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Sep. 12th, 2012 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckYesterday was my first day volunteering in the school library with the new librarian. The old one, the one who'd been there since Delia was in kindergarten (and presumably before), got a job working at one of the high schools, so we have a new librarian. She apparently was a classroom teacher for the last few years, teaching lower elementary grades (I think she specifically mentioned kindergarten and second grade, but I could be wrong).
This is taking some adjustment for everybody. The new librarian has a different scheme for how the kids are to check out books than the one I'm used to. In the one I'm used to, there's a binder set up with a page or two per class. Each student has a barcode, and the person doing the checkout scans that barcode and then scans the book's barcode. The new procedure involves giving each child a piece of paper with his or her particular barcode on it. At checkout time, they hand me the slip, and I scan that before scanning the book.
There was a lot of chaos as the kids came up to get their barcode slips. The librarian had spread them out on the desk in no particular order, and the kids swarmed the desk. Spreading them out on the desk isn't a scheme I like, going forward, because I use that space when checking in books. It's the only place I can easily reach to put the books I've already checked in.
The librarian also wants to check each child's barcode before class to see who has overdue books. I don't see that as working very well since that check can't be done until after all of the class's books have been checked in. I mean, I expect I could do it, but that will (a) have me making judgment calls about which slips get held back and not given to a particular child and (b) prevent me from spending time shelving.
Delia's class is in the library in the late afternoon. Chances are that I'll simply stay in the library until the release bell on Tuesdays. There isn't another class in there, but there will probably be shelving. Maybe there will even be other projects.
Yesterday, during the forty minutes after Delia's class left, the librarian set me to pulling books from the shelves. She's pulling everything that's never circulated. She plans to review each title and to have the kids look at them and offer their recommendations. She has slips for the books that let the kids check off whether they think the book should be kept or gotten rid of. I had to exercise some judgment because the point is to pull the books that haven't circulated in the ten years since barcode checkout was started. Some of the books aren't nearly that old, and the librarian doesn't want to pull something that's only a year or so old. I think I pulled less than I should have. There were a bunch that looked new but that, judging by what I found when I started checking publication dates, came out in the 1990s. I'm not going to worry about it, though, because that section isn't particularly congested. There's still plenty of room for new books there.
This is taking some adjustment for everybody. The new librarian has a different scheme for how the kids are to check out books than the one I'm used to. In the one I'm used to, there's a binder set up with a page or two per class. Each student has a barcode, and the person doing the checkout scans that barcode and then scans the book's barcode. The new procedure involves giving each child a piece of paper with his or her particular barcode on it. At checkout time, they hand me the slip, and I scan that before scanning the book.
There was a lot of chaos as the kids came up to get their barcode slips. The librarian had spread them out on the desk in no particular order, and the kids swarmed the desk. Spreading them out on the desk isn't a scheme I like, going forward, because I use that space when checking in books. It's the only place I can easily reach to put the books I've already checked in.
The librarian also wants to check each child's barcode before class to see who has overdue books. I don't see that as working very well since that check can't be done until after all of the class's books have been checked in. I mean, I expect I could do it, but that will (a) have me making judgment calls about which slips get held back and not given to a particular child and (b) prevent me from spending time shelving.
Delia's class is in the library in the late afternoon. Chances are that I'll simply stay in the library until the release bell on Tuesdays. There isn't another class in there, but there will probably be shelving. Maybe there will even be other projects.
Yesterday, during the forty minutes after Delia's class left, the librarian set me to pulling books from the shelves. She's pulling everything that's never circulated. She plans to review each title and to have the kids look at them and offer their recommendations. She has slips for the books that let the kids check off whether they think the book should be kept or gotten rid of. I had to exercise some judgment because the point is to pull the books that haven't circulated in the ten years since barcode checkout was started. Some of the books aren't nearly that old, and the librarian doesn't want to pull something that's only a year or so old. I think I pulled less than I should have. There were a bunch that looked new but that, judging by what I found when I started checking publication dates, came out in the 1990s. I'm not going to worry about it, though, because that section isn't particularly congested. There's still plenty of room for new books there.
