Library Day in the Life-- Day #4

Really, it's pretty much the same thing every day in my library. Check in, check out, monitor students. But there's a lot more I need to do that's hard to get to.

Here’s what I would be doing if I had no students for the day.

• Planning some library lessons ahead.
• Developing projects with teachers on various topics. Anyone have anything good on “the legacy of Rome”?
• Cleaning the back room. After our major renovation and moving this summer, there are a few things missing, and I have learned my lesson about cleaning out. Need to look for my three hole punch and think about getting rid of some tape recorders.
• Shelf reading and weeding. Where is Bad Girls in Love? Probably in the nonfiction. And how have I been here for 15 years without realizing that my Dracula book is not about the movie, but rather a bad novelization of it? As with cleaning out, this is a continual project.
• Talking with teachers to assess their equipment needs. The district purchased LCD projectors for each room, leaving me with about 15 television/DVD/VCR combinations on carts. Some of those, as well as any overheads that are not working properly, can go to auction.
• Taking down the huge and mainly inoperable Media Retrieval System whose vast metal cabinet takes up half of my back room. Can’t really do this, but I would love to.
• Cleaning and repairing equipment. Also barcoding things for easier check out.
• Filing my purchase order paper work. From the last, um, nine years.

Obviously, these are not hugely important things, but they must be done every soften. This is why I close for five days at the end of the year. I open the very first day, and come in a lot in the summer, but some projects require a significant amount of time sitting on the floor in the dust, so they are hard to do in the morning, and impossible to do during the day.