Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Author Visit Today!

We are having Vera Williams( Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe, Music,Music for Everyone, and more) today at school! I will post some photos here! The students have been hearing her stories and the third grade is getting a special audience with her. It should be great! Tell you more later!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

October Give Away

On my very first giveaway I am giving away Library Lifesavers by the Bacon sisters ( Pamela and Tamora) This easy to read book gives many ideas and suggestions for librarians that are stressed out. Chapters in this great book offer tips on getting organized making a weekly action plan, a mail tacking form for voice, snail, and email. The funniest section is on how to avoid interruptions.
They also discuss energy drains, and what's working, what's not working chart. All in all a great source of ideas for school librarians to get their work lives back in order and to get more done without a feeling of being hit by a train wreck.
A great purchase for any librarian who needs to be more in control of his/her work life and after school life. (Amazon Review)

Okay- here's the deal for the Give Away. Leave a comment here about how you would like to be more organized or also just sign up to follow me on my blog and you will be entered into the October Giveaway.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Mysteries for October

I am hoping to launch a genre study with my fourth graders on mysteries. I have been collecting ideas and book lists . I would like to do a Mystery Wall and have students write Mysteries they have read in an attempt to get more and more students involved in reading Mystery's. I will keep you posted as to how it goes.
What do others do for a Mystery Study? Leave A comment!

Monday, September 26, 2011

Readers NoteBook

I am going to be creating readers notebooks with my fourth grade class. This follows along with our guided reading program and I want to continue the theme into library class. It should be fun! We will track our reading and our mini lessons and our genres!!
I will use some of the sheets from the guided reading programs and will also create some of my own sheets. The ones I create/adapt I will place here at a later date. One is a mini lesson sheet. I think it will be good for students to see what they have learned and reviewed during library class.
Our first step will be to create our " folders" . We will start with Names and Reading Note Book On the front. I got some cool markers and special scissors that I thing students will enjoy using.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

New Books- Checking in/ Processing New books

Yes, I am still unpacking books and supplies from my orders this summer. I check in each book and place the vendor and price in the inside cover. Books are stamped and a date due slip placed in back, and they are ready to go. I get most of my books from Follett, and Perma-Bound already processed.
Books from other vendors ( Junior Library guild) I catalog, make labels, stamp , date due slip, and then they are good to go.
Those are my three major jobbers for books and I pretty much just use those three except when I am ordering Reference sources. This simplifies my ordering and processing.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Fiction book Pass article

My copy of Library Sparks came the other day and yes- my article :"Please Pass the books"was in there!! Naturally I showed everyone and gave a copy to my administrators! I actually had an email from a librarian who wanted to do the book pass with her students. I will post her comment in the comments below.
Did any of you see the article? Leave me a comment about what you think!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Ficiton Book Pass Article

This week when you get your Library Sparks , Check out my article about Please pass the Books an article about fiction book passes for elementary students. Can
't wait to see it. There is also an online attachment for the book pass which should also work well. Let me know what you think about this article! Comments are very much appreciated!!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

First Day of School- but no school!

September 7, 2011
Its our first day with students but school is closed due to flooding.! What a way to start the year.
Any way , at school yesterday and last week. I am putting up posters in a different way and making lots of signage- like labeling my reference section and my magazine and newspaper section . I will also make signs and posters for my library rules and routines and will go them with students when they come for library class or orientation.
Using lots of color - to make areas pop. My library is small and I want it to be inviting for the students. Our other library ( classes run by my aide k-3) is in the historic part of the building so it has beautiful woodwork and a non-working fire place. She always decorates it nicely with posters and lots of signs.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Reading Time

Well I have been reading more than writing. Reading in summer is one of my guilty pleasures! I finished the new Clan of the Cave Bear book- Land of the Painted Caves! I really enjoyed it- I know there were some reviews that didn't think it was as good as the older ones. I for one was just so glad to finally have the rest of the story that I guess I was not that critical of the writing or the characters. More titles to come when I update you on the next three books I have been reading. Any comments- did any one else read this? What are your feelings on this book? I would love to hear about what you are reading!!

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Inventory Basics-part 2

The next step in inventory is printing out the missing items , and trying to find most of them. In our case, we print out after we scan and look at the lists to see if we have missed scanning a section or maybe the scans did not pick up. Then we go and look for the books and check the titles into the regular circulation program.
At the end of the school year, after we have found and checked in as many as we could, I ran a second printout. This was much shorter but still disturbing as I am sure that not that many books are missing( at least I hope not)

Monday, June 13, 2011

Inventory Basics

Here's what I do for inventory. First - get all ( or as many as I can books back from students and teachers.
Second- read shelves and get books in the right order. This is helpful if your system needs correct shelf order- luckily I can turn my shelf checking off. I know some systems you can choose how specific you want the shelf checking to be- so if you have that advantage do your self a favor and just check so that it picks up the wrong category or at the very least down to the 10's ( a range of 10 off I mean- example : it will beep if there is a 630 book in the 641.5).
Third: Print out a sheet of your different holdings codes. Get your self a pad of paper and decided which you will do first. choose a small section to begin with. Write down date, time, and section you are scanning.
Fourth: Begin scanning. Keep track /mark if you must stop for any reason. Hopefully your scanner will be working better than the one I am using . It doesn't beep for each title- so I must watch the screen. It does however do a loud sound when there is a mistake- being the barcode did not scan or the book is in the wrong holdingscode. More steps to follow. Questions? Does any one have to do inventory the old fashion way- with a shelf list from the Card Catalog?? I hope not!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Inventory time again!

We are in the second day of inventory but it doesn't seem to be going very fast. Both my aide and I are busy scanning but we are also still getting back books. Today I spent a good half hour still printing out overdue sheets from students. Luckily as soon as they got the letters - they brought them back.

But each time we start a new section/holdings-code we are writing down date and time- so when we go to print out items that are missing we will have to enter in the earliest date and time to get accurate records. Anyone else have to do this with your system? I guess it's pretty standard. What's amazing is that there have only been a couple of misfiled or mis-smarked books.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

InventoryTime!

Well it time again to think about inventory! An exhausting time but a necessary task! Start out getting all books ( or as many as you can) back into the library , checked in , and on the shelves.
I try to spend a little time reading shelves putting books in the right order. However, during the year , as I am putting books away , I take some time to check the shelves that I am replacing books on. I figure that if books were taken, there is a likely-hood that some items might be misplaced. In our library( elementary level) we only go beyond one decimal point. This helps me while shelving and also helps the student learn about the DD system without too much aggravation.
Anyway so as I am shelving, I am correcting misfiled books- so it is one time time deal . This seems to work in the library I am presently in. Past libraries, I have begun at the beginning and read the entire collection.
Does anyone have any comments on inventory? tips on reading and shelving and getting books Back? I send out over-dues to students. My staff can keep books that they are using and hopefully bring back what they do not need at the time.