Library Day in the Life: Reflection

My Library Day in the Life is a bit different today. After three hours at work, my son's school nurse called me to tell me he was sick and I needed to pick him up. I suppose he has the cold my daughter had earlier in the week. Instead of writing about the work I didn't really finish today, the meetings I didn't have, or the fun things I missed this afternoon (a Patricia Polacco visit and making Valentine's Day cards with our amazing lower school librarian and Stampin' Up demonstrator ), I want to quickly reflect on  this daily blogging activity (so I can go to sleep and blog again tomorrow!).

I look at the past few posts and I think how lucky I am to have such a great job. I have written about good meetings with great colleagues, satisfying library and non-library tasks, and a supportive administration.

I realize that this week, since I didn't teach much, I had less interactions with the kids, but more interactions with the faculty. Both are very valuable and I enjoy being able to have the best of both worlds.

I never wrote of being bored - which makes sense as I am never bored at work (well, there was one boring moment, but it had purpose!). There is always something interesting to do or learn at my library.

Frankly,  I just enjoy being a school librarian. I love the community of the school, working with passionate, smart, and silly  teens, and being surrounded by books, technology, and nice people. Add  summers off, and I feel very lucky. It is nice to be reminded of that by this experience of blogging about my daily work! Thanks Bobbi Newman and Library Day in the Life!

Library Day in the Life - Calm

Day 3 of Library Day in the Life went by fast. My daughter magically got better around 3:00 PM yesterday, so she went back to school today. At work I organized, collaborated, and caught up on a bunch of smaller things.Today was a very calm and productive day.

• I started my day at the reference desk, astounding one girl with the amount of resources we have on Kurds, helping a student with Diigo, loaning a DVD of  The Crucible to a teacher, and having typically random conversations with students.
  
  
• After grabbing some Cheerios, I cleaned my desk, putting together working files and filing away old paperwork. Then I made a to do list. I am rarely without my little blue or purple pad of paper with my ongoing lists. I have tried many electronic list-making tools, but nothing satisfies me more than crossing items off my list with a pen. My address book is digital, my photos are digital, my lists are on little blue pads of paper from Office Depot.
  
  
• Next I collaborated with the Lower Division Librarian about  our approach to co-chairing the library chapter of the WASC accreditation report, which we have to start next month.
  
  
• I met with my Advisory group. Every week for about 25 minutes I meet with the same dozen teenagers. I have been with this group for almost three years now, and today we talked about our school community and if it upholds its stated value of caring. It was a good conversation, and we commented how different it would have been if they were in 9th grade (they are now in 11th).
  
  
• Next I hopped into the Educational Technology Specialist's office in the library and we met about how to better reach reluctant teachers and encourage their professional growth in the realm of technology. We also decided to formally meet on a weekly basis with the other Ed Tech guy as well. Very productive meeting.
  
  
• Today for lunch I made a nice salad at the salad bar and ate outside in the sunshine with my friends/coworkers. 
  
  
• Next I caught up on my email and Twitter (professional development at its finest), followed the tweets about the new  iPad for a bit (nice price!), and I discovered that my new UCLA mentor is just 1 degree of separation from me already - we were bound to meet even if I weren't her mentor.
  
  
• Then I took an Atomic Learning assessment about 21st century skills. Luckily I passed (I got a  B), but the test was mediocre. I took it as a favor to the Ed Tech guy, who was wondering if all the teachers should take it. My response was, "Only if you want people to talk about you behind your back." We agreed that test is boring and unimaginative, and really not a clear indicator of knowledge. If the school wants to assess our teachers in this way, we could probably design a better assessment for our community.
  
  
• Next I had to work on some non-library related committee work for about an hour.Fun, but nothing to blog about.
  
  
• Off to pick up the kids from school!
  

Library Day in the Life - at Home

It is Library Day in the Life, Day 2, and instead of reporting for duty at the school library, I am home with my daughter who has a low fever and a strong cough. What does a school librarian do when home all day?
First I had to negotiate with  my husband about who would stay home all day. I won. I get more sick days, and my library schedule didn't look too busy today. These sick days make it both hard and delicious to be a working mom. It is hard to call in and say I'm not coming, knowing it just means more work for the other librarians. Many independent schools do not hire subs for librarians. The day is delicious because my daughter isn't that sick, and we can just hunker down and try to enjoy the unexpected day off. Here is what we did.

• TV on (when sick, children love TV even more than usual, and I tend to let them watch).
• Checked in at work via email.
• TV off.
  
• Made breakfast.
• Made Valentines. 
• Made lunch.
  
• TV on.
  
• Added my library as a venue on foursquare - wondering who will participate.
• Blogged/facebooked about the above to spread the word.
• TV off.
  
• Finished Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson while daughter read Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Found out I am a mentor for a UCLA student and contacted her via email.
• TV on.
• Had the washing machine repairman tell me my washer is totally broken and too expensive to fix. 
• Fretted about the above. 
• TV off.
  
• Picked up son from school and dropped him off at an after school activity.
• Did laundry at my mom's house.
• Met son and husband at home to make dinner.
• Made and ate lovely dinner.
• Folded laundry.
  
• Wondered if I will return to work tomorrow. Check in tomorrow to find out!
  

Library Day in the Life - My School Library

I am participating in Library Day in the Life this week. Each day I will blog a bit about my day as Librarian at  the 7-12 grade campus of a K-12 school, starting now!

 

 

• Woke up at 5:30 and headed to campus to exercise for an hour and shower before work.
• Arrived happy and with a cup of coffee to the library by 7:25.
• Wondered if I am allowed to post some pictures of my students using the library on this blog. I decided to put some old pictures to let you see the Library, but I avoided showing the faces of the students.
  
• The other librarians opened up the library, so I ran up to the cafeteria to get warm oatmeal. A perk of our school - they feed us breakfast and lunch. Yum!
• Back at the circ desk - I ran overdues in InfoCentre for students. I email them via InfoCentre to the students - very easy. Then sent out "Community Conduct Reports" via email out to the kids who have books over 2 weeks overdue. We don't charge fines, but they do get demerits which add up for detentions.
• Spoke with freshman about getting the third in a Garth Nix trilogy. We'll order it today!
• Met with weekly Activity. I co-sponsor the upper school's blog about student life, written by students, for students. We have podcasts, videos, and text. It could be better, but it is growing.
• Helped students using Diigo.
• Spoke with another Independent School Librarian about our 40 school consortium concerning changing our groups' correspondence from GoogleGroups, which has become unreliable, to Google Sites, which looks better now anyway. We are going to work on it during the summer when we have more time to think!
• Covered the reference desk while the other librarians went to lunch (remember we get fed).
• Had a working lunch while at a committee meeting - nothing library related, but an interesting committee about the life of the school.
• Read a review journal at the reference desk
• Taught the seventh section of a 6 part research project. This lesson is about using SIRS, ProQuest, and CQ Researcher. The students then need to find 2 articles either in class or for homework on their chosen topic that they have been researching for 2 weeks. Next week they will learn about note-taking on NoodleTools. The past 2 weeks I was very busy teaching all 120 eighth graders the steps of the research process, including a wiki reflection. This week should be much quieter.
• Missed the after-school faculty meeting to go to my son's first ever basketball game at the lower school campus a few block away. Both my kids attend school there, and everyone understands when I need to leave for one of their events - my administration even encourages me to go. Many faculty and staff have children who attend our school, and it really adds to the community feeling.
• Tonight I will probably read Patterson's  Maximum Ride for my student book club, answer a few emails about research questions, and just be a mom!