and a student. Cleaned up the library for the night, put out our screen and an InFocus machine with a DVD player for the group that needed it for a meeting tonight.

Packing for a Kat

So, it's really Kathleen, but she calls herself Kat and she had sent a list of unused textbooks of ours that she wanted. So I transferred, 80 Cannery Row's, 40 Antigone's, 30 Awakenings, and 178 Human Biology books for Mrs. H to take over to her on Friday. She ended up with 12 different titles and 701 books! Yeah! More room for new stuff to come in! I boxed most of them up before I had to leave today. Did the shelf resetting for the Prentice Hall Gold books and pulled To Kill a Mockingbird for Mr. G, but Mr. C came and got some for his class.

Jumpers

Had two boys today jump the counter from the hall into my area! I made them both go out the door and back around to the front entrance. Silly boys! Don't they know only graduating library aides get to do that??? Pulled 50 Prentice Hall Lit Platinum books for a teacher and another 35 Out of the Dust checking those out to the teacher. Finished up the Fundamentals of College Physics books classifying their status. Processed in four magazines. Talked with another assistant about some billing problems in Destiny - the books were put into the system as 'damaged' instead of 'lost' and now if we check them in, it won't take them off their bill because they were put in as damaged. That's a problem. Sent out my unused textbooks list to the other schools and already have some notes coming back of what other schools want me to send their way.

Step Ahead

So today I was awaiting my new list results (hearing from teachers) and one of them came storming in with boxes to make sure we didn't get rid of her novels that she uses and we were already one step ahead :) I had already pulled her books and had them on a cart and she only had to pull a couple more to get all that she wanted. Then Mrs. H and her came to an agreement, so I withdrew all those copies and we gave them to Ms. O. She will really get good use out of them, better than them sitting on a shelf in the back. She had some students pull out of the back room an old bookcase and was so excited that those books would now be available to her students right then and there. Then she pulled in our sports history teacher and we pulled books for him and withdrew them and let him have them for his class. It was a good busy day! I was so excited to see these teachers really charged about having these books available right in their rooms! And so excited that the books will be out in the world getting used! Also processed in four magazines for us, one for a teacher. Checked out a class set of Technical Writing books to a teacher and transferred 60 old language books to another school that Mrs. H will take over next Friday. Checked out a class set of First Aid books as well!

Ficus

Just got back from donating my three ficus trees to the Sprague drama department. A young gentleman came from Ms. L and asked if they could borrow our library ficus for Curious Savage that starts tonight, but we had gotten rid of it last year before the bond work. So I offered my three ficus trees that we are getting rid of and since the play starts tonight, I drove them down to their new home. I'm sure they will stand in their places well and I'll get to see them for years up on stage :) Checked out a couple of extra books to Mr. C today for a student, checked in and out books. Sent out the Lit books list for people to look through. I pulled all the titles that Ms. O has on her 'Reading Through History' class list before I sent it. Now I just need to do the list for the titles we had more than enough copies for and give that to Mrs. H and we'll be about done with weeding those out. A very busy day in the library but well worked!

More Shift

Today was more shifting. Since I didn't shift enough really on the non-fiction, I went ahead and did the whole wall of bookcases there and it looks much better. Then I went and worked on the list for Prentice Hall Gold books and Mrs. H came and said "I have a project for you...." So I went around the library and pulled copies of books that had more than two copies (except for a very few well used ones) and then started to compile a list of our reader books that have copies both in the back and out on the shelves. We'll do another "Love it or List it" with those after I get done with them. Busy day!

Shift

Today I finished off shifting all the Prentice Hall Platinum books. Checked over all the repairs I did last week and most of them were ready to go back on the shelf. Processed in one teacher magazine and two for us. Checked out a class set of Prentice Hall Gold books to Mr. M and took them over to his class since it was just around the corner. Got ready a set of First Aid books for Mrs. W's class to check out. Asked again for the Pay it Forward books that I had requested three weeks ago, and she had forgotten! So they should be here in a day or two. Helped a couple of students with research on the Gale and JStore databases. Decided today was a good day to shift library shelves. A teacher sub came in and I suggested it, but she couldn't do work below the waist, so I decided to go ahead. Our W's, Y's and Z fiction authors are so crammed at the end of our fiction section - and since we had just weeded our beginning non-fiction earlier this year, we decided to condense down those books and bring the fiction Y's and Z's over to the next wall. So, I shifted about 8 bookcases of shelving today (about 6 shelves on a bookcase). Looks good, and there's now room for books to be properly set back on the shelves. I found several books just on top of a row because there was simply no room for it to fit in! Favorite book I came across? Never Slow Dance with a Zombie - Ha!

Love it or List it

My daughter called and said 'Let's go camping this weekend!' so I asked to come in early so I could get off early and beat some of the Portland traffic! So, this is actually Friday, the 19th. Came in early and helped Mrs. M get all the computers up and running. Spent most of the day renumbering the shelving in the back - and to tell the truth, I don't really remember what I did other than that! My mind was on other things :) I did get the OK from Mrs. H on the unused books list and sent it out to all the staff telling them to Love it or List it! If they want a title and are going to use it, I'll keep it - otherwise off they go!

Glue

Spent a good part of today doing repairs with glue! A lot of page tipping and some tear repairs. Then back in the stacks to move more books and relabel shelves to work my way up to where the books have no room! Watched Manga Club after school for Mrs. H today since she had to leave. Got a nice present in the mail, or rather from my courier son. I got a call from South HS that they had a present for me. I asked what and where did it come from and they said it was a box of Sees Mint chocolate wafers and that it had come from Mr. C at LMSS! I cracked up. Mrs. H had told Mr. C that if he really wanted to thank me it should be mint chocolates, and he did! Not sure how it ended up at South, but I had my son drive over and pick it up since she didn't want to put it through the district mail (bad experiences there!). Too much yummy fun!

Tracks

So I kept telling the air in the textbook depository that someone should really just go ahead and clean the tracks that our telescoping shelves move on. The bottom track isn't used at all, but collects all the dust and whatnot that flies around, a trench in the floor basically. But this summer, all the dust and solder splashes, tape, the ceiling tile flakes had all just collected in there and I looked around and said. "Hum, well I guess that someone should be me." Grabbed some towels and cleaned out all the tracks. It looks so much better! Glad I finally decided to woman up and do them! Worked on repairs today. Listened to one of our kids work on his speech (it was about the advantages of having a beard - he has one). It really was funny. Put away books. Made new tags for the World Literature books and put them all up nice and pretty. Got a new water bottle from Mrs. H for my birthday today. She's so sweet :)

Library Assistants Day

Finished off all the unused book list today and went through 106 titles and recommended something done with 89 of them. Whether they go to another school, or are surplused, it will be a great relief to our shelves! I can hardly believe we had so many. A lot of them are old novels that have only 30 copies or so, but still, it will be a cleaner place! Checked in and out today and at the end of the day helped Mrs. H pull out novels in verse for a class. As the class swarmed the table she had put out what we hadn't pulled yet, I went down the stacks with a list and would put new titles onto the table as the kids were looking through them. Emailed a school that has a horticulture program and they will take all our old horticulture books, so that will free up some shelving as well. Mrs. H came in and brought us some lovely tulips and treats for Library Assistants Day. She cares so much that we get recognition for what we do every day. She is a true library advocate. I am so blessed that I get to work with her every day.

Right now!

I was hopping today from the get go! Checked out three classes of Great Gatsby. Took in two classes of Fahrenheit 451. Took in Mr. C's class set of World Literature. Found some old unused notebooks, World of Difference that have been on the shelf forever and so we recycled the contents and left the binders out for anyone that needed any. Processed in three magazines. Did a check on our senior billing for Mrs. S that we had done on Friday. And, of course, back to the unused textbook list. I was running just about all day between this, that and the other!

Prom Tickets

Had conversation today with Mr. C on billing for seniors. How we would do that, get their books in before graduation since all books are automatically set for after graduation. Worked on that then went to talk to our bookkeeper about dates for all that and they were rolling billing for seniors who wouldn't be able to purchase tickets for the Prom unless their bills were all clear! So, Mrs. H, Mrs. M and I all dived into our 29 pages of seniors and got them all taken care of! It was a pretty easy fix, but I was surprised at how fast it went. Nice! Did more on the unused titles today, checked out two class sets of Great Gatsby, processed four magazines for the library as well. Now for a D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) until time to go to dinner!

A Thursday

Pretty boring really. More of the unused titles went their merry way onto the list. Had our foreign exchange student work for us again today. Nothing really interesting happened, really. Just good honest work.

Eggses

Got a half dozen eggs today from Ms. H. She has a little flock of chickens and I know they are eating fabulous things and well loved! Worked more on the unused titles today. We had an exchange student that needed to get in some 'work' hours, so I set him to pulling all the books off the shelf of my list and bringing carts out to me, and that worked really well! Had some real 'techie' moments today that I solved and so very happy that I managed enough tech to do them! One was a substitute that was running a DVD on the computer and so I had him log in, then play the DVD and then discovered we didn't have any sound because the computer was muted! He was very grateful! Found a flash drive and was able to reunite it with a kid. Helped another couple of kids with other computer issues. Checked in and out books today - the usuals as well. Another great day at the Sprague library.

Forest of Voices

As I was working through the unused textbook titles, I found a set of books called A Forest of Voices. Even though I liked them (being a wilderness lover) I thought they had to go, so I pulled them all down and got ready to list them for consideration to get rid of. I opened one up and inside the front cover was a notice that they had been purchased by the 1996-97 College Writing class and the teachers for future Sprague students. How could I get rid of them then? So, I sent an email to Mr. C asking him to put that note into their record. They are all now happily snuggled back onto their shelf. Went to our classified staff meeting today all about flex accounts for the most part. Checked in and out books. Even got a student to return a book she had checked out last September! What a coup! Worked more on the unused titles list and I'm up to about 58 or so titles for curriculum to cull through and more to come! I really wanted to get rid of two other titles, but rats, they were checked out as recently as 2010. Processed in two magazines for us and three for teachers. Sent a tech request in for a student who had to log into four different computers to get to the R: drive for the teacher folders to turn in work. It shouldn't be that hard!

Early In

Came in this morning to books! Classes! All the people that I had emailed last week about who was getting which books and when was all a flitter in the air! So I sat down and composed some wonderful emails for the parties that they said they got a kick out of. For the Gatsby Group, I had young Daisy finding a ring on the dash of the car and ended up on the side of Mt. Doom between the orcs and the lava hoping Gatsby would drive up in the car and save her. My other set was of the Pay it Forward (or Pay it Frodo) group who I invited to wrestle the book over the pit in Mt. Doom to see who would get the copies. I thought them rather clever :D Back to work! They got all straightened out. Checked out Maus II and Witness to Ms. O. Processed in three magazines for us and one for a teacher. Checked in and out various books and new students. Packed up the old scantron machines for Mrs. H and we taped them shut, stuck on the stickers and sent them off. Worked more on the unused textbooks list - totally finished off page one and started what hadn't been done yet on page 2. Helped a withdrawing student try to get all her books in. A good day and yes, I had my picture taken for the yearbook as well and got two tickets for the Oly Pageant for Saturday night. I've never gone, but Mrs. H and I and my mom will cheer on our fabulous Oly's and the great sum of money they've raised this year for Doernbecher's.

Hrumph!

Worked a lot today on the unused titles list and almost got page one done. Some of the books are so old I feel like I should be wearing HazMat protection! One set was first processed in 1976 (gee, I got married in 1975...) And since I had to rush off to a memorial service Friday night, I'm actually doing this on Monday the 8th and have totally forgotten everything else I did. Hrumph!

Umbrellaphant

Mrs. H was gone today so I got to read to the Little Oly's again! Huzzah! I read two poems from Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant and it was fun! Would have done more, but they were a little late getting up to us. Crazy super busy day in the library - labs full, tables full, the release kids were out of control during 6th period. Probably partly because Mrs. H was gone and they took advantage of Mr. L. I was at my desk in the back and didn't notice too much, but heard about it from one of the teachers. Worked more on the unused books list and had Mr. L help out on that a little. Supervised Manga Club since Mrs. H was gone as well. What a great group of kids - really love their excitement. Checked in a class set of Prentice Hall Literature Platinum books, processed three magazines, requested some Pay it Forward books from another school. Checked in and out lots of odds and ends.

It's a Crime!

Checked out more books today for the 2nd grading period. Checked on books for a student that has moved. Let Mr. C know that another title needed to be deleted and a barcode for a replacement book. Worked more on the unused titles list today.  Found Crime and Punishment down on a bottom shelf, hadn't been used since 2001, and they are not in very good shape. It's a crime to keep hanging on to these old titles! We have a section in the back for extra copies of titles and so I put away the reader novels that were returned yesterday and cleaned up those shelves. Some of the books were misshelved and just needed to shift things around. Much better now!

Echo

Crazy busy day back at work today. Had three teachers come flying in ready for their next novel and had forgotten to let me know so we worked together and got them their books! Had one teacher bring in a whole cart of reader books in that she had gotten before break and I checked all those in. Processed in four teacher magazines and eight for the library. Put up my new bulletin board, though I may do a few extra things for it - Poetry Month. Had a ton of emails and the day just flew by. Sent some books to North for a teacher there, tried to help some girls after school and got one done, but the other I couldn't help - which makes me sad :( I told her to come in tomorrow morning and ask for Mrs. H. Down to the last pull to the end of the year!