I learned
I believe
I feel
I wonder
activity from class--will blog about it later
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
group meeting & new ideas
We met with our controversial issues group tonight in Teleplace. Collectively, we decided we could get organized a little better if we met face to face but we couldn't work out a time yet to do that. Instead, we decided that our project has been stuck in the research phase and we need to move more toward organizing our information so that we can progress. I feel like we've just been spinning our wheels.
We also talked about an idea I had. I have started reading ONCE A WITCH, which I found out about through my Selection Tools Project. It was one of VOYA's Top Shelf Fiction picks for 2009 so it is a relatively new and unknown title. Because it is an adolescent novel about a family of witches, I thought it has the potential of garnering future challenges. So I proposed the idea to the group that I read the book with the purpose of seeking out aspects of the book that could possibly become challenged. It would be important to be familiar with other challenges based on witchcraft that have already occurred to read a text with that in mind. It is the type of thing that a librarian would face--a new book and a challenge on that book that has not had the benefit of lots of reviews and exposure. I thought it would be a good experience and might become something useful for our project. We shall see.
We also talked about an idea I had. I have started reading ONCE A WITCH, which I found out about through my Selection Tools Project. It was one of VOYA's Top Shelf Fiction picks for 2009 so it is a relatively new and unknown title. Because it is an adolescent novel about a family of witches, I thought it has the potential of garnering future challenges. So I proposed the idea to the group that I read the book with the purpose of seeking out aspects of the book that could possibly become challenged. It would be important to be familiar with other challenges based on witchcraft that have already occurred to read a text with that in mind. It is the type of thing that a librarian would face--a new book and a challenge on that book that has not had the benefit of lots of reviews and exposure. I thought it would be a good experience and might become something useful for our project. We shall see.
I have been working but not blogging. Oh no! During the past 2 weeks, everyone in my house has been sick, including me, but I think we are almost back to normal.
I have been working with Lydia on a little weeding. I wasn't able to go to the school two Fridays ago because of sick children, but I had a productive day last Friday. It was productive, but not directly related to my weeding project. Lydia had pulled a lot of books from the 900's--mostly history, WWII, etc. books that needed to be discarded. So I processed them for discarding. It was 104 books. That doesn't sound like all that much, but it did take a while. These were books that the librarian had pulled sometime last week when she had some time. I think her process of weeding is largely based on visual handling of the books. She looks at a section and pulls books one at a time and decides if they are worthy to remain or destined for retirement.
For my selection/deselection project, I am supposed to take a section and weed it then choose suitable replacements for at least 10 of the discarded books. I have already gone through the non-AR 796's, at the request of the librarian. I pulled several books for discard. Then, after we had class with Karen Lowe, I wanted to try out her technique of weeding using the shelf list. So I asked Lydia to print a shelf list of the 796's. I highlighted and highlighted. There are lots more books that should be removed for discard. I asked Lydia if I could look through the non-AR section of 796's but she said she wants to keep all of those because the kids check them out. A little frustration here, because the shelf list indicates that there are lots, probably 75% of the current collection, that need to be discarded. I would like to at least take a look, so I plan to this Friday.
Also, I have been somewhat frustrated because Karen Lowe's technique requires us to use a shelf list and a circulation report to indicate which books are being checked out. I have asked the librarian, another librarian at another school, and the Media supervisor at the county level and none of them are aware of how to print a report that will tell me which books haven't been checked out in a while. There is a way to do it book-by-book to see when the book was checked out last. There HAS to be a way to generate a report that would list several books and indicate if they have been checked out recently. It may be a report showing books that have not circulated in a given period of time. There just HAS to be a way. My next course of action is to get in contact with the help desk of the Follett software people or to ask other students in class Thursday night if they know how to print such a report. I just cannnot believe it is not an option.
I have been working with Lydia on a little weeding. I wasn't able to go to the school two Fridays ago because of sick children, but I had a productive day last Friday. It was productive, but not directly related to my weeding project. Lydia had pulled a lot of books from the 900's--mostly history, WWII, etc. books that needed to be discarded. So I processed them for discarding. It was 104 books. That doesn't sound like all that much, but it did take a while. These were books that the librarian had pulled sometime last week when she had some time. I think her process of weeding is largely based on visual handling of the books. She looks at a section and pulls books one at a time and decides if they are worthy to remain or destined for retirement.
For my selection/deselection project, I am supposed to take a section and weed it then choose suitable replacements for at least 10 of the discarded books. I have already gone through the non-AR 796's, at the request of the librarian. I pulled several books for discard. Then, after we had class with Karen Lowe, I wanted to try out her technique of weeding using the shelf list. So I asked Lydia to print a shelf list of the 796's. I highlighted and highlighted. There are lots more books that should be removed for discard. I asked Lydia if I could look through the non-AR section of 796's but she said she wants to keep all of those because the kids check them out. A little frustration here, because the shelf list indicates that there are lots, probably 75% of the current collection, that need to be discarded. I would like to at least take a look, so I plan to this Friday.
Also, I have been somewhat frustrated because Karen Lowe's technique requires us to use a shelf list and a circulation report to indicate which books are being checked out. I have asked the librarian, another librarian at another school, and the Media supervisor at the county level and none of them are aware of how to print a report that will tell me which books haven't been checked out in a while. There is a way to do it book-by-book to see when the book was checked out last. There HAS to be a way to generate a report that would list several books and indicate if they have been checked out recently. It may be a report showing books that have not circulated in a given period of time. There just HAS to be a way. My next course of action is to get in contact with the help desk of the Follett software people or to ask other students in class Thursday night if they know how to print such a report. I just cannnot believe it is not an option.
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