Tag: books

What to do with your nonfiction?


(Found this unpublished from 23 Jul 2022 – no idea why I didn’t publish it!)

Just as an aside – I’ve been having the most fantastic summer since I don’t know when – well definitely way before covid with reunification with my children after one and two years respectively as well as with so many friends from around the world that our home is nearly needing a booking calendar – such a wonderful thing! I’ve been trying to avoid my computer and work as much as possible, but I had to work on a questionnaire for possible participation on a possible book on “Innovative Marketing, Branding & Community Engagement Programmes Amongst Leading National, Public, and Academic Libraries Worldwide” so I decided it was time to round of this series of three posts on nonfiction (see parts one: “Waves of nonfiction” and two: “Nonfiction’s right to exist“)

If you build it will they come?

As discussed previously it takes considerable time, effort and resources to build and maintain a good nonfiction collection. But the existence thereof does not presuppose its use. Just as we cannot assume that the fact as our students have laptops they know how to use them (the digital native myth) so too we cannot assume that teachers and students know how to get the most out of a nonfiction collection just because they can read. In fact it’s something that I’ve had to learn as a teacher librarian and something I’m still consistently engaging in and learning more about.

I’m going to highlight a few things that have helped me in my learning.

Reading nonfiction (Notice and Note)

Reading Signposts

Probably the most transformational book I read on helping students to scaffold their reading of nonfiction and be able to develop the critical skills they need to navigate today’s information society was Kylene Beers “Reading Nonfiction”. It’s not only helped my thinking about reading nonfiction but also the approach of every teacher who has allowed me to eulogise the approach and incorporate it into their teaching.

The signposts consist of five items to look out for in a text and how to recognise them and approaches to thinking about the texts. It goes beyond the usual acronyms for assessing the reliability and credibility of a text into some pretty good meta-cognition and thinking skills. The signposts are:

  • Contrasts and Contradictions
  • Absolute and Extreme Language
  • Numbers and Stats
  • Quoted Words
  • Word Gaps

The way I usually introduce them to students is through a workshop where I give them a Newsela article – my favourite is “How now digital cow” which I like as it includes all the elements and because it’s fun and from my motherland. Using a Newsela article allows me to also have the article available at a number of different levels so it can be accessed by all students no matter their reading / English level.

I print it out, explain the signposts briefly and students in groups of 5 each get a copy to read and a different coloured highlighters to highlight the text pertaining to the signpost they’re looking at. They read the text with a particular interest in “their” signpost. They can then defend their choice in their group and meet up with students in other groups with the same signpost to compare. An alternative is to have the signpost questions on posters and students read the article and then do a poster walk and write their findings after reading the article on the posters. I’m not going to link to any resources on TpT or other sites besides that of the publisher because unfortunately this is one of the most plagiarised and abused resource in the educational community. So I’d encourage you to purchase copies and read the book because it’s more than just a bunch of nice posters and bookmarks.

Elements of nonfiction

Now here is where a great many people are going to cry foul and say “not true”, but I’m afraid it is. Most students do no know the elements that comprise nonfiction, and even if given a list of the names of the elements cannot correctly identify them in a nonfiction book. There are 22 features that I identified and teach to students using the very simple technique of taking a nonfiction book and taking pictures of the elements and adding them to a google slide – see this

Once students understand the elements of nonfiction in print you can start relating those to their digital counterparts, making links between informational ecosystem – eBooks, physical books, videos, databases,

Here are some ideas on ways to promote your nonfiction collection from librarian Kerry O’Malley Cerra. Besides that I’ve found bringing some new and exciting books to any meeting or event – not just planning meetings but also coffee mornings, parent-teacher conferences, PD, etc along with a mobile scanner so people can check them out immediately works really well. This blog by Melissa Stewart is well worth subscribing to for great ideas and also thoughts about the relevance of nonfiction and it’s place in the lives of our students. The SLJ has a section called “nonfiction notions” that addresses new book reviews and how to use nonfiction.

Collateral damage or passive Anura?

Classroom libraries vs. school libraries, teacher superstars marginalising teacher librarians – or is it our fault?

This post was first going to go one way and then through holiday laziness in posting, it has taken a kind of dual direction as I have more time for self-reflection and research.

The first offensive was launched by KC Boyd (2018) in her post “Easy Like Sunday Morning: School Libraries vs Classroom Libraries” where she reflects on Chicago School System and the impact on literacy of shifting from school libraries to (only) classroom libraries (hint – it wasn’t favourable). She refers to Ariel Sack’s post on the importance (and diminishing) role of school librarians who asks “Can this project be done by an individual teacher? Yes. But it’s something different when one person with a vision and the time to implement it leads it consistently for the entire school, every year” (Sacks, 2018). I’d argue there is another factor – one very rarely meets a librarian who doesn’t read (I have however met library assistants without any interest in books or reading); but the Peter Effect is well documented in teachers (Applegate & Applegate, 2004; Binks-Cantrell, Washburn, Joshi, & Hougen, 2012; Turner, Applegate, & Applegate, 2009) with studies in various places around the world documenting aliteracy in teachers / pre-service teachers – “Findings revealed that 54.3% of 195 teacher candidates were classified as unenthusiastic about reading and only 25.2% of teacher candidates reported unqualified enjoyment of reading.” (Binks-Cantrell et al., 2012, p. 526), and the picture appears to be getting worse rather than better (Skaar, Elvebakk, & Nilssen, 2018).

This is something easy to lose sight of when twitter, YouTube, Facebook, blogposts and podcasts are dominated by literacy superstars like Pernille Ripp, Colby Sharp, Mr. Schu, Jennifer Gonzalez, Angela Watson etc. But for every one of them, even a small imitation of them, there are likely to be three or more other teachers who are either not enthusiastic about reading, or, who actually don’t deign to read the types of books their students do – something I know my librarian mentor Katie Day, (successfully) worked very hard on with the teachers at UWCSEA-East when she was there. Based on my own experience I have encountered whole grades where not one teacher has been actively and passionately engaged in books and reading, and where this is apparently not seen as an issue (except when it is reflected in their students’ testing scores – but then the solution has been to work on the students rather than the teachers).

Regie Routman in her article “On the level with levelled books” (Routman, 2018), makes some valid arguments for free voluntary reading, and the choice of a selection of relevant and developmentally appropriate books for classroom libraries, but only makes oblique reference to public libraries and with no mention of school libraries or librarians – not even in a nostalgic or wishful manner. Relying on teachers who care and the intervention of a literacy expert is not a long term solution!

Colby Sharp, boasting a 3,000 book classroom library, ordered in a numbered system unfamiliar to any librarian I asked, talks about book checkout and is quick to dismiss the scanning system a librarian assisted him in setting up as “too much trouble”… (Sharp, 2018)

To which Day responded on FB “as long as he is on top of what all his students are reading, then, yes, it could work. But it’s not scaleable — and he doesn’t mention inventory checks — so at the end of the year you know which books might need to be replaced. With 3,000 books, it might be good for his students (other students? other teachers?) to be able to search and discover what books he has in his class library… Just sayin’… And LibraryThing’s TinyCat is definitely an option he might consider — to be able to see his collection online, whether he uses their circulation system or not.”

And then I found out what his library looked like – with a self-invented number system – ok so Dewey doesn’t do it for everyone, but those random numbers? (Sharp, 2017). I love the idea and potential of classroom libraries – I baulk at the cost, duplication of effort, waste of resources, money and time, lack of discoverability, lack of meaningful data and often stagnant nature of them. I have seen money wasted on thoughtless last minute purchasing without any clear strategy, collection management or development. I’ve seen classroom libraries with books that would better be relegated to pulping or, redistributed to older or younger students. I’d be the first to admit that often no one knows students better than their class-teacher, but just as we shouldn’t have to choose between classroom libraries and school libraries, so too the burden of creating dynamic exciting collections needn’t be the domain of only the class teacher or the librarian – together we definitely are better. Dialogue, collaboration, debate, relative expertise – all these things make us stronger as a learning community.

I started out being a little annoyed at the lack of mention of (school) librarians, but then reading the FB question of a librarian, (who shall remain nameless) challenging whether she should be expected to find a selection of books on a specific theme for a teacher because “she’d already shown the teacher how to find book in the system” and the responses I wondered how much of it was our own fault? We should be falling over ourselves to help teachers, parents, administrators, everyone in the community with lists and suggestions and books and resources they didn’t even to know to ask about. We should be anticipating and proactive. Not whining on FB as to where the limits of our job lie. I love the fact that this is one of the careers where you can pretty much be without boundary and limitless in what you can do – all in the interest of teaching and learning.

Spending a bit of time on Twitter I saw what was going on with Project Lit – something started in an English Classroom that is going viral (Riddell, 2018), (and what an excellent book collection they’ve created!) and I thought, darn it – we’re missing so many tricks here. Why aren’t teacher librarians initiating things like this, or the GRA? Why aren’t we leveraging our knowledge and experience in more ways than just fretting about our increasing marginalization and extinction? Why aren’t we taking more leadership and visibility in these arguments and discussions?

project lit

We aren’t part of these discussions and we’re not top of mind to any of the people who are getting attention. Whose problem is that? Do these “superstars” have a blind spot to anything NIH (not invented here), monstrous egos, or are we / have we become just so marginal to the whole reading / literacy scene that we don’t even merit a mention unless prompted (as the Sack article intimated)?

On FB again, another librarian spoke of her school that has gone from a thriving library system with two libraries run by two qualified librarians that’s been whittled down and compromised to one remaining librarian and was wondering what the moral of the story was – I commented “frog in a pot that slowly comes to boil”.

The problem with being a passive Anura is that no one else is going to turn the gas off and you don’t want to be left alone when the party is no longer in the kitchen – with apologies to Joan Lewie (WiggyOfStHelens2008, 2008).

 References

Applegate, A. J., & Applegate, M. D. (2004). The Peter Effect: Reading habits and attitudes of preservice teachers. The Reading Teacher, 57(6), 554–563.

Binks-Cantrell, E., Washburn, E. K., Joshi, R. M., & Hougen, M. (2012). Peter Effect in the Preparation of Reading Teachers. Scientific Studies of Reading, 16(6), 526–536. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2011.601434

Boyd, K. c. (2018, June 3). Easy Like Sunday morning: School libraries vs classroom libraries [Web Log]. Retrieved 5 July 2018, from https://theaudaciouslibrarian.blogspot.com/2018/06/easy-like-sunday-morning-school.html

Sharp, C. (2018). My classroom library checkout system. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9u6KHYoLVE

Sharp, C. (2017). Classroom library tour 2017-2018. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGITHdb8tZ8

Riddell, R. (2018, March 12). Project LIT: How a Nashville educator turned a class project into a nationwide movement [Web Log]. Retrieved 5 July 2018, from https://www.educationdive.com/news/project-lit-how-a-nashville-educator-turned-a-class-project-into-a-nationw/518766/

Routman, R. (2018, June 24). On the level with leveled books [Web Log]. Retrieved 5 July 2018, from https://www.middleweb.com/37973/regie-routman-on-the-level-with-leveled-books/

Sacks, A. (2018, May 29). Why school librarians are the literacy leaders we need [Web Log]. Retrieved 5 July 2018, from https://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?cid=25920011&item=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.edweek.org%2Fv1%2Fblog%2F191%2Findex.html%3Fuuid%3D76470

Skaar, H., Elvebakk, L., & Nilssen, J. H. (2018). Literature in decline? Differences in pre-service and in-service primary school teachers’ reading experiences. Teaching and Teacher Education, 69, 312–323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.10.019

Turner, J. D., Applegate, A. J., & Applegate, M. D. (2009). Teachers as literacy leaders. The Reading Teacher, 63(3), 254–256.

WiggyOfStHelens2008. (2008). Jona Lewie – You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62eTq8ErUOQ

 

 

It’s not (just) the book

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while. A long while. I’m a member of quite a few librarian and school librarian groups and invariably, at least once a month, a question will pop up asking for a “killer” book. Either one that is perfect for reluctant readers, or one that will entice students to read, or the perfect book for boys, for grade 2, 3, 6, middle grade. There is an assumption out there that there’s a quick fix. That one book that will transform lives, transform non-readers to readers. It’s that one dose of the right drug that will make of our students little reading addicts. Firmly entrenched in the Judaeo-Christian culture of the “road to Damascus”. There is a similar culture amongst dieters and sports people. The one tablet, the one food, the one diet, the one coach.

The truth I’m afraid is more nuanced. Yes there are books that capture and imagination and hearts and minds. Just as the “Kid magician” captured that of my BWB (Blokes with Books) last year. But I think once the flame is kindled with a book, the fire needs to be continually fed in order to keep burning.

Since I’m giving a session at the AFCC I was asked to provide a book list so that the books could be available after the session for parents and students to purchase. So on Friday I asked my blokes to write down the top 3 books that they’ve read in the last few months. When they’d done that some grumbled that 3 wasn’t enough, so I let them also add “the ones that got away”.  I’ve just gotten around to analysing the list. Now a list is a list prima facie, unless you have a very good feel for what is going on in the school and the environment it would be very easy to misinterpret this list and think that there was something special about the books.  Yes, each of the books selected by the 21 boys have merit, but there is more.

  1. The top books are books with “cult status“.  I deliberately said they couldn’t choose “Wimpy kid” because it’s already at the top of my “top 10 fiction” lists each month. It’s also the book that everyone always mentions as a panacea to reluctant readers. We know that, let’s move on. So in our top books we find the series of “Storey Treehouse” (Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton). Then comes Harry Potter (JK Rowling) – who is still making his mark, followed by Amulet (Kazu Kibuishi) and Conspiracy 365 (Gabrielle Lord).
  2. The next set of books are very special. Mainly because I KNOW they were teacher read-alouds to various classes. This I think is very important. Yes they are great books, I know because I recommended them to the various teachers. But they aren’t always the easiest books to read independently. These include Because of Mr. Terupt, Pax, Wonder and City of Ember. I cannot over emphasize the importance of teachers reading books aloud to their classes. Particularly “first in the series” books.
  3. The following set shows the power of carefully selected books for national or regional book awards. In this instance the “Red Dot Book Awards” run by the ISLN. Of the selection for 2016/7: Secrets of Singapore; Confessions of an Imaginary Friend; The Thing about Jelly Fish; Blackthorn Key; Bronze and Sunflower; and Circus Mirandus; made the lists. Once again, these are books that students probably wouldn’t naturally gravitate towards, but which have received a lot of publicity in the school, we have at least 6 copies of each which means they’re more widely available and read and talked about.
  4. The power of author visits. During the past year we’ve had the authors of these titles, and it’s shown clearly in their popularity: Sherlock Sam, Secrets of Singapore / Danger Dan.
  5. The rest. What is so interesting about the list is that 21 boys selected 36 different titles in their top 3 lists and a further 10 titles in their “ones that got away”. I really like that. It shows an increasing maturity in reading and a diversity in taste and choice.

The complete list can be found here:

BWB favourites

 

Books I wish would be published

I’ve been asked to be on a panel at the AFCC to chat about “Books Teachers Wish Authors Would Write” from a teacher / librarian perspective. So I put the question out on one of my teacher-librarian networks (an international one) and these were the responses I received:
  • World war 2 in Asia- novel for 8-10 year olds (NF / NNF)
  • big shortage of narrative nonfiction that is NOT about the holocaust, slavery, the American great depression or US civil rights. Also shortage of intra-Asia migration stories not Asia to Europe / north America (NF / NNF)
  • Third culture kids as main characters (CD)
  • More stories about our present/ early future stories that include digital tools and behaviour (D)
  • I’m looking for things like “lego ideas / lego play” but in small manageable books that kids can take out without breaking their backs / the book
  • nonfiction – updated human rights / millennial goals / NGOs / Poverty etc. for G4 level (9 year old) mixed format, good graphic design, mix of narrative and fact (NF)
  • Middle school nonfiction – life in different economic / political systems – communist, socialist, social democracy etc. with a world wide unbiased view of positives and negatives with personal stories and data (NNF)
  • Books on gaming or from the creators of games like Minecraft, Roblox, etc. (D)
  • Conflicts over resources around the world – case studies that are elementary friendly (NF)
  • The next “The Outsiders.” Something to appeal to the teens who fall in love with it in class, and are looking for something like it.
  • Decent Biographies that are at elementary aged level & middle school level without being dumbed down – with more Asian protagonists! (CD / NF)
  • Books purposely written for upper ES that has appropriate content and reading “level” (ELL)
  • More ES novels featuring multicultural characters that are not related to war or historical events (CD)
  • Books about world topics that are appropriate for kinder/g2 (NF)
  • Modern urban indigenous stories – universal experiences in all first nations people. (CD)
  • Easy read stories that are well written & not dumbed down for teens. – yes! especially for our ELL students! And that don’t portray just the…..dark side of life? I feel like when I was purchasing for xxx, the high interest/low level books all were about gang members/drug dealers in the US. (ELL)
  • Science fiction for Elementary kids. (SF)
  • Middle Grade fiction with a Korean protagonist (My Name Was Keoko style) (CD)
  • Books with culturally diverse characters. I still remember teaching a boy could Yousef who threw the book down in disgust and said ‘Why can’t they give them normal names?’……the character was called Joseph. Which really isn’t that out there, unless you’re an Arab boy. Then it’s just weird. (CD)
  • LGBT books for tweens (G)
  • Definitely more emigration/immigration stories that are intra-Asia. There are so many diaspora stories to be told that have nothing to do with Europe or North America. (NF / NNF)
  • Does anyone want war stories set in Asia – like Japanese invasion/ Korean War / American or Vietnam war with perspective from the non-western side – or is that too sensitive? (NF / NNF)
  • My teachers want more World War 1 fiction for grades 6-8 and social justice books for middle schoolers.(NF / NFF)
  • My middle school girls want more heroes that are NOT princesses. (G)
  • My boys want fiction that has video game elements like Minecraft stories.(D)
  • All of my high schoolers want “classics” with better covers.
  • what about this: teachers, school, parents do not compare my score with others, do not give me homework, I want to play. (C)

I’ve tried to code the answers as follows:

  • NF / NNF: narrative nonfiction – 10x
  • CD: cultural diversity – 6x
  • D: digital / gaming element – 3x
  • G: Gender related – 2x
  • ELL: hi lo / books for English Language Learners – 2x
  • SF: Science fiction – 1x
  • C: cultural issue – 1x

Looking at these I think that the theme is a general frustration with a lack of books with an Asian context.  Particularly historical fiction / narrative nonfiction and culturally diverse characters. We all know that the USA dominates publishing, followed by the UK. Australia has some good stuff out but limits itself by its steep pricing, expensive shipping costs and insular publishing industry. China is a late entrant into children’s books and is making great inroads – but mainly in translation into Chinese. What is particularly commendable is that they are not just translating the (North) American staples but many of the brilliant and wonderful European offerings.

Then I did a similar exercise with the BWB (Blokes with Books) yesterday. I asked them to go in groups of 2-4 students and tell me what kind of book they were missing in their lives. Books they wish authors would write.   They were amazing – a couple of groups even started writing the books they wish were written (a nice outcome given the fact that teachers are now complaining that we’ve got them reading but their writing is still poor).

Their suggestions could also be broadly grouped:

  • Two groups wanted Harry Potter extensions or back stories – one wanted the parallel books that focused on the other houses, not just Gryffindor Tower. Another group was fascinated by the horcruxes and wanted a book on that.
  • One group wanted an elaborate Pokemon book that inverted some of the characters with unexpected twists.
  • One group combined the ideas of the three group members into a fantasy / reality mixture involving video games and rugby with a wimpy gaming protagonist being forced to play rugby by an over-zealous parent and learning tricks and manouvers in video games that led him to dominate on the real life rugby pitch.
  • One group wanted (and started outlining the chapters) of a Roblox user manual.
  • Quite a few of them agreed they’d like fiction books with colour pictures inside

I’d like to add a note to the above list – the students are not yet familiar with fan fiction, and I’m not sure they’ve looked into the Harry Potter wikis. In a sense that makes me happy that they’re still at that wonderful age where this type of magical immersive reading stuff is to be found in books rather than online. They are aware that there are user forums on these games and chat rooms etc. BUT THEY WANT TO READ ABOUT IT IN A BOOK. This is a GOOD thing. Whenever they ask for books about Minecraft and Roblox and video games and I tell them we have some of the storybook series, the Minecraft “how to” and “surely you can just ask online” they say “but we want a book”.  There are few Roblox books and they all seem to be eBook editions (publishing haste?). The Minecraft adventure books are not what they’re looking for – remember the colour pictures comment? They want more graphics! I think also as adults we see their online/offline selves as separate, whereas they don’t, and they want to see that new normal reflected in what they read. They’re all avid fantasy readers, and that I think is partially meeting their need for that online/offline fantasy/reality integration.

A caveat to all the comments (and a personal gripe) – above all children want a well written story. They don’t want to be preached to. They’re sophisticated and well- and globally read. And they can spot the fakes. As a teacher-librarian I get immensely frustrated by wanna-be and self-published authors who keep trying to foist their wares on me when it’s immediately apparent that they’re poorly written, even more badly illustrated, not edited and horribly and cheaply published. Writers need to read. They need to read a lot, they need to read widely. They need to research not just their topic but also who else has written about it, tangentially to it, similarly to it. If you want to self-publish, unless you’re a designer, pay someone to do your design for you. Unless you’re an author-illustrator find the best illustrator you can afford. And everyone, join a writing / critique group (like SCWBI) – honestly, other authors are not out to steal your ideas – they’re too busy working on their own passions. And when you think you’re done, get a good and critical editor. All authors need good editors, even great authors. Do yourself a favour and look at the interactive TS Eliot “The Wasteland” and see all the handwritten edits by Ezra Pound.

To come back to the forum and the original question that started all this:

“Creators can step into the shoes of a teacher for one hour and learn what makes a book a treasured find. From beautiful illustrations to didactic language, speakers discuss their views on relevant and useful books children need and love.”

What a huge question. Relevant is not always pedagogically useful. Useful for whom? Relevant to what?  I’d like to end with the most relevant and useful and just plain wonderful book I’ve encountered this year – Stormy seas: stories of young boat refugees. 

31213610 Well done Annick Press (that does a lot of amazing things – particularly in nonfiction) It has become the new gold standard to which I will hold all nonfiction. The elements that make it so special:

  • Great graphics – combination of good design elements with original primary source photos
  • Easy to navigate blocks of text
  • Personal stories
  • Historical facts
  • Timelines
  • Maps

It is not out yet (April 2017) and I got a preview copy through Netgalley (sign up if you’re a teacher / librarian), I showed it to a couple of classes from G3-G6 and all were clamouring for a copy afterwards – something unusual for nonfiction. And when I couldn’t give them I copy I managed to “sell” some of my otherwise untouched narrative nonfiction / historic fiction books on WW2 etc.

Another surprising (but not really because it’s so absolutely wonderful) hit has been Echo. It’s a huge book but every child and adult whose hand I’ve put 22749539it into  has just loved it – depite the fact that it takes a while to get through. Why – I suspect that the range and diversity of the characters and settings is satisfying to my international audience. But it is also great storytelling. And then they go on to read all the other Pam Muñoz Ryan books, which is also an excellent outcome.

 

What would you like to see more of that is “relevant and useful”?

It’s so beautiful I want to cry …

It’s been a tough few weeks, and this morning I was reminded just what it’s all about. I was reading “All the lost things” by Kelly Canby to a Grade 2 class, and at the end, one little girl said “It’s so beautiful I want to cry” at which point I also wanted to plink a tear. Because it is beautiful. And what is even more beautiful is when a 7 year old recognises and empathises with beauty in a book.

lost-things

From an instructional point – it also has great links to the string of Lauren Castillo books we’ve been reading as part of the Global Read aloud  so we could refer back to “Nana in the City” and “Yard Sale”.

The other moment of sad beauty this morning was reading “Small Things” by Mel Tregonning. It was the third or fourth time I’ve started reading this, and each time I had to stop after a few pages since it’s not something you can just read in a hurry. It’s something that needs you to slow down and take your time. You also both need to not know the back story before reading it, and then to read the back story and then read it again.  Many young children suffer from stress and anxiety. The fact this is a wordless book makes it even more powerful. Look at the demons following him and eating away at his existence.

I’m almost at a loss at what to do with this. I can see parents being terrified by this, and yet we need to acknowledge the range of feelings and emotions our children endure. It would be a powerful book for use with bibliotherapy, but one almost doesn’t want it used wrongly.

Make-over update

When I tell people we’re getting to renovate and extend our library their first reaction is “wow, that’s amazing, you’re so lucky!”. And yes, prima facie it is so. But right now it’s feeling rather overwhelming. And ironically most of that is not so much to do with the change as the amount of preparation that needs to be done. Speaking of change – you HAVE to get “Bug in a Vacuum”

I am a veteran of moving. 10 countries in 24 years plus countless internal moves in those countries and 3 moves in the last 5 years. I know it pays to be prepared and to clean and clear before the move. And as I remarked in my last post, a lot of that cleaning and clearing happens behind the scene.  Things are slightly more complicated as well due to well, life. Unforeseen circumstances. Like one staff member on maternity and another on hospitalisation leave. And part of my gratitude thoughts each day are for my remaining staff member who is picking up a lot of the slack and the temporary staff member who is happy to learn the ropes and keep things ticking over. And the other temp who has been coming in and the occasional parent or volunteer for their kindness.  But it does slow things down as we adapt and learn.

So, significant but time consuming things that have been done this week – including taking up time in my weekends – those weekends that I thought would be computer and work free now that I’ve finished my M.Ed!

  • Putting patron photos into FollettDestiny  – easy in theory but quite a lot of preparation work – including learning all sorts of new Excel tricks on how to add things before and after text in cells!  And of course 90% goes well, but the 10% that bombs out, takes 90% of your time to trace why an upload didn’t work, what went wrong and how to remedy it.
  • Cleaning up patron data.  After the last patron update I found about nine pages of patron data that just wasn’t right. Parents marked as students or staff, students who had left years ago, staff who had left, incorrect emails etc.  Now bear in mind, when I prepare these lists, I then go into school with a full teaching schedule and it literally took 2 people 2 days to clear it all up in-between their regular tasks of circulation, shelving and THE PREP
  • Yes, the PREP. we have 9 different grades from Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 6, and each of those have 4 (Kindergarten) -6 (the rest) UOIs. The library has to be vacated by next Friday. Most UOI’s are changing over on Monday coming. Many UOIs have changed this year. So that means checking the central idea etc. checking previous year’s lists, quickly checking with the lead that my understanding of where the topic /theme / concept is going is the same as theirs, making new lists and then packing up 18 boxes of books and DVDs – 9 for the coming week when we’ll have over 1000 books returned from the last units and 9 for the first weeks of January 2017 – just in case. Because of course our handover of an empty library to the designers / constructors is 1 December and of course their hand-back to us is 1 January. But I am of little faith that things are flawless. So I err on the side of caution.  And bear in mind, we’re still having our 35 classes a week, plus all sorts of meetings that are using the library so we’re configuring and reconfiguring the space and arranging catchup classes…
  • The new books. And the wrongly processed books. I still hold vestiges of anger on our last big book order with Follett that went horribly wrong in every which way it could have gone wrong. They didn’t deliver on time or as arranged, they catalogued incorrectly, spine labels were wrong etc. So we’re still sorting out that mess. And then I put in a couple of other smaller orders, but our cataloguer is off on hospitalisation leave so we’re cataloging on the fly.  Now this is a GOOD thing I keep on telling myself. I’m all for final responsibility for tasks and work flow, but I’m also all for everyone pitching in and helping and knowing all aspects of the process. It’s been a little peeve of mine in the library world that there is so much segregation of duties and these past weeks have just proven that given the chance people can do way more than they or anyone else may have thought. But it is extra work – did I mention what else was going on?
  • The weeding. Saying goodbye is so hard to do!  I must admit having absolutely no problems ditching the disney fairy series that no-one was looking at or borrowing. But then there are other books – Michael Rosen’s “Sad”. I’m sad that no-one seems to have ever borrowed that. And I feel bad that I’ve not marketed it, or allowed it to see the light of day and be nurtured and treasured. Perhaps if I pair it with Bug in a Vacuum?  Weeding is sweet sorrow. It highlights our failings as book pushers. I feel like a neglectful parent when a book that’s been bought doesn’t get the attention it needs. I spend time with each of them and ponder whether putting them on a resource list would help. (No jokes about “will this bring me or someone else joy) Or perhaps asking students and teachers to ponder their fate. And I do both, and some survive for another day.
  • Acquisition plan – my kids ask me “if we’re getting a new library does that mean we’re getting new books?” This is the double edged sword of money and budget. I was talking to some fellow librarians last week – their budgets are double mine. Sometimes less is more. Our students and our teachers probably only have capacity for perhaps one really good reading book a week. Each. What should that book be? And for research / nonfiction? It’s so hard. I try so hard, but this week it has been stingrays and grasshoppers. Boats and jet planes. Last week it was fast cars and how to make your own vegetable garden (try getting one of those for an equatorial climate, suitable for G2 level), dinosaurs are totally out of favour. They want tornados and not hurricanes.  And “Miss where are your Indian books?”  and “there’s nothing on Bangladesh” I’m trying to diversify. They deserve Indian books, and overseas Chinese but not ABC (American born Chinese) books, and Korean protagonists and Japanese heroes. The triplet sister of acquisition and weeding is discoverability. I need to crack that nut in the new library. Does that mean genrefying, through label or location? Does it mean more work on resource lists or libguides or other pathfinders?

The problem with grappling with all these things is that they take up a lot of brainspace and thought space and discussion space. All of which is being take up by doing. I’m looking forward to the library being boxed up and having time to be more strategic, having time to go into classrooms and observe and understand.

 

 

A few of my favourite things

Series sorted in boxes with QR code

I started my professional placement last Monday and I’ll be working at one International School library for 4 days a week, under the guidance of a very experienced library, while continuing to get myself wet by jumping in the deep end with the library makeover project at the other school on a Wednesday.

It’s been quite an adjustment after a “working hour” type work hiatus for the last few years.  But there are more than enough of my favourite things happening for that to bother me.

During the past week I’ve:

* sorted guided readers and tried to reconcile orphan books with their boxed companions and ensure they’re properly catalogued and physically accessible to the teachers and children who need them
* peeled off old stickers under an old system and replaced them with the new ones

The Princess Collection …
was never my “thing” but
girls who like princess books
have a nice habit of calling
you “pretty” – so let’s indulge them

* created a cataloguing taxonomy for cataloguing our chinese books – although as the librarian said – it was a Porche and they only needed a Lada.
* done some circulation – checked books in and books out, and for the littlies checked the same books in and out and in and out while they decide which books are the most critical for their reading this week.
* been called “pretty” by a very sweet little girl (ego stroke!)
* been in contact with lots and lots and lots of great and wonderful books (more later)
* had nice buzzy conversations with wonderful people who love and read great books
* started making a template Libguide that we can use to create other Libguides for all our IB subjects.  It will be for introductory guides to let students “get their feet wet” in a topic as they start thinking about what their passion is and which they’d like to do their EE (extended essay) on.