January 14, 2016

1. How do you run your day to day operations in your library?

2. What would most like to change in the library that you can't?

3. Computers and their use in the library?

1. The library schedule varies day to day. Most days the librarian sees anywhere from 6-8 classes a day. On Thursdays she only sees 3 classes, but has 5 on the schedule. The other two classes on the schedule are preschool and they do not use their time slot. The basic overview of each group is the same. The librarian starts with books and then teaches a short lesson and then lines the students up. One thing I noticed with the kindergarten class is that she lines them up 4-5 minutes early while the two older classes lines up only a minute or two early. 

2. Since the schedule was so lite the day I visited we discussed what she liked and disliked about her library and what she would change if she could. One of her biggest complaints was the lack of storage and office space in her library. When the school was built almost 6 years ago it was not built with space for the extra people who would be using the school and because of that they have taken over the rooms in the library. For example the room labeled AV/Storage is used by one of the speech therapists. The book room is used for books for were for reading recovery and the other storage room is used for someone's office. The office area and book repair area are used for storage and for this reason Mrs. Ayers has no where to work and no storage for the library. 

3. One of the questions I discussed with Mrs. Ayers had to do with the computers in the library and how they are used. She informed me that only a couple of the computers in the library work and that the students don't use them. This makes it difficult for students to use the library for research and projects. The reason she doesn't have the computers is because they are not up to date and personally I feel like she doesn't care for the technology because while she has the card catalog on the computer and the software to use destiny she doesn't take advantage of them. 

Overall I feel that my first day was productive and especially since I was learning a new library. I was lucky enough to know the library going in and to know a lot of the staff but its still an interesting process when you starting a new placement. By starting on a day when there was not many classes I got a little more time to truly find out how she runs her library and to see different grade levels without being overwhelmed with an entire day of kids. She uses the afternoon time on Thursdays when she doesn't have classes to get work done that she would not normally have a chance to complete like book repairs and straightening shelves. Overall the experience was positive. A couple of negatives I encountered was that she doesn't teach lessons like I'm used to seeing them taught. She has the students always at tables and while the lessons she taught were good, they could have been better. For example the fourth and fifth grade students watched a video on the almanac that had to be at least 10-15 years old. I believe it would have been better to have almanacs on hand and to show them to the students and to have them use them to find information. They would have learned more and gotten more out of the assignment. I believe that I am going to enjoy the experience and I can't wait until I get to teach my lessons.