Whew! A Day in Review

Solo today! For anyone who has lingering doubts about what really happens in a high school library, today was a nail-biter. It's not just finding the right book for a student, nor is it just about checking out 36 copies of The House of the Scorpion in 5 minutes flat, it's about responding to every student's needs. Sometimes those needs are simple to meet; do we have XYZ author or book? will you be here after school? and can I print this? but others require a little more effort. Computer literacy skills lacking, many rely on me to help with wikis, blogs, noodletools, capturing video into a video editing software program, formatting a Word document or printing PowerPoint slides in Notes format and oh so much more. Information literacy skills a bit weak or missing?, then I step up and guide them through the process of finding a resource, citing it and how to synthesize the essence into their work. When Pam is here, it goes so much more smoothly because we can tag team. One of us helps at the counter and the other goes out into the library to help. I can conduct patron interviews to really dig at what he/she needs for research. I can sit down and really demonstrate the value of using a database rather than just googling a string of keywords. Essentially, when both of us are here, I can teach really effectively; give that one student my full attention.
I apologize to all those students who felt that I didn't give you the time you needed today. I am sorry you had to come back after school to get that question answered. It's the challenge of the solo show.

New Books for Poet/Author Studies have Arrived!!

We finally got in the much anticipated batch of resources for poet/author studies assignments. These are all non-fiction circulating material that are processed and ready for student use.

Bloom's Modern Critical views

• Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Zora neale Hurston
• William Wordsworth
• Toni Morrison
• Robert Hayden
• Robert Louis Stevenson

Bloom's 20th Anniversary Collection

• Poets and Poems
• Novelists and Novels
• African-American Poets

Bloom's How to Write About

• Emily Dickinson
• Edgar Allen Poe

Comprehensive Research and Study Guide

• W.S. Merwin
• Elizabeth Bishop
• Marianne Moore
• Seamus Heaney

Student Researchers... it's that time of year again

Today's story:
One teacher has reserved the library once a week so we can work with her EL students on book selection and senior research projects. Today, I watched as two of the students struggled with finding resources on immigration. Both students have limited English skills. Since I know some spanish and I know there are spanish language databases available from San Francisco Public Library, I was able to direct both students to sites that would help them. Using some spanish to explain it and some English also, I was able to show each how to sign up for a library card and access the spanish language databases. Boy, did their faces light up when they saw that information could be retrieved in spanish. I know they need to learn English but those databases are difficult to navigate even for seasoned students. They still need to synthesize the data into their senior project essays in English but if they can find what they need in spanish, more power to them. It's a good thing. And they both didn't give up! Just another day in our library.... helping students in more than one way.

Cyber High in the Library

If you are enrolled in cyber high at Vintage High School, you may come to the library to do your work during lunch, or after school, or if you have an open period. For more information about the program, please see Ms. Brainerd in Counseling. Since we lack sufficient numbers of computers, on Mondays we meet in the English lab after school.

Manga bumped from the TOP TEN list

I haven't seen this happen for weeks; manga has been bumped from the top 10. No naruto, no chobits and no fruits basket at all. What is the world coming to? Have the kids just stopped reading those books or could it be something else entirely? We did have testing this week and we did have classes come by to get outside reading books. There just might be a correlation. In any case, some new and some old favorites are back on top. The top 10 for week ending Feb 6 are:

1. A child called "It"
2. Crank
3. New Moon
4. Always Running
5. Impulse
6. The Notebook
7. 1984
8. Breaking Dawn
9. Cut
10. .hack (the only manga on the list... oops)

It will be interesting to see how this evolves. We did bring in more student suggested authors and titles and those will be listed next week.

Testing in the Library

This issue has popped up in Listsrv discussions, peer discussions, library meetings and among random conversations around campus; should the library be used for testing? To be honest, it doesn't really bother me unless it interferes with other classes being able to use the facilities. Testing throws the entire schedule off for a week or so and most teachers don't plan on many new projects when testing is on the horizon. However, I can see both sides of the argument. I want students to have access to all that we have to offer in the library and I want the library to be used as needed to accomodate testing or meetings. I just wish we had a bigger library so we could do both. Space is limited and we need to be as helpful as possible. As long as I don't get pulled in to proctor each test, the library can share all the resources we have even if it does get a bit cramped. Maybe testing can slowly diminish in frequency or maybe we'll get a second story added to the current layout. I wonder what might happen first?