Lesson One: Introduction

·  Alice Kedves

·  Chemainus Secondary 8-12, 382 students.

·  I started teaching in 1991, but took seven years off for maternity leave with my two kids who are now ten and seven (Sarah and Luke).

·  Moved into the library in September 2009 when the librarian retired. I have three out of seven blocks library and teach four blocks senior English.

·  I have completed seven courses, and have the final three this term.

·  I enjoy spending other people's money on books, as I have a weakness for buying books. I enjoy helping kids find books they love, and relish having to buy second copies of books because they are being taken out and I have so many requests for books. I love my group of library groupies who meet me at the door every morning aching to get into the library and who bemoaned my absence last week.

·  In the library, I complete all technical services, although any serious issues require a call to the principal or the tech service guy. I upload my data from the district website, but have a phone by a computer station where I sit and the CUPE help desk will remotely work on my data base if need be.

·  I upload the MARC records which are created by the CUPE staff at the DRC. They process the books and attach the bar codes. I stamp them with my school stamp and then shelve them as they come in. I have noticed that the previous librarians wrote some kinds of codes inside the books, but since I have no idea why (perhaps I'll learn) I have not continued this practice.

·  We use L4U. I just purchased the newest version so I can add book covers, students can add book reviews, etc. The district uses L4U, but I am the only school with the updated version. (Thanks to my principal.) 

·  The DRC (District Resource Center) staff do my book processing. The head secretary in our school office does my P.O.s and ordering. I give her catalogues with my requests highlighted.

·  I would like to learn more about the DDS as I am only now getting to know certain areas with confidence. I guess I didn't learn it at school, but I have noticed that during my grade 8 orientation students were very familiar with it.

·  I am taking three courses this term, all core courses, so I feel that my skills as a librarian will gain a stronger foundation. I might also be a bit overwhelmed!!

 Reflection on readings:  

As I read the CASL Competencies for Teacher-Librarians I couldn't help but make the connection with relationships. It seems more and more the idea of relationship as primary comes up in my life. It is through the development of relationships with other teachers/staff and students that we can become most effective in our roles as librarian. One of the most difficult areas for me, in this list, is the standard "Develops with teachers a coordinated approach to information literacy." In my school information technology seems to be held by one teacher, and he sees it as his job and his job alone. All other teachers are relegated to old labs that do not run a number of the neater features. I would like to work on this area in the upcoming years, to see how we can approach these 21 Century skills as a team, and in this way students can make connections between courses and content.

The comment in the course introduction, "When organizing resources, our objectives should be to do so in such a way that this will help all school library users meet the information literacy goals of the school library program and of their school.", highlights the weakness I noted above. Information literacy goals need to be school wide and recognized by the entire staff, rather than seen as the role of one teacher or program.

The question is posed "Can we have a strong library program and be poorly organized?" I would say no. When I took over the library, 2000 books had been deleted from the database. They were on the shelves, but not in the database. How could the previous librarian have missed this? Perhaps this problem is why she retired early? I am still correcting error in the database after 18 months, and the tidier the database is, the easier it is for students and teachers to find materials in the library. I didn't realize how detail oriented a librarian needs to be, and also a bit of a perfectionist on top!

When I took over the library, I was shocked to discover that almost all staff had no idea how to search the library database and most students did not know you can search the database to find books. I found students wandering the stacks looking for books by scanning titles. I am a long way off all students knowing how and where to find books, but I do feel I am making progress.