Time was short in my last week of graduate school, so I only caught one of the big kids’ read outdoors-indoors. I am planning to go back one day next week and spend some more time.

I sat in on a fourth grade class’s camping adventure. Fortuitously, it was a class full of eager readers who I have interacted with a lot in the past. I asked a girl I’ll call America how the Lord of the Rings audio books were coming along (I don’t know if I mentioned this when it happened; I helped her check them out a few weeks ago. Mrs. Moneypenny had been unsure whether the system would let her check them out, but it did and we were very excited. America happily told me she had finished a long time ago. I have been going through them too, but at a much slower pace… I am still at the end of The Return of the King. Post-ring-dropping-into-Mt. Doom, though. 

So, the Great Read Outdoors-Indoors. I really need to bring my camera next week because it is super awesome. Cecilia decorated a corner of the library to look like the great outdoors. There is even a campfire! And a tent! The area is closed off by an excellent patchwork curtain, which I heard Cecilia made for a stage curtain. Very cool. 

So, Mrs. Moneypenny leads the teacher in first, and set them up at a little table at the back where there are yummy treats. Then the class comes in and sits on the floor. Mrs. Moneypenny puts on a cool outfit (explorer hat and vest) and asks which book character the kids would take camping with them. There was a great variety of responses from just this one class: Christopher Robin, Tintin (because he’s lucky), Gandalf, Harry Potter, characters I’d never heard of… Mrs. Moneypenny suggested Katniss. She talked about how with each of those characters you’d have a very different camping experience, and then challenged the kids to write the story of their camping trip. Very cool. 

Then she read Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping, which was actually my first Scaredy Squirrel reading experience. It was cute. 

More next week! 

Nugget for the day: You can do something small that has a fantastic impact. The kids loved the outdoors-indoors. And it’s a really good idea to do something awesome in the library the week after standardized testing. 

I actually did this visit the same week as the other two, but am just now getting back to typing up my notes.

The theme of this library visit: “I’m not a hush-hush librarian,” which the dear sweet librarian (Mrs. H) kept saying. She is a good friend of Mrs. Moneypenny’s, from when they worked together in another district. One thing I loved right away was that it was clear her library was a huge hub for both students and teachers. The PTA keeps her workroom stocked with coffee for the teachers, so they are in and out all day. (GREAT system). And she had just announced her retirement, so teachers were in and out all morning to say congratulations, we’ll miss you, etc.

Mrs. H also uses an old-school paper sign-up to ensure that the teachers have to come in. Apparently it works well for her, but on one of our class visits to another library, the librarian said that teachers started erasing other teachers so she had to stop that system and go online.

She uses a paper sign-up for student computer use to keep track of statistics and computer sign-up for library use during the day. I was a little confused by this system; seems like it could be streamlined. The students do need a pass to come in during class, but they are welcome in the library on their off-period and before and after school.

It was a late arrival day, which Mrs. H was apologetic for but I loved; the library was chock full of students. They were reading, doing homework, playing cards and chess, talking, using computers, and generally having a great time. The only thing they’re really not allowed to do is eat or drink. Mrs. H used to let them, but she had a problem with bugs and trash. At one of the high school libraries we visited for school libraries class, the librarian talked about putting in tile at the front of the library to make a cafe area, which I think is a great idea.

Mrs. H toured me around the whole library, and told me that she talked the school into taking out the walls in the multimedia room to make big computer lab. This is a good tip to keep in mind: you can make the space more flexible if you think outside the box.

Collection

Fun fact: when Mrs. H came, the average age of the collection was 1982. She found that individually barcoded LIFE reprints were unfairly weighting the age, so she barcoded them as sets. She was telling me that teachers will often vote (informally) against weeding certain things and promise they will use them, but they never do. So a solution would be to just weed to the teachers. They’ll get rid of stuff that they really won’t use.

The library does not have real high check-outs; Mrs. H says it’s because the high schoolers don’t read much. She also explained that if they want to read they can buy them, and the AP/IB kids don’t have time to read.

For those who do, there are some great resources. Mrs. H has a tall shelf full of ARCs, which teachers and students can sign out as long as they review them afterward. She gets all of the fiction award-winners, and she had a fabulous TAYSHAS display. Her method of buying fiction is Booklist starred reviews, award winners, and 5/5s and 5/4s from VOYA.

She is not buying a lot of NF because she says they just aren’t getting used. Nobody ever uses encyclopedias. She has spent more of the budget building up their online collection. In addition to the district resources, their school has some additional electronic reference books. The IB program also pays for extra databases, so she helps train on those as well as all of the others.

She recently acquired 76 nooks but I don’t think anything was happening with them yet.

Money

The district has a $2/kid minimum policy and the school has over 2,000 students. It seemed like even though Mrs. H was in a pretty nice area she still had to pinch pennies. She uses Baker & Taylor because they are $3 cheaper than Follet, though she does use Follet for GN, DVDs and stuff that B&T has on back-order. Mrs. H also provides this sage wisdom: some people say that Follett is faster but it’s not true.

Mrs. H used to have a used book sale but it didn’t bring in any money, and she wanted everyone to get books, so she switched to just giving them away for Teen Read Week.  She gives away old ARCs and books donated by parents.

The library makes money a few other ways. It has 5 activity accounts: copy/print; school store, coke machine (teachers only); school IDs; and lost book funds. Some of these were their choice and some were hoisted upon them (like the school ID print center). But Mrs. H likes to do everything she can. The school store has lots of supplies, like posterboard in full and half sheets, pencils, blue books and more, and got quite a bit of business in the hour and a half I was there.

Nugget: “Anything we can host, I try to host.” The library is full of student work, and hosts many student events, library related or not. She let the Student Council put a huge fish tank in the middle, which they are supposed to take care of (sometimes she ends up having to handle it). Make your library a bustling place!

The middle school I went to visit was just down the road from my elementary school, and very big and busy. The librarian there is super awesome, and is known for work in library advocacy. She apparently also loves writing letters; she offered to write me a recommendation after my hour at her school, and my dear friend who is working there said that that’s normal. She calls the librarian S on her blog, so I’ll go with that. S focused first on the differences between middle school and other levels: Once they get to high school, they’re already readers or non-readers, but you can still nab them in middle school. High school does more research (weak area here, according to librarian). Unlike elementary school, there is no storytime and no self-checkout, but there are library aides. Similar to all school (it seems), there is not enough space. Their A/V room became ISS, although the library still stores stuff there.

In addition to library aides, the library has a half-time assistant and the school has a tech guy. The school has 1,080 students from 11 feeder schools, including some that have a 6th grade, so some students come in to the middle school as 7th graders. S says that can make it a challenge to get them acquainted with how the library works in the middle school. In fact, she says that 7th graders are her biggest challenge. Her 6th graders come in with their class, which gives them a great head start. The school is very diverse, which S loves. There is a huge range in reading ability: kids who can’t read (like literally second grade reading levels) to kids who are all up on the NYT top ten list. She buys a lot of Hi-Lo (high interest, low readability) books to cater to her struggling readers. When it comes to keeping up with the voracious ones, she says: “I always feel like I’m so far behind.” We talked some about her tools for keeping up: her focus is first what the teachers want, and second what the kids want; S is full of praise for School Library Journal as her go-to selection tool, and she also uses Titlewave because it accumulates all the reviews; when kids turn in books, ask them what they thought of them to make up for not being able to read them all.

The school’s English Department build on free-choice reading, so kids come in during their English class to pick out books, which is awesome. S hosts a book club that meets during advisory, and kids come to the library before and after school, lunch (apparently minecraft is very popular during lunch). In terms of library advertising, S has lots of books on display. She says that books facing front get checked out something like 60% more. Lots of Hi-Los on display, award books, and more. She has a section with recommendations by librarians and students. She hosts 2 book fairs per year (that money adds to the activity fund) and has author visits from the likes of Lainey Taylor and Darren Shan.

On Furniture: my school libraries management class had me believing that all school library furniture had to be expensive vendor-ware. I figured maybe schools had some sort of codes that required new stuff. When S got to her library 10 years ago there was no place to sit at all. She started with some IKEA stuff but it broke in one day. She then had calls for furniture donations, and now she has comfy couches and old but trendy-looking chairs and it is WONDERFUL. Seriously, with all of the budget cuts and penny-pinching, I don’t know why anyone would ever want to spend their money on new furniture when the old stuff is usually better quality and free or dirt cheap. I am not opposed to craigslisting it up to furnish my library.

Miscellaneous: The school schedule is kinda weird, with MWF 43 minute periods and TTH 90 minute periods, to make time for labs and stuff once a week (I think I remembered it right. I had never seen the two methods combined before). One of the first things I noticed when I came in to the library was a giant display. I asked about it, and S said that it was from Humanities Texas. They had come to drop it off, and she said “You’re going to set it up, right?” But they didn’t. And it was this huge, heavy display. So she called them back and told them she couldn’t do it and they came back.

Nugget for the day: “I hate using threats, but otherwise I wouldn’t have any books.” -S, on the ways students are limited by not having their books turned in (not able to go on field trips, etc)

Last week, as I mentioned, I visited my three schools. I was then bogged down by a number of projects, so I am just now getting around to writing them up. But  I took a lot of notes.

When I got to the Elementary School Library, the first thing I noticed was the storytelling area, which looked sort of like a castle. It’s really hard to describe, so I took a picture:

One problem with the way that the story area is set up is that some of the books are inaccessible when that space is in use. I asked her later if she knew what the story was behind it and she said she didn’t, but she hates it.

I was also impressed by the student art and the fish tank. The art teacher is responsible for the art exhibits, the librarian just lets her use the space. I forgot to ask who takes care of the fish tank.

The librarian was pretty busy with classes, so I watched for a while. She did a spring activity where she told a story about a bee who visited the other insects and the kids drew lines and at the end there’s a tulip (I tried to find it online but I couldn’t). Each kid got one crayon and a clipboard with the activity sheet attached. They were pretty hilarious: “I got this color!”, “Oh, I totally know what this is!” (in reference to the tulip emerging), and “That’s what we’ve been learning about! Ladybugs!”

I was there for the littler kids. Since the librarian doesn’t have any support staff or many volunteers, the teachers check the books in when their class comes to the library. The kindergarten and first graders use long cards with their name and ID to check out. The librarian calls their class numbers 5 at a time to turn in their books. They grab the cards out of the inner pocket of their book (the old ones that used to hold date due sheets) and put them in a pocket at the front of the library of a hanging thingie that is similar to a shoe holder. The kindergartners can only ever check out books from pre-selected book baskets (and from what I could tell, they looked pretty underwhelming on the whole).  She explained that the library was too big for little kindergartners to pick out their own books. I highly disagree. Especially after all of the kindergartners I have seen at my school LOVING checking out books that they have chosen.

The library makes use of genre stickers: science fiction, sports, fantasy, mystery, adventure and romance. There was also a mysterious section labeled “6.” The librarian reminded me that the school has a sixth grade, so those are books for them. The fourth and fifth graders sometimes check them out, too.

The school has less than 400 kids (which is less than half of my school), but it means that every class can visit the library every week.

Woes of the library-> The librarian said: “I have weeded till I’m blue in the face and it doesn’t seem to make a difference.” There is no room to expand. “I never have any help in here.” The parent volunteers apparently fade out after a strong showing at the beginning of the year.

On the plus side-> “There’s no promoting reading necessary; I just have to keep up with their reading interests.” She uses Amazon with her Library Activity Fund for that purpose, but there’s been some tax issues recently, and she has ended up eating the tax (yikes!). She has some great fifth grade volunteers.

Nugget for the day: The librarian is retiring, which she seemed pretty happy about. “I never have to do another book fair!”

This week I finished up my hours and made visits to 3 school libraries. I finished the shelving signs for the library. See an example below:

made with some of my favorite tools: openclipart.org, gimp & picmonkey.com

I’ll do the school visits in 3 separate posts. But to recap the 3.5 hours I spent at MY library (Tuesday and Thursday):

Nothing super exciting happened. I talked to Portia about the possibility of moving to Thailand next year, and she is a wise advice-giver. She also helped me take some photos for my poster: I had forgotten to take any photos of myself doing anything, so she took pictures while I pulled the protective paper off of some books she had glued and we staged a lesson with one of the fourth grade classes. They got a total kick out of it. Oh, Mary’s family asked me to babysit on Saturday night so that’s a thing that’s happening. I think it will be a hoot.

Mrs. Moneypenny told me about some cool upcoming events: they are having a great read outdoors (indoors) celebration to inspire the kids to read over the summer. Cecilia is building a tent in the library and it’s going to be fabulous. Also, Mrs. Moneypenny is trying out a bookswap for the end of the year when the kids aren’t allowed to check out books anymore. I think it will be awesome. She decided it could also serve as a good incentive for the kids getting their books turned in. She hilariously explained that it used to be easy to get kids to turn their books in; give them a piece of gum when they did it. “It was so easy! That one dinky piece of gum was all it took!” But now you can’t give them anything that has sugar as its first ingredient.

One hilarious thing that happened was that Cecilia was there when I arrived on Thursday and asked if we could meet up so she could pick my brain about the iSchool. Of course I was delighted to set a time to meet up with her, and I said “I am particularly suited to answer your questions since I was a receptionist at school.” And she said “I know. I talked to you at the reception desk. When you asked where you knew me from I said I didn’t know because I was keeping my school application on the down low.” This made me laugh and feel like less of a weirdo.

Mrs. Moneypenny was super great. She gave me a mug and a Starbucks gift card and told me to contact her if I ever needed anything.  It was sad to take my official leave. But I will definitely be coming back to see the cool stuff coming up and to volunteer when their short. I’m still not sure what to get for Mrs. Moneypenny and Portia… something heartfelt but not too expensive.

Hour Count: 2 Tuesday + 1.5 Thursday

Running Total: 125 (DING DING DING)

Nugget for the day: I’m going to miss my school 😦

I forgot to mention that yesterday I had to leave before the kindergarten class came (they were very late), so I had my first kindergarten class today.

All the classes went pretty well. The last one, a first grade class, was pretty rowdy. Mrs. Moneypenny had warned me about them in advance. Once they got into the story they were actually pretty good. And there is a really sweet special education girl that my bookish friend was helping out. She gave me a hug! And Bookish (that is not a nice moniker for such a nice person. I’ll call her Stella) Stella told me that the girl had actually received a refurbed piano during SXSW, which is awesome. The girl was so excited.

There was a big gap of time today (longer because one of the k classes forgot to come), so I finished processing the Nooks- labeling, etc.

sidenote: I keep forgetting that I have a ticket for a play tonight (a very important play, one that my friend wrote, that I helped workshop at some point, and that I can’t miss). I wrote it on my hand so that I wouldn’t forget.

So Mrs. Moneypenny had glanced at the pages we had printed at the beginning of my internship, the outline of things I’m supposed to be learning, and she said it tickled her to see it on her desk because some of it is pretty silly. For instance, “straighten the chairs” was one of my options for the first day. But she asked if there was anything I wanted to cover before I finished. And I said I’d like to talk a little more about collection development. So we had a really good chat about it, and I learned a lot of good stuff. Here goes:

If you are coming in to a library that you are not opening (which is most of the time):  Don’t throw anything away for the first year. You may think a book is ugly and outdated, but it may be a teacher’s go-to book for a certain topic. So if you decide to discard it, you could even go as far as putting it in a box and checking it out to “Discard,” but do not actually get rid of it until the end of the year when you are sure that no one uses it. Mrs. Moneypenny gave the example of starting at a library and tossing out a janky old box that was sitting around. At the next faculty meeting everyone was squealing, “Where’s the kudos box!?” So she made a new one. It could have been worse, but it was a good learning experience. Mrs. Moneypenny made a good point: The most important thing your first year is not the books that you have or whether or not you have nooks. The most important thing is creating good relationships with your patrons. She said that even after being at her current library 8 or 9 years she was pretty nervous about “deselecting the chess trophies,” which I thought was hilarious.

Before you first big book order, you should do a collection analysis of the books you already have. Mrs. Moneypenny says that vendors are happy to run them for you (because they think that it will encourage you to buy books from them; she does hers through Titlewave). She also made the handy point that if you are ordering for a new library that you’re opening, you can do an analysis on your order, so if you have gaping holes they’re more visible. She said that now she orders about 50/50 F & NF. Actually she said that price it’s 50/50 and quantity it’s more like 60/40 because NF is so much more expensive.

Nugget for the day: see above for nuggets.

Hour Count: 7.5

Running Total: 107 (whoa. almost done)

On book challenges: There IS a form, but Mrs. Moneypenny just prints it out when it’s needed to make sure it’s the most current version. No good upsetting a complainer double by asking them to fill out another form because the first one you gave them was wrong

K I had some panic dreams last night about seeds because I didn’t have a great book. I had thought that in my massive stack of books (accumulated from the public library, school library, and my own collection), I would find something I would like. But no. The best I could do was Seeds, Seeds, Seeds but I didn’t like it. So I did a lot of research late last night (including watching several youtube videos of picture books being read) and picked two that I could look at today. Luckily the first kindergarten class is not till the end of the day today.

I had wavered on reading Step Gently Out, a book I picked up from at midwinter, because it wasn’t about plants, but I decided that I liked it so much I’d just do it and talk about how bugs live in a very close relationship with plants. I finally decided on Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf, which is a story about a maple tree, but Mrs. Moneypenny told me that they had probably read that book in the fall. She saw a book on the cart, Duck and Goose, which she said would be a good way to tie in to spring and the kindergarteners’ egg hatching (although, I asked my K class today if they were hatching eggs and they said “”NO! We’re planting SEEDS!” Okay.). It’s a cute book about a duck and a goose who sit on an egg and fight over whose it is, until they discover that it’s a ball.

1 First grade wanted to talk about Texas and tall tales, so after a lot of searching I found Davy Crockett Saves the World at the public library. It’s a pretty cute story about Davy intercepting Halley’s comet and sending it back into space. I asked them to be on the lookout for kernels of truth, and while they didn’t usually volunteer them, they were pretty good at answering when I asked about specific points. One of the kids in my first class asked “But a comet couldn’t really hit the earth, right?” I also enjoy the chorus of voices that asks “what’s smithereens?”

2 Second grade is doing animals and adaptations. After much deliberation, I decided on Leo Leoni’s A Color of His Own, which is a little young but I thought it would be nice to get a real story in there; What Do You Do When Someone Wants to Eat You?, which is really fun to read with the kids because it divides the animal and it’s protection method- they love love love guessing how the animal gets away; and a sampling of awesome adaptations from the fabulous book Unusual Creatures, which I also picked up at Midwinter. Interestingly, many kids bring up the Horny Toad’s ability to shoot blood out of its eyes (apparently this is a common fact for second graders to know)  during What Do You Do When Someone Wants to Eat You?; it’s not in that book but it is one of the ones I bookmarked to talk about from Unusual Creatures. 

Hokay so. I wrote a (the above) long portion of this post at school and then forgot to email it to myself. So I’ll do that tomorrow (I actually had Mrs. Moneypenny do it as I was running out the door, because I was almost late to work).

Some things to add to it:

One sweet kindergartner, when I showed him and his classmates where the World War I and World War II books were, asked if we had any on World War III. Not yet kiddo. Not yet.

I read for two second grade classes in a row. The first was awesome: totally into the lesson, really fired up about the unusual creatures. Raising their hand to tell me what animal adaptations are. The second would not shut up. Talking while I was talking, moving around a lot; it was bad. Mrs. Moneypenny says they’re not usually like that (she did reassure me that the horrible 5th grade class I had last week is usually like that. I thought that they were probably restless because they had a substitute. But she said that I did everything right.

Nugget for the day: Sometimes it’s not you. It’s just them.

Hour Count: 7

Running Total: 99.5