It is finished!

Today was my last day at my secondary fieldwork school.  The time really flew by!  The days were not as structured as my time at the elementary site, but I feel like I was able to significantly impact the library, particularly the collection, in my time there.  The fiction section is now near the nonfiction "stacks," and students are already paying more attention to the nonfiction collection since they have to go to that area to find fiction titles. 

The reference section--wow.  There were over 2,576 titles in Lynbrook's reference collection, and the average age was 24.  I weeded over 350 titles and brought the average age up to 22--not huge, but better than it was.  Additional titles are being moved from reference to a "reserve" collection, because the library specialists had been putting anything they didn't want to circulate in the reference collection whether it was a reference book or not.  Some titles will also move to the circulating collection.

I am really surprised by how much my supervisor allowed me to do with weeding.  The library specialists (there are 2 who share the job) only objected to two titles I chose to weed, and when I showed them the more current titles that remained in the collection they backed down.  One of the LS's asked about a book that was written in 1992.  I said, "It's 20 years old, and things have changed since then.  We have a better, more current title."  She hadn't really thought about the fact that 1992 was 20 years ago because to her, it didn't seem that long ago.  I guess people just need a reminder now and again.

I really started to get annoyed today, because people treat libraries like dumping grounds for any book they don't want/need, and then get upset when the library can't use their old outdated books.  I'm also starting to notice that no one cares about the books in the library until you start to get rid of them.  I noticed a teacher looking over some of the discards today.  I can guarantee you that neither that teacher nor her students have ever used the titles she might come back to get for her classroom (where they will gather dust and never be used), but once you move them off the (very) dusty shelves and discard them suddenly they are precious gems.  Libraries are not storehouses or archives.  Yes, those old books look "neat."  But they don't belong in a vibrant school library that is here to serve the students.

Well, that was a little side rant.  Now back to my point--I made a dent in the reference section and hope that my supervisor can continue to weed the collection so that students might actually utilize the good resources that are hiding in amongst the 60-year-old books.  (I wish I was kidding about that.)

I also realized that libraries must be the dustiest places in the world, and that you shouldn't work in them if you have asthma or shoulder issues.  I got quite a work out moving all those books today!  I also got to learn how to delete batches of books from the catalog, which was cool.  I appreciate how much I got to know the catalog system and how to run various reports.  Data is our friend!

And now for some of the pictures I didn't get to include last time:

Short shelves were reference, tall shelves are nonfiction, and blue shelves around the perimeter now hold fiction.

 The center section of the library consists of these tables for student work.  There is a projector in the ceiling and a screen you can kind of see in this picture.  Teachers can bring students to the library for class time using the tables (with laptops, if desired) or the desktop computers around this area, and they can use the projector and screen.  The other side is identical.

The "reading" room, that used to house half the fiction collection (shown in this photo). 

The "study" room, that used to house the other half of the fiction collection.  This is where we moved the reference collection.

A weird "help desk" area that goes largely unused.  My supervisor and I were trying to figure out the best use of this space.  We moved the professional development titles to the shelves here, but don't really have a use for this space yet.

The circulation desk.

The library has two "sun rooms" that students can reserve for group projects/meetings.  Sometimes they are used for testing, or teachers use them as offices when they share classrooms.

The stacks, they are a-changin'

Because of an upcoming construction project, a lot of the books in my secondary fieldwork library are going to have to move.  One room, that currently houses half the fiction collection, will be used as office space during construction.  My supervisor is trying to anticipate this and rearrange things as she can ahead of time.

It is interesting to see how she navigates the political world that is a school.  This is a real strength of hers and something I will need to work on.  She's good at anticipating how people will react and planning her actions so that negative reactions are minimized.  One thing I know from this experience is how valuable it is to run things past another person before you do them.  Often, she will think of things about my suggestions that I would not have considered, and I'm sure the reverse is true.  In my career, it will be important to find another person, whether it is another TL or another teacher, etc., to be my sounding board.

In the best circumstances, she would be able to wait a year before making any major changes (or at least that's what I was told in 202).  However, the construction has kind of forced her hand.  The entire fiction section will be moved to space currently occupied by biographies and "supplemental" novels.  The good news is that the supplemental novels didn't belong there anyhow, so this is a good excuse to move them with minimal pushback from others.  In addition, the need to create more space makes it easier for some people to accept the serious weeding we have been doing.  Some people truly do hate to see any book discarded, even if it is outdated and has been sitting uncirculated for 20+ years.  I am probably a little too eager to get rid of outdated materials, so it's nice to have another perspective to temper my enthusiasm. 

On Wednesday during school we had student aids removing items from one area to prepare for the move that evening.  One student found an entire section of books that were infested with termites (blech), so 30 books (the same title, these were supplemental novels) got discarded immediately and the shelves then got emptied and cleaned.  While of course bugs in books is never good, it did give us an "excuse" to take everything off those shelves.  And of course I'm glad we caught it before more books were infested.

I spent Wednesday after school helping student volunteers rearrange items in the library.  We moved the entire fiction collection and a big section of the reference section.  While moving the reference section, we realized that a lot of the books in that section actually belong in the nonfiction collection.  I will likely spend my day Tuesday and Wednesday weeding reference, with some titles getting discarded and others being moved to nonfiction.  Then I'm going to need to spend some time weeding the 800s to make space for all the literary criticism that was, for reasons I do not understand, shelved with reference.  I'm 99% sure they were there because of lack of space on the shelves, which is hysterical since so much of the nonfiction collection is seriously 40-50 years old and could be discarded.  It will be difficult to get everything finished, but I'm going to try to leave the collection in as good of shape as possible before my fieldwork ends.  I'll probably end up a bit "over," but I don't mind.  I really feel like I've contributed something at this school that will result in a better (and better organized) collection.

I am NOT looking forward to the reaction of one of the paraprofessionals who likely will not be happy with all the changes.  Kind of glad I won't be there when she arrives Tuesday. . .

I was planning to include some "before" shots here, but apparently my iPhone didn't upload them during my last photo import, so I'll have to do that another time.