I am so relieved to have the work from this class completed. I have enjoyed the work, but here in the last three weeks or so, the crunch almost crushed me. I am relieved to have finished my copyright project. I did a prezi, which is something entirely new, but I think it worked well. I am anxious to do more with it. A prezi is a presentation method similar to power point, but it allows for a less linear approach to a presentation. It shows movement and interconnectedness of various parts of the presentation. I enjoyed putting it together and feel like it was effective. I would have liked to have incorporated more visual elements, but I guess I need to experiment more and learn more about the program.

I enjoyed all of the presentations from the groups on copyright. It is amazing how everyone took very similar information and presented it in so many different formats. I thought the conversation tonight about what worked and what didn't work about the class was very productive and professional. Overall, I enjoyed the class, but I am definitely looking forward to nights of more sleep and less stress.

Spellbound

Our class is meeting tonight to present our Controversial Issues Projects to each other and, apparently, several other classes of students. Through this project, I have learned a lot about teleplace and it is easy for me to lose track of time working on getting stuff "just right" in there. I could, and did, work for hours getting some things "just right" in my eyes. I'm sure some of the things I did aren't exactly what other members of the group had in mind, but I hope they are not opposed. Overall, I like our group's room; I feel like it meets the needs of the assignment and the audience. I think we could have broken down our information more about witches and witchcraft into a more condensed format, but overall, I am happy with the end-product.

Lessons learned

My group met again last night face to face, minus Lee Ann, at the Hickory building, because she had a conflict. We began with the intentions of having a "short" meeting because Amanda has comany coming in to town, but we ended up staying until they kicked us out shortly before 9. Then I went to Barnes and Noble and worked on finishing up my weeding project until they kicked me out at 11:00. If I had it to do all over again, I would do some things differently. I spent a lot of time at the school helping the librarian to weed and I gained a lot of valuable experiences, but these do not translate at all on paper. I was ultimately disappointed in what I turned in as my selection/deselection project. There were things I wanted to do but either ran out of time to do or didn't know how to put it together. I also hit some speedbumps in searching for information about the books I had chosen. I spent a great deal of time working with the librarian (Lydia), helping her to weed her own way, which was very different from Karen Lowe's way, but I imagine a lot of librarians might also weed in the same way that Lydia does. She picks a shelf section and visually scans the selections, pulling those that look like they are either worn out, or too old, checking copyrights, of course.

I have also used this method. Then I have used a shelf list and (at great effort, but that's another story) a circulation report. I very much prefer using a shelf list and circulation report. No matter how in tune the librarian is with his or her collection and patrons, I do not believe anyone can truly keep up with which books are being checked out and which are not in the non-fiction section. Hence the circulation report. The librarian has been hesitant to allow me to weed the AR section of non-fiction because she insists that kids check these out. OK, how does she KNOW? She did not know how to print a circulation report, neither did the county media coordinator. Eventually, I figured it out with the software manual and access to the circulation report application. Even with the best of intentions, a librarian can't know everything about the collection, and a librarian can have too much attachment to the books that move in and out of the library on a day to day basis. I found that my visual evaluation of the shelved books yielded a much smaller pool of books to discard than my less personal evaluation using the shelf list. When I tried to go back to weed more, after using the shelf list and discovering so many more books that were incredibly out of date, I found that there would be nearly nothing left if I was allowed to remove everything that was aged, according to IMPACT guidelines.

We did a lot of weeding that needed to be done--at last count, about 300 books have been removed from the non-AR nonfiction sections 000-350, also the 796s (which was the area I weeded for my project), the 500s and the 900s (which Lydia weeded). The librarian did about one fourth of the pulling of books from the shelves and I did all of the processing. I ripped off bar codes, wrote "discard" in two places in the book, and deleted the copy records from the circulation software. Then, we put the books up for "adoption" by staff and students, gladly giving them new life rather than throwing them "away." I do not regret the experience I have gained through this process--and I am not finished. I will go back one more Friday to finish up the work that I started because I do not want to leave the librarian with my unfinished work. I have about 40 books I've pulled from the 200s to 350s that need to be processed. I also need to share with Lydia the books I chose to replace some of what we have discarded. Some of the books we discarded do not need to be replaced either because there are already a number of strong titles in that subject or because they never were really appropriate for middle school anyway. One important factor that I considered when choosing books was the frugality factor--the books need to get a lot of bang for the buck. The books should be viable for as long as possible, and should be on subject matter that is interesting for the students in a format that is appealing. School librarians do not have a lot of money for books, so it is that much more important to choose books that will suit the needs and interests of the service population. A few of the books were chosen by Lydia and me, looking together, and the rest were chosen just by me. I know that Lydia will choose some of these if she gets the grant money next year. I have had a unique experience in this project, because, for me it was more than just an assignment; I went into the project wanting to help and to learn and to make a valuable difference in the library I chose. In those goals, I believe I have succeeded and I am satisfied with that.

teleplace = time vortex

Our controversial issues group met face to face to work on our project and get our room set up. I've discovered that Teleplace is going to be a time vortex. We worked on our project during what would have normally been our class time last week. We started at 5:30 and worked until we were literally kicked out at 9:00, then did 20 minutes more of talking in the parking lot. Then, when I got home, I got onto teleplace again to do a little work. Around 11:00, Lee Ann came into our room in teleplace and we talked and worked a little. Then, at 11:30, she dismissed herself to go to bed. She was the smart one. I worked and fiddled until 1:30 am!!!!Am I crazy???? The bottom line is that I don't have a lot of bang for my buck in Teleplace. There is not enough actual measured progress to justify the amount of time spent. I must exercise self control, which means, for now, I am staying out of our room because I have too much other stuff to do. I don't need another time vortex.

finished Once a Witch

Well, I just finished reading Once a Witch, by Carolyn MacCullough. It is a good feeling. The book was listed on VoYA's Top Shelf Fiction for 2009, and because the story involves witchcraft, I thought it would be good to read it with a school librarian's eye--with particular caution to determine if this book would be a likely candidate for future challenges. I have had to squeeze reading this book between the other readings and assignments I have had to do for my classes, so it has taken me a while to read. I would agree with the reviews I've read that it is a well-written book, intended for young adult readers. In the search for objectionable content, I found just a few curse words, mild references to sexual innuendo, and vague descriptions of rituals involved in witchcraft. Overall, I do not see much that a parent would boldy fight against, although I do not think I would choose it to read in the classroom in a group because of the language. There is an overall good verses evil, black vs. white magic theme, with the heroine representing the cause of good. The main character is somewhat of a misfit in her own family and later sees her true potential; the character is easily identifiable with the YA audience. Also, the action lends itself well to future books in a series. Frankly, I was hoping for a little more drama in the censorship department, but it just wasn't there, in my opinion. Maybe if the discussion of witchcraft were more prominent or more bold, there would be more controversy, but I just don't see it happening. The amount of witchcraft is suitable for the story without taking over, and there is just enough magic and fantasy to keep the reader interested.

if I survive

Today's struggle, or should I say yesterday's struggle because it is now after 1 am, has been working on my critique. A one-page critique, for me, should have been an absolute breeze, a walk in the park, a piece of cake, or other cliche analogy. I spent a good bit of time researching another article because the article I had intended to use is too old for the parameters of the assignment. Then, my next hurdle was to research what format to use, looking at all kinds of apa sites, examples, descriptions of annotated bibliographies, apa format for bibliographic entries. The bottom line is I am really tired and I feel like I am so out of the college loop. I am not sure the papers I am doing are in quite the correct format, according to APA style, but I am giving it my best shot. As near as I can figure, Dr. Nita just wants the bibliographic information in the APA format but the format of the critique is more loosely interpreted. At least that is my hope. If I am too far off base, I hope to find out before I attempt critique #2.

I've been working on this article since this morning--This is my day--Took kids to school, then Erik to Therapy, then Erik and Greg to Mom's for babysitting (thank you Mom), then back home to shower and make cupcakes and wrap gift for baby shower tonight, then to husband's school to drop off lunch, then back to Mom's to work on article for about 2 hours, then to pick up 3 oldest kids from school, then home and bring in 3 year old grumpy and crying because he needs a nap, then prepare supper, then scurry to church to set up for baby shower, frost cupcakes there and set up room for shower, then home, then kids to bed, then hug husband, then eat supper, then start work again on homework, then 4 hours later, I am going to bed. If I survive the next two years, I will have earned my degree (sigh).

I learned, I believe, . . . I ramble

In class last week, we did an activity that was geared toward helping us reflect on our experiences so far. I had a lot to say. I've had so much going on in my head that I have not gotten down on the computer screen, either in the blogs or the discussion boards. It isn't that I haven't wanted to; it has really been a time management issue for me. I am totally swamped with different things and people pulling me in different directions. I have had sick kids, I have a new and very time-consuming and important responsibility at church and all of these things are very important. I tend to take care of others first and leave me to last which has transferred to my schoolwork.

I am absolutely devastated by this, yet I know it is my choice to put these other things first. As a student, I have always had high expectations of myself and my work, and I have not even come close to meeting these expectations with my coursework so far this semester. I have allowed myself to get behind, but I am working on doing what I can to catch up. I have discovered in this process, that these classes do mean a lot to me. I am enjoying their content; I am enjoying learning about media center collections and technology. I feel I am making the right choice in a career change because I enjoy what I am learning and I feel like I have strengths that will be great assets to me in this profession. There have been other workshops and classes I have attended in the past where I just did it because I needed to for a requirement or because I was being made to attend a conference for teaching. At these times, I did the work but didn't have the intensity of feelings for the work that I do for these classes. Maybe it is because I have spent the last 8 years taking care of others (which I do not regret at all--my children are the "others" and I wouldn't trade my time with them when they are small) and I finally feel like I am doing something for me. Whatever the reason, I know I am doing the right thing by attending these classes and working on my degree. I just have to figure out a way to give the time I need to give in order to succeed.