Bits and Bobs, New Job Edition
** I finally started my new job on Wednesday. They told me at 3:50 pm on Tuesday (everyone at the offices goes home at 4:00). Yay me!
*I really like the job. The traffic is mildly annoying in the morning, and the last two nights have been outrageously annoying with people leaving work for the holiday weekend and heading to the shore, but otherwise everything seems to be going well. I only have Pre-K and K students, so lesson planning is pretty simple. The school is nice and new, but we're still in a poverty-stricken city, and it shows in little ways.
*The other teachers are seemingly ecstatic that I'm there. They have not had a real librarian since the school opened about two years ago. They've had a parade of subs in the meantime, one or two perhaps seem to have had some idea of what a library is supposed to do, but those people were not recent. When I introduce myself, several teachers have greeted me with things like, "Thank God!", "You're kidding! Are you staying?", and "I should have known who you were, the kids are actually doing something." One teacher said she had stopped bringing her students up to library because the sub was not doing anything useful, but the teacher and aide in that class left very happy today. The gorgeous listening center we have, with four sets of headphones and about two dozen sets of books on CD to listen to, was going virtually unused. I opened it up and there were students in almost every class using it.
*The library is beautiful. It has nice wooden shelves, a SMARTboard, listening center, great beanbag chairs, three Macs for the kids to use (I got a crash course in Apple technology this week), and an empty circulation desk with great chairs.
*And it's a hot mess. The organization, what little there is, is ...odd. One shelf had the label, "Famous Authors, Eric Carle.", while another bore the title "Famous People", and a third "Miscellaneous Fiction." That last shelf was just a jumble of books not in any kind of order. The back shelves were categorized by subject, sort of like nonfiction should be, but specific to the curriculum. I haven't decided if I will leave it or l redo it properly, where all the subjects will remain together anyway. I've started ripping out things, readjusted the shelves, and am doing a proper fiction organization. Which has revealed that there are multiple copies of the same titles spread all over the place. Grr. If any library school student ever wants to understand the need for an organizational system in a library, send 'em my way. This place is like a giant game of Marco Polo.
Half of the books have no spine labels, some have no cards, and I just can't wait to get into the computer so I can see the natural disaster that is the catalog. I may need FEMA to come and help me,
*There are no library supplies. No book tape machine for repairs. The spine labels, what few there are, are mostly handwritten, and I have the small sheets that I'm not sure will work in a computer printer. I DO have spine label covers. No plastic covering for books either. No pens, pencils, paper. Some stuff I can bring from home, others I will be ordering. Much of the stuff that makes a library run is absent. I feel like Old Mother Hubbard; my cabinets are bare.
*The shelves are half bare as well. I can't be sure until get the collection in order, but we are hurting for books. Since no one's been keeping track, books leave the library and never return. I like their system of bundling books to loan to classes, but they gotta come back. I will be working on a sign out system. Meanwhile I've burned through most of a surprise in the form of a Scholastic credit and ordered some books. It's a start, but we are seriously short on proper materials. I will be making another post about that, and asking my friends for help. It may not be as dire as I think, once I empty some of the tubs, but there are things I know are missing from the collection.
*There is a ton of work to do, yes. I'm not complaining, though it might seem like it. On one hand, I may be spending part of my summer fixing this mess, just to make it easier on myself next year. But I get to make it what I want, and how I want, and pretty much no one will complain. It's work I don't mind doing :), because the kids are really sweet. My first day, I was out in my hall duty and one little girl ran up and hugged me. Makes all the work worth it.
*And when I need to come up with a final project for grad school, I think I've got my choice of topics here :)