Survival Mode

The last two weeks have been SO busy that I've hardly had time to breathe. Not that I'm complaining--I am LOVING my job as the new librarian! When people ask me how things are going and if I like my job, I just tell them its like working at Disneyland! (But without the cotton candy and costumed characters...most days anyway!) The 2nd week of school was by far the craziest one so far. I had orientation almost every day that week-all of 6th grade ELA and 7th grade ELA came to visit and check out books. I'm down to one circulation computer at this time because my other one has a work order put in on it (the virus that knocked it out last Spring is apparently still wreaking havoc.) I have some great student aides though, and they have been awesome at helping with checkouts and such. I connected the keypad and scanner to my laptop so that I could have a secondary circ computer up and running and during the times where there were 30+ children in line, my aides were able to jump in and scan out books to students. We had a pep rally schedule last Friday which made orientation even more exciting since we had less time for students to find a book and get checked out. At one point I had 5 7th grade classes in the library at a time so it was a 'leetle beet' crazy! The nice thing is that the hours fly by on days like that--it seems like 4 hours just faded away and I hadn't even noticed!

This past week was a bit calmer, but because we were out Monday for Labor Day, we had to pack the same amount of activity into a shorter week. I've been making a 9/11 Memorial Photostory to put on a digital photo frame in the library along with my display. I don't think I got any pictures of the Memorial display before books were taken from it (I love that kids are checking those books out) but I found a variety of books on 9/11 for it. I ran into some trouble when I tried to save the Photostory so I had to have a friend of mine do the final touches but eventually I was able to put everything together and get it to work.

I've only ever been on the "purchasing" end of a book fair, so I never really knew what all was involved in setting one up. Scholastic delivered my Book Fair materials on Wednesday and I spent almost all day on Thursday arranging and setting up for it (a much bigger undertaking than I had expected.) Because we lost our half-time aide position I have had to call upon the staff to help me with the fair this year. I'm anxious about making sure I have enough 'eyes' to watch and help keep things sane while students browse. I will need to man the register most times so I have been very lucky that so many people have offered their own time to come up and help me. I actually had a nightmare the other night that I had left the library for a few minutes to run to the bathroom, only to find that a bunch of stuff had been stolen while I was gone. I was nearly in tears when I woke up and felt really nervous about it--I'm sure its mostly just 'newbie' fears but I want to make sure that everything goes well. I'll post some pics of the setup in a separate post. Right now I think it looks really great!! With the help of some of my friends we've developed a plan for students coming to the library for the Book Fair in regards to logistics--which door to enter, where they will put their backpacks, where the checkout line should curve, etc. I hope it runs as smoothly as I hope--I guess my next report will update everyone on how it is going!

I am TRULY loving my job! I went to a new librarian meeting this past week and just sitting there in the presence of other librarians made me realize that I've made the right choice in becoming a school librarian. So much of what I do during the day is to help and benefit others and it is very fulfilling. I am learning so much each day and my grad school classes are more applicable now that I'm doing what I'm learning about. As I delve into this unknown realm of Book Fairs, please pray for me!

PS. Here is a little comic created by one of my professors. I found it amusing and was pleased that it fits with our "Hero" theme this year:

By jmoreillon | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon