Things that make me smile

Today, one of the hall monitors asked if he could bring a middle school class into the library until the the person who was covering that class could come get them. She never did come get them (I was pretty sure that would happen; I wish they'd just ask me if I'll cover the class, because I really don't mind), but I had the joy of seeing the students poring over some of the new books I bought. Not just reading, but almost fighting over who got to read them, reading them out loud, trading them back and forth.

There were a couple of problems (they tried to con me into letting them go to the bathroom, when they knew they weren't allowed) but still, they've been remarkably well behaved for a 6th hour class. Really, nothing compares to seeing these kids, who patently hate school and can't wait to be gone, reading, and talking to each other about what they read.

Library Way in New York City

I've never felt much of an impulse to visit NYC, but if I ever do, I'll have to check this out.

http://www.grandcentralpartnership.org/what_we_do/beautify_library_way.asp

Pet Peeves, part 1

Why part 1? Because I suspect that this will be an ever-growing list that I will add to many times over the course of my library career.

Things that make me twitchy:

• Teachers who tell their students "just copy and paste from the website into your presentation."
• Teachers who copy workbooks (I'm starting to be of two minds about this. Yes, it's a copyright violation. However, when your school has 10 workbooks for 5 sections of a class, what are teachers supposed to do? Still...makes my little law-abiding soul cringe.)
• Students who claim "I wasn't (insert X forbidden action here)" when they were, I/We saw/heard them do it. Most of the students here are pretty good about just taking their penalty and moving on, but a few will lie right to your face about the thing you just saw them do 2 seconds ago. Usually this is in the vein of "Man, I didn't do nuthin, man, why y'all tryin' to play me, man, this is...."
• Teachers who bring their rowdy middle school class into the library and then wander out to do something unspecified for an unspecified amount of time, leaving me to babysit (usually right around the time I need to go to the office, or the textbook room, or a teacher's classroom, or...)

I know I'm in the right job when...

As previously mentioned, I work at an alternative school. This is where all the students from the district (and it's a large urban district) who are suspended or expelled come. Presumably because of this, the previous librarian was afraid that books would not be returned, so they were not checked out. Can you imagine anything more useless than a big room full of books that no one can check out?

From day one I've been upset by this. The principal said that I could check them out as long as they were kept in a teacher's classroom, i.e., not brought home. I suspect (but don't know) that the teachers have let some of the more responsible students take the books home, but since they always came back, I haven't bothered to check into it. Finally, this month, I sat down and drafted what I thought was a reasonable checkout policy, and the principal approved it.

Today, a middle school class was in the library doing research for a project. One of the students who was finished asked me if we had any "scary books." I showed her a few titles and explained the plots; when I got to Sorcerers of the Nightwing by Geoffrey Huntington, and explained that in the beginning, the main character has demons come out of his closet, she practically grabbed it out of my hand and ran off to one of the tables to start reading. When I told her that she could check it out and take it home, her whole face lit up.

Yeah, some things about my job drive me crazy, but, at the risk of sounding sappy, it's all worth it.

Please allow me to introduce myself....

Today it occurred to me that, rather than inflict my emotional highs and lows on the good folks at LM_NET, I could make a blog. Also, this would give me a place to do book reviews (I'm one of those people who just can't stop recommending books they like. I ended up helping people find children's books in Barnes & Noble over Christmas.)

So, about me. I'm a squeaky new graduate with an M.S. in Library Media, and I'm currently working as a librarian at an alternative middle/high school in Louisiana. I kicked around a bit before deciding to be a librarian, and I love it, love it, love it. This is what I was meant to do with my life. There are some things that get on my nerves (not having much money to buy books comes to mind), but overall, I end most days by thinking about how much I love what I do. I may get over it someday, but don't count on it.

Oh, and I overuse parentheses and long dashes--can't you tell?