I'm wearing my invisible textbook hat, trying to "guestimate" how short we will be on particular textbook titles, which will be fun because we have no money anyway. All of this takes me back to my middle school days and after school rituals.
We didn't even have television at home until I was in middle school so I had to go to my grandparents, which is where I watched the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. I was so young for that event and didn't go into screaming fits or quite catch the significance of it. I think my parents wanted an environment without the television until I was in middle school. All of a sudden it seemed like the reception had picked up enough that out came the television and the antennae. No cable in those days, especially out in the country with your closest neighbors a mile away. If you didn't like those half dozen channels that you could pull in, tough. Go read a book or do something.
After school and on hot days in the summer, I'd come home, turn on Channel 2 Oakland, and watch "Dialing with Dollars," hosted by Pat McCormick who received these post cards from viewers with their phone numbers. He had this count and amount system, and he'd call homes and say with his very distinctive voice, "Pat McCormick, Dialing for Dollars, calling. Are you watching? What's the movie, and the count and the amount?" If you could tell him, you won a prize, some money and maybe some restaurant coupons. My mom was so uncool because she didn't send in a post card. I guess she thought we lived too far away for someone to call long distance.
Pat McCormick must have been the equivalent of a babysitter for latchkey kids because he also broke up the movie screening with little puppet intermissions, and he had two of the greatest puppets I ever saw; Humphrey and Charley. One was a bull dog, and the other was a horse. McCormick was always off screen when the puppets talked, and he did a great job with his voice. I would forget McCormick was behind them, he was so good.
Anyway, the count and the amount is the name of the game with textbooks. I'm almost afraid I will have to go dialing for dollars to meet the needs of starting the next school year.
The middle-schoolers today wouldn't take to Charley and Humphrey, but television, even if it was black and white, had such better shows then. I cancelled my cable last year- I just can't deal with 100 channels of nothing, half of which are scooping me on the tabloid issues of the day. Back to reading those books because I don't like what comes to me on 100 plus channels.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
For Librarian Entertainment
After weeding books with ridiculous sounding titles, I found that a prize exists for books with the oddest titles. I was listening to National Public Radio when they ran a story about the Diagram Prize list of winners which British trade magazine for the publishing industry, The Bookseller publishes annually. If Wikipedia is at all credible, the list and the prize originated as entertainment during the 1978 Frankfurt Book Fair.
This list is a short seven titles, up one from six because I guess someone just couldn't decide between two terrible tomes. I am not going to take the time to give you the scoop on all of them, but the titles are "must reads" even if the books are not. I am going to share a couple of my favorites, and then you can go to the link to The Bookseller.
"The Mushroom in Christian Art" by John A. Rush and "A Taxonomy of Office Chairs" by Jonathan Olivares are titles that just make you want to cuddle up on the sofa and read.
Read on:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/diagram-prize-shortlist-revealed.html
If you want to see the whole history of Diagram Prize winners, go to the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookseller/Diagram_Prize_for_Oddest_Title_of_the_Year
This list is a short seven titles, up one from six because I guess someone just couldn't decide between two terrible tomes. I am not going to take the time to give you the scoop on all of them, but the titles are "must reads" even if the books are not. I am going to share a couple of my favorites, and then you can go to the link to The Bookseller.
"The Mushroom in Christian Art" by John A. Rush and "A Taxonomy of Office Chairs" by Jonathan Olivares are titles that just make you want to cuddle up on the sofa and read.
Read on:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/diagram-prize-shortlist-revealed.html
If you want to see the whole history of Diagram Prize winners, go to the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookseller/Diagram_Prize_for_Oddest_Title_of_the_Year
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Bambi-Eyes are Smiling- and Laughing for Now
This is our Rite of Almost-Spring when the school counselor brings the 8th graders to the library, has them calculate their GPA, and helps them do a reality-check on where they are with their grades and test scores, and where they need to be at the end of the year. All the little Bambi-Eyes are laughing now, but in 3 months or less, I'll be seeing a lot of these little faces in here crying because someone doesn't want to promote them to High School.
I had a teacher send two students down last week to see if they had an English Handbook that they needed for homework, and of course, they had sworn that they never received the book. My system shows they did, and it is amazing how their stories change 3 times within the same conversation, and the parental part of my brain is screaming neither of these students has done a lick of homework in months. They probably haven't cleaned their rooms since before Halloween, either.
I should run a side business as a bookie, taking bets on their GPAs because I could predict fairly accurately who is going to rise above that comfort zone of a 2.0 GPA and who is going to be finishing near the back of the pack from what I see and hear in the textbook room.
I'm betting that one-half of the 8th grade is going to be saying special prayers, polishing apples for teachers, and trying to do a lot of work in the next few weeks, about half of which will be illegible, inadequate, and off-topic. Oh, well. They've got to learn sometime.
I had a teacher send two students down last week to see if they had an English Handbook that they needed for homework, and of course, they had sworn that they never received the book. My system shows they did, and it is amazing how their stories change 3 times within the same conversation, and the parental part of my brain is screaming neither of these students has done a lick of homework in months. They probably haven't cleaned their rooms since before Halloween, either.
I should run a side business as a bookie, taking bets on their GPAs because I could predict fairly accurately who is going to rise above that comfort zone of a 2.0 GPA and who is going to be finishing near the back of the pack from what I see and hear in the textbook room.
I'm betting that one-half of the 8th grade is going to be saying special prayers, polishing apples for teachers, and trying to do a lot of work in the next few weeks, about half of which will be illegible, inadequate, and off-topic. Oh, well. They've got to learn sometime.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Programs and ebooks in the Library
Recent trends indicate ebooks selling more copies and publishers fighting less against the trend. I think school libraries should go more in that direction also because I seem to be spending more time hosting events in in the library than checking out books. If we have ebooks and train everyone to access them, we might actually have readers. Not to mention, weeding might be an entirely different matter. Perhaps after 20 years, the title just melts into cyberspace.
The Men to Boys program held a meeting in the library during lunch and 5th period about bullying. They had a speaker, a Mr. Hernandez, who did an excellent presentation, and even addressed cyberbullying. Mr. Hernandez mentioned how one of his sons got caught up in a gang. After the program, I had the opportunity to speak with him, and his story is truly one of extraordinary effort and love to remove his son from the gang, including sending him away from the Bay Area to Samoa for an extended amount of time.
While the program was in progress, I continued going through Destiny and eliminated more ghost records for books that probably haven't been seen in 30 years. I also found a number of books for which fast records had been created without including the copyright date. Most of those books had copyrights as recent or later than 2000, and I took them out and recatalogued them by attaching them to an entry with a MARC record. That should help the average age of the collection.
To archive or not to archive: my take on the school library is that it is not an archival institution, and more than one or two books of 20 or more years of age within a 100 span range of the Dewey Decimal system is too many. We all form attachments, and yes, some of these books still have good information, but let them live on in the classroom libraries of the history teachers. Too many titles are unappetizing, and when you open up the book, the copy is dirty and disgusting. A whole bunch of other titles might inspire a new generation of writers to reexamine the subject matter. Some subjects and persons would be better put into books more general in scope or into collective biographies. Single book titles devoted to each battle of World War II are about as necessary as a single book titles devoted to each of Napoleon Bonaparte's engagements. History moves on, and unless students are specializing in history at a university, they don't need that much World War II detail. Less shelf space devoted to some of this stuff is better for a middle school.
In my case, most of what I am deleting are ghosts; mere records in the system, and I really don't know why someone barcoded all these books from the 1940s through the 1970s. I guess we all get attached to these books.
I think I should do a book featuring all the literary shrines of my life, and it will probably have an audience limited to myself, but perhaps it will help me let go of library books.
The Men to Boys program held a meeting in the library during lunch and 5th period about bullying. They had a speaker, a Mr. Hernandez, who did an excellent presentation, and even addressed cyberbullying. Mr. Hernandez mentioned how one of his sons got caught up in a gang. After the program, I had the opportunity to speak with him, and his story is truly one of extraordinary effort and love to remove his son from the gang, including sending him away from the Bay Area to Samoa for an extended amount of time.
While the program was in progress, I continued going through Destiny and eliminated more ghost records for books that probably haven't been seen in 30 years. I also found a number of books for which fast records had been created without including the copyright date. Most of those books had copyrights as recent or later than 2000, and I took them out and recatalogued them by attaching them to an entry with a MARC record. That should help the average age of the collection.
To archive or not to archive: my take on the school library is that it is not an archival institution, and more than one or two books of 20 or more years of age within a 100 span range of the Dewey Decimal system is too many. We all form attachments, and yes, some of these books still have good information, but let them live on in the classroom libraries of the history teachers. Too many titles are unappetizing, and when you open up the book, the copy is dirty and disgusting. A whole bunch of other titles might inspire a new generation of writers to reexamine the subject matter. Some subjects and persons would be better put into books more general in scope or into collective biographies. Single book titles devoted to each battle of World War II are about as necessary as a single book titles devoted to each of Napoleon Bonaparte's engagements. History moves on, and unless students are specializing in history at a university, they don't need that much World War II detail. Less shelf space devoted to some of this stuff is better for a middle school.
In my case, most of what I am deleting are ghosts; mere records in the system, and I really don't know why someone barcoded all these books from the 1940s through the 1970s. I guess we all get attached to these books.
I think I should do a book featuring all the literary shrines of my life, and it will probably have an audience limited to myself, but perhaps it will help me let go of library books.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Ghostbusted: Devils, Drugs and Doctors, 1929
The All-City Youth Leadership group is taking a break from discussing how to improve cafeteria lunch to eat some catered goodies that look a lot better than what I am eating today. I think they might be finishing up and leaving for the day. I have been cleaning out ghost books from Destiny while they occupy the library, and am working on the 600s of the Dewey Decimal system. So far, I haven't gone beyond 616, but I am about to send the ghosts out for radiocarbon dating.
Just a sample of delightful items not seen for a very long time, and if it were not for a print out of the title details, I'd have no proof that they existed. The winner, by far, has to be "Devils, Drugs, and Doctors: The Story of the Science of Healing from Medicine Man to Doctor" by Howard H. Haggard in 1929. Runners-up owe their lack of appeal largely to the publishing industry which should be sued en masse if sales were low. Take your pick: "Goodbye to Bedlam; Understanding Mental Illness and Retardation" by John Langone, 1974 and "Food Trips and Traps: Coping with Eating Disorders" by Jane Claypool (1983). Ms. Claypool should sue on the basis that alliteration has been taken to extremes to the point of obfuscation of the writer's intentions unless she was discussing eating disorders among amoebic Venus flytraps. Not to be outdone by private industry, the New York Public Affairs Committee contributed a real beauty of a pamphlet no. 507, written by Elizabeth Ogg (not to be confused with Egg), entitled "Voluntary Sterilization." I wonder if Ms. Ogg was proud of this contribution to a middle school library, and if she was aware of how many involuntary sterilizations went on among African American and Native American women during this time period.
Other ghosts: Titles for Herbert Zim and Sonia Bleeker. While I have a lot of nostalgia for these two authors as I read their science and anthropology titles in elementary school, and while their work was very good, I think if I read them almost 50 years ago, they don't need to be on the shelves or lurking as ghosts in Destiny. Their papers are housed at the University of Oregon, Eugene, and maybe someday I will pay a visit to the shrine of the authors of my youth
I'm tempted to send this list of titles off for radioactive carbon-14 dating.
Just a sample of delightful items not seen for a very long time, and if it were not for a print out of the title details, I'd have no proof that they existed. The winner, by far, has to be "Devils, Drugs, and Doctors: The Story of the Science of Healing from Medicine Man to Doctor" by Howard H. Haggard in 1929. Runners-up owe their lack of appeal largely to the publishing industry which should be sued en masse if sales were low. Take your pick: "Goodbye to Bedlam; Understanding Mental Illness and Retardation" by John Langone, 1974 and "Food Trips and Traps: Coping with Eating Disorders" by Jane Claypool (1983). Ms. Claypool should sue on the basis that alliteration has been taken to extremes to the point of obfuscation of the writer's intentions unless she was discussing eating disorders among amoebic Venus flytraps. Not to be outdone by private industry, the New York Public Affairs Committee contributed a real beauty of a pamphlet no. 507, written by Elizabeth Ogg (not to be confused with Egg), entitled "Voluntary Sterilization." I wonder if Ms. Ogg was proud of this contribution to a middle school library, and if she was aware of how many involuntary sterilizations went on among African American and Native American women during this time period.
Other ghosts: Titles for Herbert Zim and Sonia Bleeker. While I have a lot of nostalgia for these two authors as I read their science and anthropology titles in elementary school, and while their work was very good, I think if I read them almost 50 years ago, they don't need to be on the shelves or lurking as ghosts in Destiny. Their papers are housed at the University of Oregon, Eugene, and maybe someday I will pay a visit to the shrine of the authors of my youth
I'm tempted to send this list of titles off for radioactive carbon-14 dating.
Lexile Land in the Library
The district seems to have blocked just about all the computers from access to blogger except mine, which is fine. I just hope my Yahoo access to it continues. It would be fun to get the students involved in learning blogger, but unless some official approval comes through, I won't do it.
The computers in the library are going to be reduced as a computer lab will be reactivated, and only a few will remain in the library. The concern around that will be getting teachers involved to come to the library at all without bringing students to the library. They don't bring them, and given the behavioral problems, they don't come on their own, leaving before school, lunch time, and after school for individual visits. Students are locked out until the morning bell rings, and after school programs are in here after school, and that doesn't seem to promote other students coming in easily.
On the bright side, we were awarded a $500 grant which will purchase some books for mini-reading clubs with 6 students being able to participate in reading some titles with Lexile scores of 1000 or higher.
Titles include: "Begging for Change" by Sharon Flake, "Crows and Cards" by Joseph Helgerson, "Dawn of Fear" by Susan Cooper, "Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra" by Wendy Lichtman, "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis, and "H.I.V.E: Higher Institute of Villainous Education" by Mark Walden.
Today we have some sort of all city youth council meeting going on in the library with students attending from other schools as well as a representative from our school. I'm hearing a lot of laughter so they must be enjoying themselves.
Further comment of Lexile leveling of libraries: If this trend in madness persists, I suggest that it be anticipated and outsourced on a private contractor basis over the summers, on weekends, or other after school hours. If it is done this way, at least a portion of the library could be completed quickly; the fiction chapter books, and then the picture books. The librarian could then run the library on at least a limited basis circulating those books without the whole library being off-limits. It is completely unfeasible to check out books while also trying to do the Lexile leveling. Someone working on a private contractor basis could save the district some money by not having benefits being paid for. I just think a way has to be found to have the library more accessible to children while this is being done, and to get better money value out of the process.
The computers in the library are going to be reduced as a computer lab will be reactivated, and only a few will remain in the library. The concern around that will be getting teachers involved to come to the library at all without bringing students to the library. They don't bring them, and given the behavioral problems, they don't come on their own, leaving before school, lunch time, and after school for individual visits. Students are locked out until the morning bell rings, and after school programs are in here after school, and that doesn't seem to promote other students coming in easily.
On the bright side, we were awarded a $500 grant which will purchase some books for mini-reading clubs with 6 students being able to participate in reading some titles with Lexile scores of 1000 or higher.
Titles include: "Begging for Change" by Sharon Flake, "Crows and Cards" by Joseph Helgerson, "Dawn of Fear" by Susan Cooper, "Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra" by Wendy Lichtman, "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis, and "H.I.V.E: Higher Institute of Villainous Education" by Mark Walden.
Today we have some sort of all city youth council meeting going on in the library with students attending from other schools as well as a representative from our school. I'm hearing a lot of laughter so they must be enjoying themselves.
Further comment of Lexile leveling of libraries: If this trend in madness persists, I suggest that it be anticipated and outsourced on a private contractor basis over the summers, on weekends, or other after school hours. If it is done this way, at least a portion of the library could be completed quickly; the fiction chapter books, and then the picture books. The librarian could then run the library on at least a limited basis circulating those books without the whole library being off-limits. It is completely unfeasible to check out books while also trying to do the Lexile leveling. Someone working on a private contractor basis could save the district some money by not having benefits being paid for. I just think a way has to be found to have the library more accessible to children while this is being done, and to get better money value out of the process.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Library Weeding and Landscaping
I am beginning to think of the library as a garden, not meaning a library dedicated to botany, horticulture and gazebo plans but a garden as in much weeding of books. Also as in rumors of blowers being used by janitors to speed up the job.
I am pulling books off the shelves and computer as quickly as I can. I have not pulled the old reference books yet, but I hope to eliminate them by Thursday as well. The shelves look a little barer but a lot better. Some of the discards might find homes in classrooms or with students.
As to the blower rumor, someone who worked here as a janitor and moved to another school told me that blowers were being used in the library at other schools. I am seeing a lot of dust on books, and I do not know if this is happening here, and I will probably not know. If I were to run into the office asking that blowers not be used, I would probably be taken for yet another overly anxious librarian. Who knows? If I'm laid off, I will never know what else they are doing with these books; besides not reading them.
I am pulling books off the shelves and computer as quickly as I can. I have not pulled the old reference books yet, but I hope to eliminate them by Thursday as well. The shelves look a little barer but a lot better. Some of the discards might find homes in classrooms or with students.
As to the blower rumor, someone who worked here as a janitor and moved to another school told me that blowers were being used in the library at other schools. I am seeing a lot of dust on books, and I do not know if this is happening here, and I will probably not know. If I were to run into the office asking that blowers not be used, I would probably be taken for yet another overly anxious librarian. Who knows? If I'm laid off, I will never know what else they are doing with these books; besides not reading them.
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