Missed a few days...most of the week was pretty typical; back to back classes at School A...and having one teacher ask if I had any free periods...hahaha. Only on Fridays, my dear. Bring your class down when they're scheduled.
On Thurs at School B the french consultant showed up--and, as usual, I was the last to know. Even though she was going to be taking stuff from the staff collection--we have the last dregs of early immersion--it's a 4/5 class with NINE students (and a teacher that's getting $75000/year for that--that'd pay for 2.5 Library techs)--and after this year, the three grade 4 students will either have to stream english or go to the other elementary that has immersion (only 5-7 mins away). So the books that the current class/teacher don't need are going to be given out to other schools. It wasn't a big hassle, though I did have to discard anything with a barcode--which took away from time I could have been doing shelving/moving books. *shrug* At the end of the school year, the rest of the immersion stuff will be sent away too--frees up some shelves for teacher resources, at least.
Thursday after school I stayed and shelved most of the picture books and chapter books, but I didn't make it all the way through them. It is very discouraging shelving them together. And the nonfic section is so crowded as to be unappealing to shelve in, and I didn't have as many of those, so I'll do it later.
I lucked out for Friday--it was a county based inservice for School B--but not for School A which is the next county west (our board consists of three counties--amalgamated ~15 years ago from three seperate county boards). However... School A was having an early dismissal with teacher training for the latest aspect of the automated reports system. I asked PHP II and she said I could be at School B.
Since PD's schools are in the same county as my School B, I asked my principal there if I could spend part of the day with her. PD switched her morning time to the middle school cus they wanted her there for inservicing, and the rest of the day at the elementary. She figured she'd get over to the Elem about 10:30. So, I worked at my school til then--I've started splitting up the chapter/picture books...I'm working backwards--shelving the end of the alpha bet chapter books first and weeding as I'm going. It means, atm, that I'll have to keep moving the picture books, but I don't have anywhere to store them. Must have discarded close to 100 book.
My fave finds so far: a road atlas of Europe...©1971. I'm sure no roads have been added or changed since then. Another good one was the property stamp in a copy of an abridged Moby Dick--"School B, RCAF Station *name of base*". It was changed to CFB in 1968. Yeaahhhh.... Was talking to DT before he headed out on the road and he said I should keep them in the history section. I told him I was a library, not an archieve and if he wanted them, he could have them. He declined. (I don't think i mentioned it, but school B used to be the junior high for kids whose families lived in PMQs for the base; I grew up in the same town but couldn't go to the school, since Dad was retired from the Forces. Now it belongs to the school board and, is, obvs, an elementary.)
Got to PD's school about 10:40 just after she'd got there. We talked about her ref section (not much to it, even less now that the old crap's been weeded). This school is where I went for elementary--at that time it was primary to grade 7, now it's P-5 cus of the middle school PD works at. Anyhow, the year I started primary is also the year this school opened. I'm 41...so ~35 years old school. God, I'm old.
Then we looked at moving her circ desk and the 5 comps--2 emacs, which are her opacs (her comp is also an emac, she's trying for an imac) and 3 pcs. Anyhow we got her desk and the emacs moved and tidily tucked away...then she wondered if we could take the pcs right out of the library; they don't get used at all by the kids. So, she flagged down her principal, B, (we'd been hoping for him at my School A)--and asked to see him when he had a chance. We moved other things around--even with it not totally finished it still looked much more open. (Probably cus the comps were on huge, 4ft sq tables--and we'd moved the opacs off that to a longer/narrower table.) Anyhow B came down and his first comment was on how open and nice it looked. He agred to let the comps be used elsewhere; we moved them to the math room later.
We finished moving things around and it looks SO much better. We've also discussed getting all her books onto the new shelving. There are two sets of wooden shelves ~9ft long, double sided--they were originally on the floor but were, at some point, put on metal braces with wheels. She wants to move them til the weeding is done, but we coudln't get them moved. Once every section is weeded (we did a bit on Fri; there were books I'm pretty sure were there when I was there--I probably signed at least one of them, on astrology, out), she wants it all on the new shelves...get rid of that wooden shelving (it's original to the school--I remember it)...and that will open up an actual proper seating area in the library. I'm pretty sure B will agree to it.
PD told me that B had commented to her that he really liked what I've done with the library at School A (he was VP there 7 or 8 years ago and has been in since for inservices). I've had a few of the regular substitutes comment on how much nicer the library looks now. I opened it right up, got all the book shelves/mag racks out of the middle of the floor. I really wish we'd gotten B as our principal there--he seems like a really sweet guy--as PD says a "teddy bear". He's an effective admin without being a total dickhead. Which is always a bonus. PD was worried about how some of the teachers might take her changes; I told her not to let it bother her. It's her library now (and unlike our union, I don't believe the fairy tale that these changes are just for this year) and even if we did go back to one LT per school and the other one came back, well... It's PD's library right now. And the changes she wants to make are only going to improve the library.
At lunch I took PD to School B to show her what I'd inherited and then to School A as she hadn't seen it since I'd made the last of the major changes... she avoided being seen by PHP II who is her former VP. I went to PD's for supper and we hung out for the evening, dicussing library things. LOL Alll in all a good day.
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