This week we have had HSPA make up testing in the library so I have been able to catch up on my professional reading and do some planning for library programs. We are still battling the heat---this is our 3rd or 4th week without AC and I am starting to feel the effects. I try to find the humor in it---Dante could use this place for research on the sequel to The Inferno (yes, I know he is dead), etc., but I am starting to lose my mind a bit. It would be different if the windows opened. I am getting a lot of comments about "back in the day when there was no AC...yes, I remember those days since I never in nine years taught in a classroom that had air conditioning and I taught one year in the tropics--give me some windows that open and I am quite capable of perserverance!
On a positive note, both the HSPA and the heat have gotten me out of the space and into other classrooms for some 9th grade history orientations. I mostly cover database use and some of the features of printing and citing from the databases. I also cover what sites are best--gov, edu, org and sites that still have human editing like directories and Librarian's Index to the Internet and Internet Public Library, which are two of my favorite sites.
I did find a citation builder this year that I like besides www.citationmachine.net . It's called BibMe! at www.bibme.org . If you choose Manual Entry Mode, I think it is clearer and more aesthetically pleasing to use than Citation Machine. Sorry, David Warlick :(
The magazines have all been organized and the routing schedule has been established. This year we have over 15 teachers involved in our magazine routing service, and over 12 different magazines being routed. In the spring I asked for suggestions and got some very good ones from the staff. I particularly like Discover, Inc, and Cuisine-at-Home. I was disappointed by FamilyFun, which I thought would be great for staff who have families since it is from Disney. It's not bad, but it is not as good as I thought it would be.
Teen Read Week is October 14-21 this year and the theme is LOL at your library. When I went searching through our catalog to find humor books, I realized we are seriously deficient in the most obvious of choices provided by ALA --which led me to think about the last time I laughed out loud. Suffice it to say that, except for the occassional giggle, I am a bit devoid of humor in my life. Time to watch some Jack Black--maybe School of Rock???? Yes, it is a favorite. Please send some suggestions as I can't even remember what is funny anymore!! Except for my own kids--though even they haven't been making me laugh hard enough to make my stomach hurt. I welcome any suggestions--for reads or flicks that might bring some much needed laughter to my life :) I actually did find other web sites that had great humor booklists for teens, making me realize that humor is kind of an individual thing. Here are some links to some I found: http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/sfplonline/teen/booklists/teenhumornew.htm and http://www.scld.org/teens_booklist.asp and http://teens.denverlibrary.org/find/genre/humor.html .
Right now, we have a student worker for one block a day who is helping me with a weeding project. We have so many old videos that haven't circulated in a long time--some are old high school events that I definitely want out of the catalog. Hopefully after this long project is done, I will be able to resubmit my collection to Follett and see if we are moving closer to a collection age within 10 years of 2007. I took on weeding the 300s but had to stop because of the heat and other things of greater urgency.
One thing we are talking about doing here is creating a place in Outlook to schedule our computer labs. If that works then we will look into scheduling equipment as well. I think it will be a great way to utilize existing programs to make our job easier and more efficient. Of course, it has to go through the technology dept...so we will see.
In an effort to hold true to my promise to myself, I also sent the library's web page url to www.school-libraries.net , the site founded by Peter Milbury. I included this blog separately in the personal interest pages. Still not exactly sure how much my job and my opinions can diverge. Hopefully it will help me check out some sites and put names to faces when I go to the conference (NJASL) in November.
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