Nov 30 '09 -- 1 hr

Processed 10 magazines and straightened all the periodicals on the shelves to start the day. The more often I process "my" magazines, the more I make mistakes. Usually this happens because I'm trying to hurry, but the good part is that I learn something new in Alexandria when I screw something up. Today, I learned how to remove a duplicate record. It's one of those things you don't know how to use a piece of software fully until you use it regularly.

NOVEMBER 2009 - 13 secondary hours
RUNNING TOTAL - 19 secondary hours

Nov 23 '09 -- 1 hr

I neglect my magazine duties for one day (I was working on my 572 outline last Friday during my normal intake time) and they pile up on me! Today, there were 11 magazines to process ranging from Consumer Reports to GQ to Car & Driver. I am impressed with the variety of titles in our periodical section and see them getting used in house more than I realized. I updated the periodical reports and straightened the back magazine storage room as well.

Nov 20 '09 -- 30 min

Two isolated experiences led to an "aha" moment of understanding. First, I was reading a section in my Bishop textbook about scanning books for "in library" use; that's why carts are placed to gather the "do not reshelve" books. Then, I spent a half hour scanning barcodes on books that had been pulled for teachers to use with classes they brought into the library. Diane calls it "Y - return" based on the keys used in Alex to bring up the screen. When I scanned all of these with the barcode reader, the fact that they were used in the library itself was recorded for circulation statistics. I never knew about this and it was fortunate that I could read about and conduct the practice on the same day.

Nov 19 '09 - 1.5 hr

Processed magazines and finished Delaney order data recording. I tried to just knuckle down and crank the work out with minimal distraction. Easier said than done. Today's realization: every time a library staff member tries to focus on anything for an extended period of time, a student/teacher/phone call needs attention!

Nov 18 '09 -- 1 hr

I helped with a book order from Delaney Press today. To aid with the cataloguing, I went through the books (mostly additions to series that Diane has selected -- careers, technology, social issues) and added information that Diane requested to the index cards she uses to organize her collection managements. I recorded publication city, total pages, DDC number, and first three letters of author last name to the cards she had started. I have to admit that I didn't get through as many in an hour as I would have expected because I found myself paging through the series and inspecting them as resources. This is time well spent, but I certainly could have gotten more of the job done if I had been more focused.

Nov 17 '09 -- 1 hr

Took care of magazines; on a usual day (4-6 magazines to process), I have this down to about a 30 minute activity. When a large pile of monthlies come in, it might take me a solid hour to process. This still seems slow to me, but I have been assured that I am improving and having someone regularly assigned to this job while Joyce is out is appreciated. I joked with Diane and Bev today that it's too bad a LMS doesn't only process magazines, because I would have that down! I would be the only school in the country to have an all-magazine collection. Ha. For an additional half hour, I looked through our collection of playaways and audiobooks on tape/CD and sat down with Diane for a discussion of the format and the selection implications. What titles do you include and why?

Nov 13 '09 -- 1 hr

I spent a half hour processing a handful of magazines and another half hour discussing ordering and selection practices with Diane. She went through the jobbers she uses, her experience with MARC records supplied by vendors, changes she typically makes for her own cataloguing, and how many steps to book processing she (and her aides) manages. It was a great introduction as I start to help out with books more often.

Nov 11 '09 -- 1 hr

I took care of magazine intake today and updated periodical reports through Alexandria. I am starting to notice that more teachers than student gravitate toward the majority of our periodicals. And, quite frankly, when I file the back issues, I wonder if the one that has been on the shelf for the past week/month has even been touched by anyone.

Nov 9 '09 -- 1.5 hr (later in the same day)

We have four "COW"s -- computers on wheels -- available for teacher check out in our library. Each wheeled cart has 18 Dell laptops with a wireless router so that students can sit at their classroom desks and work on a laptop. This all sounds great in concept, but the reality is that, at any given time, anywhere from two to eight of the laptops on each cart may not be functional for a variety of reasons. From the teacher side, I have experienced the frustration of taking 20 minutes of a 50 minute class to get all students up and running on a functional computer. Not fun!

My job this afternoon was to go through two of the four carts we have and do a type of inventory: which laptops connected to the network and which did not; how many connected to the internet and how many did not. This was a tedious process, to say the least, but deparately needed to be done. Teachers are usually so harried in their class time that laptops simply get shoved back on the cart and the next user has no idea which ones work and which don't. I marked each bum computer with a post it so that, for the time being, teachers knew to not even bother handing that one out. Then I notified our "tech duty" staff members that work orders were ready to be submitted to the help desk.

Our laptops are on a lease and the computers get updated/replaced next year, but right now I know of many teachers who don't even bother using laptops because they are so unreliable. Hopefully, this reality will improve next year.

Nov 9 '09 -- 1 hr

I took care of magazine processing again today. I got to chat with Bev R, a retired WAWM LMS, who is filling in during Joyce's leave. Her background is in elementary libraries (so many within the district!) so I am happy to "pick her brain" as time allows. She offers experience and perspective that I've not yet gotten and so desparately want. It will be nice to have another expert in the field to bore with my questions.

This should have been the first entry....

... but I had it saved as a Word document and just found out it needed to be posted on the blog. So here it is:

Erin Shaughnessy
CED 599
“Before practicum” reflection
August, 2009

I’ve been a patron of libraries as long as I can remember. As a student, teacher, and community member, I have used libraries in a variety of capacities. As with any job or career, there is a public perception of what a person in that career does all day long and an insider’s reality is. I have been considering working toward my library certification for the last two years, so I have been paying closer attention to the inner workings of the library at Nathan Hale. In these casual observations, I am amazed at how much I do not know about managing a school library. The ignorance is a bit daunting, quite frankly, and I hope the experiences in these practicum hours start to erase the vast lack of knowledge I currently have.
My interest, should I leave the high school English classroom, lies primarily in an elementary school library position. This interest stems from personal concerns, honestly, and I hope the personal needs and professional challenges fuse in a manner which satisfies me. The little I now realize I know about the management of a school library is expounded by the fact that I have worked in a high school for my entire 15 years as an educator. The shift to an elementary school will be an entirely differently world for me. I hope that the elementary practicum experience alleviates some of my anxiety about the unknowns I am facing.
I think many people perceive a librarian as a stuffy, humorless person who sits and checks out books all day only to shelve them when they are return and grumble about people messing up his/her stacks. I am fairly certain that no one considers where the materials came from, how they got here, where the money to pay for them came from, how they are catalogued, why they were selected, who uses them, and so on. Further, the librarian’s role as a technology integrator and collaborator is probably a new concept for the public to grasp. In most people’s heads, “library” equals “books.” What this practicum experience will hopefully show me is not only how to do all of things mentioned, but more than I even realized.

Nov 4 '09 -- 1 hr

What an interesting day! Diane told me she had an issue that would be great experience for me to be a part of addressing. She gave me a book from a recent or and told me to take a look at it and we'd meet and discuss my perceptions. It was

The Little Black Book for Guys, Guys Talk About Sex by St. Stephen's Community House

• 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist
• Best Books for Kids & Teens 2009, Cdn Children’s Book Centre

When I saw that it was gender focused, I asked if there was one for girls and if she had that on the shelves already. There is and she did. No one had checked it out yet, as it was a recent acquisition. She didn't want to color my analysis any further, so I set off to find the district selection policies and scrutinize this title.

Let's just say it was cheek-reddeningly honest and graphic. I tried to see the value of such a frank discussion of human sexuality. There were many worthwhile topics covered, but I just couldn't get past some of the cavalier attitudes about sex (and its practice, quite frankly) that I read. Also, there were cartoonish illustrations that were sure to incite eyebrowing raising. However, according to the district selection policy, this title was a fair selection. But I just couldn't imagine standing before a committee and defending its place in a school library.

I shared these thoughts with Diane and she agreed. She wanted to see if, since I am a little younger than she, I had a different opinion. Together, we decided to pull both titles (the boys & girls versions) from the shelf and pass them on to the health/teen relationship teachers to decided if they could isolate chapters for use in their curriculum. It was an incredibly worthwhile learning experience for me!

Nov 3 '09 -- 1.5 hr

Today is Joyce's last day before leaving until after Christmas break. I will miss her. She's always my buddy here at work under usual circumstances, but over the last three weeks, she's taught me very much and been very patient with my learning curve. Processing magazines at the beginning of the month is a bigger job as all the monthly subscriptions seem to arrive at the same time. Joyce also showed me how to update the barcode reports and file them. I'm getting more familiar with Alexandria each time I use it.

Oct 26 '09 -- 1 hr

Every year, around this time, I peruse Diane's "discard" cart. I never thought too much about it until this year, but after her first big order, she does a big weeding session. She emails the staff to take a look through and take anything they want from the cart. After several days of people sniffing around the cart, it's time to destroy the discards. I had the honor of tackling some of this job this fall. It was hard work! I was actually sweating by the time I was done with my assigned batch. Weeding is a tricky thing to explain to non-librarian types, because they think it's such a travesty to destroy books. I know understand the process and can explain it, pretty much, to them.


OCTOBER 2009 = 6 secondary hours

Oct 23 '09 - 2.5 hours

With my Marquette student teacher fully in charge of my morning classes, I have the flexibility to start working in the LMC for more than 30 minutes stints. Today, from 8-10:30 am, Diane, Joyce, and I unpacked and organized a HUGE Baker & Taylor order. Diane showed me her consideration file (she writes things on index cards and then records the barcode on the card for later use) and talked me through how she gathers titles for a big order like this one. I was pleasantly surprised to see that two titles I had told Diane about (coincidentally, the works of two authors I listened to at the Wisc Book Festival) were in the order. She has a formal consideration process and, apparently, and informal one where she keeps an ear open to teachers' conversations and notes their interests.

We unpacked the giant order and went through the invoice to verify the contents. All but two titles were there, which seems to me to be a great fill rate. Diane explained that she has a blanket purchase order with Baker & Taylor so she continually orders things thoughout the year on a rolling basis. We checked items off the invoice and I recorded the ready processed bar code on the index card from the consideration file. This took a really long time and I'm sure part of it was that I (the newbie) was helping. I'm slow.

Oct 21 '09 - 30 min

My best magazine processing experience yet! Three times on my own and I seem to have it down. I'm sure I'll find mistakes to make yet, but I am far more comfortable with the process and am starting to think about a more "tech-friendly" way to keep track of some records. I know the way Diane and Joyce do it works well for them, but I see possibilities that might streamline this process.

Oct 20 '09 - 30 min

Magazines on my own today... I asked Joyce to let me fly solo and see if I could do it with her there to be my security net. I made it through the intake process until I sat down at the computer to run labels and I couldn't remember how to get to the "receive subscription" page. I had to call for back up! It's funny to me that Joyce keeps referring to things in Apple computer language (i.e. "hit open-apple-F to find the file") since we are entirely a PC school. I tell that she learned her procedures during a time when we must have still had some Mac/Apple products around.

Oct 16 '09 - 30 min

I was in charge of magazines today with Joyce's supervision. I handled five issues on my own and basically talked through the process aloud to ensure that I was remembering everything. I had questions, but I fared pretty well. The main issue is that I am slow. What Joyce seems to complete in 10 minutes takes me 30. And this is only one of dozens of responsibilites!

Oct 15 '09 - 30 min

Joyce walked me through the magazine processing procedures today. Magazines are recorded in a flip file as received, assigned a barcode number, stamped with the school name, and stickered for check out. She showed me how to input each item in Alexandria, run barcode labels, put new items out for use, and file back issues. I basically puppy dogged after her, asking questions. I get to try on my own (with her help) tomorrow.

Oh, it was interesting to learn which title get "stripped" (magnetic security tape) and which don't. I guess it's just experience that tells you what magazine tend to disappear more regularly than others.

Oct 13 '09 - 30 min

Joyce Hartmann, the veteran library aide at Hale, is going to be out for surgery for six weeks around the holidays. Today, Joyce, Diane Smith (Hale's LMS), and I met to discuss which of Joyce's regular jobs could be passed to me during her absence. What I discovered today is that Joyce and Diane have been working together so long that they have their responsibilities delineated in a finely tuned manner. It's neat to see how smoothly their operation works after working side by side for the better part of 25 years. I also learned that Joyce does a TON to keep the library running smoothly. After tossing a few ideas around, we decided that Joyce would train me in the intake and barcoding of all of our magazines and research periodicals.