More processing...

I spent most of today processing more books and a couple boxes of video tapes. They were $35 a piece when she bought them and were still in the shrink wrap.

This is most of them.  And yes, that one in the front is a video about his to use a card catalog. Needless to say, I didn't add it to my collection.

Here's another find:

It's an old Webster's dictionary from the 40s. Check it out!  $23.75 for a book that's 3,208 pages long!!  It's falling apart and yucky, but it's so cool!  My principal wants to find a glass case so we can protect and preserve it.  Obviously I didn't barcode that either, but it would be a cool display.

Other than that, today was slow. I only had 2 classes scheduled, and only one of them showed. We had a constant stream of kids checking out though. Operations still haven't come for the crap taking up 1/4 of my library and the book fair should be here Wednesday. It's crunch time and I'm starting to wonder if I'm gonna have to set up in a hallway instead. :(   My sister-school does it that way, but how do you secure anything?  There are after school programs.  Maybe I'll call her tomorrow to ask about it.

Busy, busy, busy!!!

I have been busy, busy, busy... To say the least!!  The teachers are bringing their classes, and there are always random kids in (swarms!) checking out books. My assistant and I are struggling to keep up with all the books!!

We had a media meeting last week and out Follett representative, Karei Swift, was there. He was talking about how important it is that we focus on our Nonfiction collections because that's what the Common Core calls for. I do definitely see the need, but it's not what they're choosing to read.  Other than football and animal books, they mostly gravitate to the fiction. 

This is my return cart from the last class of the day. The top shelf is fiction -- chapter books and picture books.  The bottom shelf is nonfiction -- easy and regular.  So...  More of the fiction they love, and I'll keep plugging away on the nonfiction, but I don't want to focus too heavily on it. 

And!!!  My book fair, which was scheduled for the 7th -15th of October, is coming on the 2nd so I'll be selling longer than usual. Scholastic must be looking to make more money, too.  Still don't have the mess cleared out of the library to be able to fit this stuff in there though. My principal called Operations herself to see if she could hurry them along and found out our person never submitted the request. Grrrrrrrrrr!!

Oh!  And iOs7 just came out last week.  I had to push an update to the iPads, but it triggered that to install. I didn't have it on the MacBook to push, it did it on its own. That crashed an entire cart of 30 iPads. I haven't touched the other two carts for fear they'll face the same tragic demise...  And we wait for Diagnostic to come reimage the ones I messed up. It kinda sucks that we spend so much time waiting on outside entities to make their way in. It would be nice if the schools could be a little more self-sufficient. 

I've been busy with tracking who has/has not signed their responsible use policies, lining up book fair volunteers, cleaning out the back workroom which will be open as a mini computer lab by Monday, and reshelving books like there's no tomorrow.  I feel a little swamped. But I'm also scouring the net looking for lesson ideas and things to try with the kids.  

The layout of the library is just so frustrating.  There isn't a good way to keep the kids who have found their books.  If I sit them in a line by the doors, they're in the way.  If I sit them back on the carpet, they read magazines or friends' books and aren't getting handed shelf markers to get their turn. There are so many people coming in to use the library I can't use it myself.  I can't seat the kids who found books at tables to read silently. And I couldn't even teach my Dewey lesson yesterday because the ESL teacher was using that side of the library for her groups. And they all love to look in the catalog for books instead of browsing the stacks so it takes them an eternity to choose books. 

I'll get it all figured out eventually, but for now it's kinda irritating. 

Check this out!

We are off and running in the Media Center.  We hosted a school-wide hearing screening Tuesday, then I had pretty much back-to-back orientation classes the rest of the week.  THIS is how I'm used to doing things:

My plans did end up varying somewhat.  Kinders heard Book!  Book!  Book! and Manners in the Library.  First graders heard a the additional story The Library Doors by Toni Buzzeo and had a lot of fun.  I was able to show both grades the Can you teach my alligator manners at the library? video as well.  2nd and 3rd went as planned...  4th and 5th only got the scavenger hunt -- there wasn't time (or need) for a story, as well.  But everything went really well.  The kids are great and eager to get books, and did a great job in class.

Today is the first day of all-day open checkout, and my assistant's not here.  They all come from their classes as the same times that I have classes signed up.  It's been a little noisier than I'd like, and the kids have had to be patient, but it's going fairly well.  I'm not as solidly booked so far this week, as you can see:

And I have to find out where the grade levels are going to be meeting so I can attend their PLCs and find out what they want/need from me.  Other than that...  I'm still processing new books, cleaning up, and trying to get things straight in the media center in the downtimes.  

Wish me luck!  I'll have another class of kids swoop in soon!

Happy Hump Day!

(Insert camel here...  Haha)

I spent the day processing even MORE books...  Yet again. These are all older "new books" that have been sitting on shelves in the office and workroom for years (I've seen them dated as far back as 1994!).   However, I did snap some pics before heading home today.

My fiction section is essentially ready to go. I just have to wait for operations to come collect the overheads that line all my walls...

Still haven't rolled out the carpet...

You'll notice that the library is very compartmentalized at the moment.  I need some graph paper and measurements to figure out how to rearrange it. 

The "easy nonfiction" area...

Two cases of purchase orders that were accidentally taken when my predecessor left were returned at the end of the day today.  

Nonfiction....  Ugh...  I see boxes I missed....

 

Under all this mess is my reference section...  Someday I hope to be able to see it, but first operations has to come for all these discards!!

Another computer station (there's another along the back wall).

Nonfiction...  And have no fear -- that pile of boxes are empty, but the custodians haven't taken my trash out since open house. 

The circulation area is a mess from all the processing we've been working on.

My office...  I'm working on clearing these shelves so I can use the space and the kids can read the books!

This is the workroom.  It was floor to ceiling junk.  No one could walk through here, let alone use this space. I've been working on clearing it out. They want to turn this into a mini computer lab.

Another wall of the workroom...  There was sooooooo much junk piled up with brand new books going as far back as 1994!!!  Such a waste!!!

But, with a little luck, we'll be done soon.  I'm still hoping to get it done "enough" this week to be able to start having the kids come in next week for orientation.  I can always do it in little bits here and there if need be.  :)

2 days down... 178 to go!!

Ok...  2 days in and the library still hasn't opened. I'm still getting books and materials processed and everything cleaned up. I REALLY want to consolidate the two nonfiction sections, but I guess it'll have to wait.  That's soooooo disappointing.

So tomorrow will be another day of cleaning and cataloging. And probably Thursday, as well.  I'm hoping that I can spend Friday getting myself ready for classes.

My plans will be mostly just to introduce myself, the library rules and procedures, and get them excited about coming back.  We are switching from NCWise to PowerSchool and they're having issues with the transition. Our kids aren't set up in Destiny with their new classes and grade levels.  New kids aren't added either.

So anyway...  Looking for cute things to integrate and really missing my SmartBoard!!  I want to share this cute video:

Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to.   Or my cute shelf markers video...  Ugh. I haven't even had time to see what books I now have available.

I think I saw Mr. Wiggle's Library...   He'd be good to use with K-1 kids.

I own my copy of The Librarian from the Black Lagoon so I can still do that with 2nd grade.  The Shelf Elf will work for the 3rd Grade kids still...  I can do the "Library Survivor" game with the 4th and 5th graders to get them back into the swing of things. 

 

I'll try to get some pics -- it's starting to look like a library again.  Now I can't wait to start seeing the kids!!!!

Open House

So today was open house. I went to work 4 hours early and got started.  First I made a bulletin board for the hall so at least OUTSIDE the media center would be good.  I haven't made one in YEARS since my last school didn't have walls...  So anyway, this is what I came up with:

Each character's silhouette can be lifted so you can check to see if you were right.  I had printed a pic of each character, cut it out, traced it onto black paper, then cut that out...  I put the printed pic under the black paper and then just stapled the top of the black silhouette so it can be lifted. 

Inside the library, I've made some progress.  These pictures are from this morning, so it looks even better now, but it's still a mess. 

The office is a disaster area.  All the boxes and the books on the books on the shelves are new and need to be processed, but I have no paperwork for them.  The books on the cart all have some issue to fix...  Barcodes to change, no spine labels, etc. 

The circulation desk is a catch-all dumping ground for everyone. 

The reference section is housing discards. We have to wait for Operations to come clear this mess away. 

The tables in the nonfiction section all hold boxes of new books we need to process.  And when I say new I mean books purchased since 2007 and never opened and shelved.  Holy cow!!!

This mess is now actually completely gone.  It was just leftover trash. 

This table in the fiction section is wobbly. The legs need to be tightened. 

We have a couple carts of teacher equipment they haven't come for yet in this area, but then we can till out the carpet and it'll be ready for story time. 

And the easy section...   Again, just some teacher equipment they didn't come for yet and then it's done. 

So...  A lot of progress made, but it still wasn't ready for open house.  Instead, we shut out the lights and closed it up.  Then geographically-challenged me got maps and tried to help people find their classrooms.  I have a lot of people bad directions.  It's hard to describe how to get someplace you've never seen and didn't even know existed...   Lol

It was fun though.  I think I'm going to really enjoy my new school.  :)

A week later...

It's been a week since I started at my new school and I'm nowhere near finished.  I've been cataloging and processing books galore, along with new equipment like printers and Apple TVs.  Mostly I've been cleaning and throwing things away as I search for purchase orders to figure out where these books came from and what she paid for them.

Tomorrow is Open House and I am dreading it.  Not that the parents and kids will be there -- just because my library is absolutely nowhere near being ready.  I have what seems like 100 ancient overhead projectors to get rid of.  These are lining my bookcases all the way around the library (as you can see in my pics from last week).  When you first walk in, there are tables piled full of junk to discard on the right, and then this mess is surrounded by boxes upon boxes of more discards.  The problem is I can't just throw this stuff away. I have to fill out a request form and then wait for people from central office to come get this stuff.  There's no telling how long that may take.  

I'd also like to rearrange the library.  I don't care for the way it is currently set up.  I'm really not sure of a better way, though, so I guess I won't be in too big a hurry for that...  My biggest issue really is just that there are two nonfiction sections,  Why???  I mean, I get that you want to keep the big kids who are in browsing the shelves all day long away from the little kids who are in for a story and checkout or whatever, but ugh!!!!

I need to just focus on cleaning and getting things situated...   I guess I'll worry about the rest later.  

Tomorrow I don't need to be in till 12, but I think I'll go in early and work all day.  I need to catalog some books so I can use Destiny to print spine labels for me.  And I need to make a bulletin board.  A loooong day lies ahead of me tomorrow, I suppose...  I think I'll try to get in there by 9 and then we work till 7:30.  I can't stand that it will look like a disaster area when they come out tomorrow.

On the plus side, I now have a handy dandy iPad to use.  I'd rather have a SmartBoard, but beggars can't be choosers, right?  

The bulletin board I'm working on will be something along the lines of this:

Then, hopefully if I take next week to finish up, I can get started with library lessons the 2nd week of school.  That is what I'm hoping for at least!!