Jan 26 '10 - 1 hr

The new semester has started so my regular time in the library will be limited. I am proud that I got many hours in first semester and I feel like just being in the LMC as much as I was (while my student teacher had my classes) made many of things we discuss in class come to life.

Today, I processed about 10 magazines and had a discussion with Diane regarding vendor relationships as she had to field an unsolicited sales call about preview boxes. She took that "teachable moment" to give me some advice about how to deal with these situation and, in particular, go over what district policy is.

January 2010 total -- 10 secondary hours
RUNNING TOTAL -- 35 SECONDARY HOURS

Jan 21 '10 - 1 hr

During the fourth hour exam block today, I tended to magazines. Especially after working on the year end weeding of periodicals, I feel like I really know this aspect of our collection well. I can only imagine how long it takes to really know the collection of a library as a new LMS. Maybe I'll find out in a year or two...

Jan 15 '10 -- 1 hr

I took care of processing five magazines and ran updated reports. Also, some periodical recorder cards needed to be remade for the new year (I actually used a typewriter! Haven't had my hands on one of those in a very long time.) and updated in the flip file that Joyce keeps.

Jan 14 '10 - 30 min

I processed today's magazines and updated reports. It was great to see how organized the storage area is when I went to file back issues.

Jan 12 '10 -- 3 hrs

Today, Diane introduced me to a big job -- end of the year weeding of the periodical room. We accomplished many things:

• removed all 2005 magazines (except Time & Newsweek) from storage
• pulled any titles that had been discontinued
• weeded Time & Newsweek to those published in Jan 2000 or later (this meant removing 10 years of earlier issues!)
• reorganized the entire storage room
• began removing barcoded items from Alex

I can't even guess how many magazines were pulled from the room... it's fair to guess thousands, especially with the 20 collective years ('89 - '99) of Time and Newsweek. It was a satisfying job, though. Much of what I do as an English teacher is very ambiguous: multiple interpretations, subjective grading, never ending reformulation of lesson plans. I liked a job like this because there was a distinct beginning and end and the effort was visibly noticeable.

Jan 6 '10 -- 1.5 hr

One of my duties today was undoing the mistake I made yesterday. I assigned incorrect barcodes for the 2010 periodicals and needed to go into Alexandria and edit about 17 of them. Oh, well. Whenever I need to nose around in Alex, I begin to learn the program better, so that's the bright side. I also went down to the main office and sort mail for the LMC. I usually only see the magazines, so I was stunned to discover how much "junk" mail comes into the library on just a typical day. Following the sort, I processed four new magazines.

I also did a bit of book check out. I'm starting to get to recognize the "regular" students... the ones who come in every few days to return and check out a pile of new titles. Reminds me of me when I was younger :).

Jan 5 '10 -- 2 hrs

I returned after Christmas break to a pile of magazines that was nearly knee deep. I also faced the challenge of shifting barcodes to reflect the change in the calendar year. Joyce is back from her medical (yeah!) so she was able to help me out. I apparently didn't make too many mistakes while she was gone, so I'm proud of that.

I also spent part of a class period helping Diane working with a student using the library scanner. For once, I didn't feel like a complete rookie! I'm very comfortable with the technology side of the librarian's responsibilities. Hopefully, the rest will earn similar confidence soon.