A New School Year Begins

In late August I visited the Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. with my kids. One display there continues to run through my brain. A display of a huge Emu-like bird with an explanation of how increased isolation led to increased physical size in the species and a lack of flight due to lack of predators. I come back to that display often while starting the new school year, continually drawing the same conclusion: I don't want to be an Emu! I didn't expect to continue this blog, even though I enjoyed the Tech Challenge and am planning to do the second one also. I am still unsure about blogging...for me. Honestly, what has drawn me back is the thousand thoughts I have a day about stuff that I really can't share with anyone else in my building and perhaps can only share with one other person in my district. But no matter how great even that person is, a varied opinion is needed after awhile. That's also why I am back in school working on the last 6 classes towards my MLS. I miss talking shop with someone. I am sure that many would disagree, but in my circumstance, the school library can be a lonely place. Maybe I will see it differently after awhile. Last year I still had a teacher-centered mentality. But teachers don't all see M.S. as teachers--especially here since there is only one--with all the management and administrative tasks, the teaching has moved to the back burner. My overactive brain struggles from time to time with where I fit in here. New district, new position. My more rational side says, "don't overthink, just keep forging ahead!" So I will, but I am going to set a goal for myself to reach out and make contact with other school media specialists to avoid feeling lonely.

In other news, I finished last June inventorying the entire library, something that hasn't been done in more than six years. Our tech guy was able to make me a portable cart to move throughout the stacks so that I could scan the books and make updates. I was able to do a lot of the inventorying during AP exams and final exams in June. That made me realize though just how much weeding needs to be done. There are so many old books in this library...I get frustrated thinking about how many years no one weeded these shelves. Now that I have ordered new books, I am having trouble fitting them on the shelves until I weed. Unfortunately, I am starting the school year without a secretary since she has been pulled to help every day in another part of the building. I know that many people don't have support help, but here it is essential. Our library seems massive. It is difficult to be in the back of the library and monitor doors and equipment in the front of the library. So getting into the stacks to work will have to wait for the moment.

Last year I also reevaluated our magazines and polled the staff. They gave me a list of new titles--more parenting, more general reading periodicals for kids to read. I added a title for people with ADD. More specific titles to recharge the staff's interest in their content areas. We are going to continue our magazine routing service to the staff since it was successful last year. I think there will be more people participating since we've got lots of new titles.

So far the students who have been in the MC have been very focused and courteous. I miss the big groups that I built up last year during lunches...hopefully they'll be back this year. Tomorrow we are putting up our Hispanic Heritage Month display, me and the student worker we have for the last block of the day. We were able to get all the new and freshman student IDs made this year more efficiently by working with the technology department to have the names inputted earlier. Same with our database for the library. Last year was a nightmare. Overall, I am pleased with what I accomplished last year and feel confident that I will accomplish a lot this year as well.