SLMS Interview

I interviewed a librarian at an elementary school in Scott County.

She started out in the classroom teaching third grade and received her library science degree as she was teaching. She was in a library position at another elementary last year. What she loves best about being a librarian is engaging students as readers and sparking their interest.  She loves doing book-related, technology projects with them such as Glogster, Voki, and Animoto. She enjoys when students analyze literature and process the themes, characters, etc. to "teach" others through Web 2.0 Tools.

She has complete control over choosing a variety of literature, including multicultural and translated works. Her only limitation is budget! Spanish is the most common translated language and finding other languages is tricky, although the problem is from the publishers end, not a limitation in her freedom.

The library helps teachers the most by supporting their curriculum.  If they're teaching a unit, she will pull not only print materials, but find AV and online resources for them.

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I asked her if she helped students who came to the library for independent research.  That doesn’t happen often on the elementary level because they are always coming as their scheduled "AHPL" class (arts & humanities/practical living), or "specials" time.  However, they definitely do research as a class in the library.  She starts with the Big 6 model and the I-safe lessons about copyright and plagiarism. She sometimes gives mini lessons on note-taking. There is a Symbaloo page for students with the most helpful websites/links for them to browse to find what they need.  As far as print materials, she’ll pull biographies or career books depending on the research project.

Her school does have an online policies and procedures manual for the library, and she adopted much of it from her other school. Policies and procedures are really for the times when she is challenged and needs a paper trail for support. It’s great to have in the beginning, to guide the program and for parent’s knowledge, but she doesn’t reference it often, once it has been set.  The Live binder IS her policies and procedures, and the school blog is for the library, but not public ready. She shared two links for her library:

http://www.livebinders.com/edit/index/756631

http://amelibrary.weebly.com

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When a parent/teacher/administrator challenges a book, she has them fill out a Book Challenge form on her Livebinder, under censorship.

More than anything, she needs volunteers, preferably parents, to help with so many things. She doesn’t think she could list all the jobs she needs help with!

Here is her hit list:

Re-shelving,

Printing bar codes/spine labels, and coding stickers to prepare for the shelf
Pulling books for teachers; curricular units, requests, etc.

Book Fair
Covering paperbacks with contact paper
Book Repair

She would also love more help with checking-out classes while she’s teaching. The school does 4-day rotations, so with 800 students if she didn't allow the classes to come during other times, each child would only get to check out 4 times between August and December!  She allows teachers come in for 15 minutes during a convenient time for them each week to allow those that need to renew/checkout to do so, and these are the times she needs help.