knitting librarian

Here is what I turned in to my principal as my professional goal:

Create a collection map to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the library collection. Data will be used to examine the holdings and determine whether they meet the needs of classroom teachers to support the curriculum and the informational and recreational needs of students. This will then be used to create a collection development plan to obtain materials to meet student and teacher needs.

I know I will need to get my principal on board and will need him to request faculty participation in surveys to see what is in classrooms. We’ll see how it all goes.

Today I wrote my professional goal for next year. Instead of formal evaluation/observations, I am requesting the “Self-Directed Growth” option. I was flipping through some of the books I had nearby including The Information Powered School and found a chapter on collection mapping. I’ve been interested in curriculum mapping but still need to find the means to get onto that job in my district. I figure in the meantime, I can examine my collection and try to develop a plan to make it better and meet the needs of my teachers and students.

I did some quick searching and found a few possibilities for resources which I will include in another post (when I have the time to get cover images, etc.). I also posted a request to LM_NET for resources that members there recommended. In my plan, I listed two potential books to be purchased, but they’ve got older copyright dates. I’ve found a few things online as well. It was interesting to me to see the responses to my target that came in quickly… they both recommended Follett or Sagebrush’s collection analysis tools. I think that is a great place to start, but I don’t think that they will give me the detailed information I think mapping requires. My understanding at this point is that the difference between analysis and mapping is that mapping takes a look at the curriculum and school community needs (meeting the diversity of population, reading levels, etc.) where analysis just looks at what is and what could be purchased to meet “exemplary collections” or something along those lines.

I think the mapping will be beneficial to me because I’ll be able to really examine what teachers think is important in their curricula and can see where the library is and is not supporting those needs. I expect this plan to be long-term with analysis/mapping taking place this year and developing a plan to update the collection as the needs are identified.

I’m excited about my goal and hope that it will be approved. Wish me luck!

Yesterday was our non-academic awards assembly. Last year, I gave out two sets of certificates: one for students who earned more than 50 AR points (we don’t push AR here, there are only two teachers who require it at all) and one for students who borrowed more than one book per week of school (36 or more books in the course of the year).

Due to computer glitches and brain damage (mine) I did not have the certificates ready yesterday for the assembly, so I handed out papers with “Please see Mrs. Brosan tomorrow to pick up your certificate.” One young man came to me yesterday afternoon and told me that my paper was “ghetto.” I had only 20 students to recognize total out of 480 students. Eleven were for AR—7 who earned over 50 points and 4 who earned over 100 points. The remaining nine certificates went to my frequent library users.

Surprisingly, none of these groups overlapped. My “frequent readers” were all kids who may not get recognized for any thing else while they are here at the school. One of the young ladies came in today and told me that her mother said she would take her out for dinner to celebrate the fact that she was reading so much! I love parents who support reading. I think I need to write her a thank you note.

The last thing that I shared with the student body was that this year students borrowed 1000 more books than last year (my first year here.) I am so pleased to see these numbers rising. It is gratifying to me to know that I am finding materials that they are interested in reading and that they are making the effort to use the library. I took that opportunity to applaud them because they really deserve it.

Well, after my clean-up at work last week, I’m motivated to do some home clean-up too. I’m hoping that I can offer up a bunch of things on my Freecycle group and motivate some of the other members to do the same. The group has not been very active so I’m hoping that I can lead by example. I also joined the Freecycle ModSquad in hopes of getting other ideas to motivate my members to offer more items.

If you’re not familiar with Freecycle, you should definitely check it out. It’s a great way to discard items and not fill up the landfills. I got a new ventilation hood for over my stove two weeks ago. I haven’t offered as many items as I should, but it’s a start.

We have only four student days of school left and one of those is a half-day. I’m still trying to gather up those last books that are out and about among the students. I refuse to deny the kids the ability to continue reading the good books in the order that arrived last Monday, so even though everything was due last Thursday before the Memorial Day holiday weekend, I’ve been checking things out overnight since then.

In a last ditch cleaning frenzy while I’ve got my school to work student here still, we went through bookshelves full of un-processed materials and still sealed boxes. I found probably $1500 worth of unprocessed reference and award-winning books (from the late 80s and early 90s). I don’t even know what to do about them! Some look valuable. There are the multicultural reference books Reference Library of Black America, Hispanic America, etc. with mid-90s copyrights.

I never cease to be amazed by what I find. I can’t even tell for sure that the items were ever paid for by the district. I guess since they’re not banging down the door I’ll assume that they were, but a few of the sets were in a box addressed to be returned to the publisher. What would you do?