Today's Hours: 8.5    Total Hours: 101.5    
​Hours remaining: 0

My last day, we had Book Club, 1st graders, time for weeding, and a chance to review many other projects, including how to make bibliographies from the catalog database for teachers and how to rearrange websites (including this one).
 
Right away, I turned on the computers and set up the library, helping a student make sure she did not have books checked out; she had returned a Kindle and Moon Over Manifest this morning. Another girl came in to check out Warrior Cats, one of the books I finished covering and put out yesterday!
 
During the Book Club meeting, I played a portion of the audiobook and we discussed the mood, length, and level description before we talked about the author’s life. One parent had seen a 60 Minutes on Lynne Cox, and Heather pulled up a video and article about an ice swim. I looked her up as well, having to use Wikipedia since her website was blocked by the school. Heather made a 2017-2018 Book List on her site and began to type up their suggestions.   She also pulled up Gene Luen Yang’s site and his Reading Without Walls challenge. Some of the books we discussed were Sara Pennypacker's Pax, Riley Redgate's Seven Ways We Lie, Jack Cheng’s See You In The Cosmos, John Lewis and Andrew Aydin’s March, and Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s The War That Saved My Life. They discussed how to increase attendance and decided to change next year’s list to include a variety of YA books by genre and format.
 
After Book Club, Heather and I went into the office briefly and talked about our plan to make advocacy calls and emails for national and state library programs and funding. Yesterday, Heather told me the PE teacher said he thought he saw me running and recognized me from the library/school. Today, he came by the office to introduce himself.
 
Back in the library, Heather and I worked on using Mail Merge to create the 2017 Recommended Reading List for CAISLIN. Vicki read Elisa Kleven’s Welcome Home, Mouse and Thyra Hede’s Fraidyzoo to the 4 and a half year olds after their Early Childhood Program (ECP) presentation of plays with parents. Afterwards, I checked out their books to the kids, helping them remember to say their name and reading the title to them, and Vicki gave them their stamps before they left. She noticed that Rina Singh’s My First Book of Hindi Words did not have a barcode, so we cut a dumb bar code for it and changed updated the item ID in the catalog.
 
We sat together and she showed me Fraidyzoo’s ending, which has a page the kids found “creepy,” and we talked about how to address judgment in stories; we also like it because the main character’s gender is ambiguous. Welcome Home, Mouse did not have any checkouts and Vicki pulled it when weeding the picture book collection, so she asked the kids whether they would vote to keep it, and only two students said they would not!
 
After this, I read David Macauley’s Angelo to the 1st graders. They answered questions along the way, such as whether a pigeon could really be taught how to work with sculptures, which illustrations were a "bird's-eye view," and whether they had eaten linguini, as well as making connections from the landscape to our own. They liked the Italian inscription that Angelo creates for the bird and the page where Angelo puts headphones on the bird so it can listen to music and heal more quickly! I also taught them the song “From East to West,” which we sang together, before I walked them to their teacher near the pool for P.E.  
 
When working on my weeding project of the 800s, I weeded 67 books (going from 800-811), then scanning them using Global Item to “discard,” and Heather emailed Connect support to delete this list from the catalog.
 
For the Rebels and Redcoats project, we logged into the catalog and added our titles to a “kept list,” then previewing the list before making emailing a copy of the “reading list” option to ourselves (this is a bibliography that includes annotations). She did this kind of report for trans books and sent this to the teachers.
 
We reviewed TRAILS; her summer practicum student and I both missed one (14/15 or 93%). She also showed me her OTS “School Library Intern Interview” questions and we reviewed my ePortfolio. I created and posted this final blog post for my practicum before we left the school; it was still busy at 5pm, a testament to its community. It has been a wonderful experience. 

Today's Hours: 6.5    Total Hours: 94    
​Hours remaining: 6
​Today, like most days of my practicum, I was able to work with students, make progress on library projects, get hands-on experience with book processing and cataloging, and answer professional questions like, “what are good resources for struggling readers?” I have also enjoyed putting resources such Titlewave, Hoopla, and TRAILS to use, as I knew about them by name from my coursework or field observations. I took the 3rd grade TRAILS assessment earlier this week and Heather and I went over her structure for teaching and delivering the curriculum and assessments and how to print the reports. Heather suggested Hoopla to download Lynne Cox’s Grayson, which is the book for the parent Book Club; I searched for the book format last week, which was checked out from the Akron-Summit County Public Library, but Hoopla allows me to listen to the audiobook tonight in preparation for the meeting tomorrow. In the afternoon, I used Titlewave’s Collection Development tool to find books to support the 8th grade students in their Rebels and Redcoats unit. I narrowed my search by genre, grade level, number of reviews, and publication year and added books to a new list for the next school year. I also checked Old Trail’s catalog for what titles we already had. For each research option students will have, I kept track of how many books were available from both sources to help identify areas of abundance or need. There were certain figures in the unit for whom neither had resources, so I will check WorldCat and other sources for potential books later tonight. 
 
In addition to working on this collection development project, a parent volunteer and I added Mylar covering to new books. I appreciate that she came in to show me her best practices and I was impressed with her precision; she does paper crafts and her crafting ability comes through when measuring, cutting, folding, and taping the materials to the new books. I also gained practice adding spine labels and checking the catalog records before I put the group on the “new books” shelf.
 
We were able to see a 1st grade class today so I got to show them Will Hillenbrand’s Ask 10 video response to their questions; we discussed the video after they watched it and I had time to read a book to them as well.
 
Today, I also continued on my 800s database clean up/inventory/weeding project by marking out the barcodes, adding a “withdrawn to find a new home!” stamp, and boxing up the books I pulled and deleted from the catalog last week.
 
I observed Heather distribute weeded magazines to teachers to enhance their classroom libraries or curriculum, and she also put together a box of free magazines that the 3rd graders enjoyed during their visit to the library today as well. There were fewer students coming in and out of the library besides the scheduled classes because today was the final due date for books; for three or four students who wanted to renew a book, we set a special due date of May 30 in SirsiDynix as we checked them out. We also had a few students come in for the birthday/gift book program, and many middle school students used the YA area to collaborate on group projects. It is great to move between the circulation desk, shelves, Story Well, YA area and computer stations, library office, and nearby rooms throughout the day and see so many students, teachers, and volunteers. The library is truly connected to students, parents, and the school at large in many ways.   
 
As an aside, I wore my book dress today and Heather gave me a shirt with a book print that she had in her office as well! She also has a red riding hood cape, a “magician’s cape” that was a donation from the MFA in Boston, a “book fairy” dress, and other costumes. This reinforces my belief that librarians have special shared qualities and abilities, such as the gumption to wear these things without self-consciousness (a good thing to model for youth) and sharing our passion for reading and stories with students! I have continually seen the positive influence Heather and the library staff and volunteers have in their relationships with students.

Today's Hours: 6    Total Hours: 87.5    
​Hours remaining: 12.5
​​I came in and introduced myself to the two parent volunteers in the library this morning. Heather was working on submitting the book trailers for 5th graders that we asked to revise before resubmitting. I began printing the certificates that INFOhio created for each student, which are lovely. Vicki was cleaning, relabeling, and/or repairing books and showed me a book on tooth fairies that had low circulation. She was adding a fairy sticker to the spine. Students ask about fairy books often so she hopes this will increase its circulation. She and the high school senior, whose last day was yesterday, were working together on analyzing and weeding the picture book collection.
 
I deleted the books I pulled for weeding yesterday in SirsiDynix Workflows and read The Little Engine That Could and Freight Train to another ECP class, helping them find and check out books and giving them their train stamps before the left the library. I had time with this group to also read Kevin Lewis’ book Chugga Chugga Choo Choo, and I was impressed with their ability to recognize the implied and exaggerated elements of the story, although later in discussing it with a friend, I learned their critical thinking in noticing that it is a pretend train ride may have come from a similar plot point (spoilers!) in the Lego movie. The story ends with bedtime and they all did a great job of showing me their best yawns before beginning to find and check out books; this was my experience with a “difficult” group of students and I did have to manage behavior, but overall they listened and participated wonderfully! I also helped Vicki teach Kindergarteners how to behave in the library, helping them learn social skills such as lining up to check out and introducing themselves when they get to the desk. This explicit support and direction is important to introduce early, but I believe it is important to model, teach, and reinforce behavior like this to any age student.
 
After this, I emailed Will Hillenbrand about the Ask 10 with 1st graders, as I would like to share his video with the students’ parents and extend the video accessibility for a week. I drafted an email to parents and sent it to Heather, and we talked about the best way to send it to parents. A volunteer suggested to Heather that we ask the room parent to forward my email to the parents, since they have all of the email addresses saved. Later in the afternoon, we had confirmation from Will Hillenbrand, who graciously extended access to the video, and from the room parent, who will send out the email. At lunch, Newspaper Club reviewed their last edition and planned an end of year party (and debated whether Matilda the book versus movie was better and/or scary, and their favorite parts!).
 
In the afternoon, I continued weeding, finding, analyzing, and deleting books and records.  Heather and I also took two project worksheets from previous years to the 8th grade teacher who facilitates the lessons and got updates on their plans and what we should do for related collection development. In addition to finishing my weeding project, my final practicum project will be finding resources through Titlewave for the 8th grade students on a project on Rebels and Redcoats of the American Revolution. This afternoon, Vicki and I also talked about how to implement student mentoring programs and best practices and ideas for partnering high school students with middle school students, middle school students with elementary students, etc, which is a goal of mine.
 
My coursework covered various skills and tasks such as collaboration, collection development, technology integration, teaching, passive programming, and setting up and monitoring library procedures. I love the ways in which they blend together and how much mastery and passion is evident in Heather and Vicki’s work. A wide range of students use the library all day long and they are able to have such positive experiences! Again, I feel thankful for my experiences preparing for the practicum and the field at Kent State and for my experiences at Old Trail School. 

Today's Hours: 7.5    Total Hours: 81.5    
​Hours remaining: 18.5
Today’s events included reading to an Early Childhood Program (ECP) class; showing the Ask 10 response video from Will Hillenbrand to the 1st grade students, facilitating a discussion with them and helping them check out books; running reports and weeding the 800s in the library collection and discussing the DDC with Heather; and attending the dress rehearsal show of the school production of Lion King. With the 4 year olds, I read Watty Piper’s The Little Engine That Could in preparation for their related Akron Symphony Orchestra event; we also read Donald Crews' Freight Train. I pulled more books from the Trains handout that Heather has for the Little Readers program, a few of which the kids wanted to check out (and sadly some wanted the books we read, which I needed for tomorrow and could not give them). The 1st graders had a great time watching Will Hillenbrand's response to their questions - and we watched the video of them asking their questions first to go over their inquiries first. After we watched his video, I asked them questions about it, including what their favorite part was, what advice of his they liked, and what they will remember; one girl said she would remember to keep asking questions, while another said she would keep doing what she likes the same way he keeps drawing, and many said they liked seeing his sketches and seeing him draw and add color to an illustration. Before they left, they had time to check out. As we were wrapping up, one boy checked out a Minecraft book and I showed a few of them my Coding display. They wrote that they want to learn coding and what they would name their own coding game on my "forecast" sheets. One girl found and checked out Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit after hearing Will Hillenbrand talk about it in his video, and I asked her to read to me the first few pages. After the class left, Heather and I ran an inventory report for the 800s section of the collection in SirsiDynix WorkFlows and I emailed it myself so I could open it in as a Google Sheet. We reorganized the data and I began to weed the collection. At 2p.m, we were able to see the students' production of The Lion King, which was wonderful. 

As I near the end of my practicum experience, I am reflecting on how much I benefitted from the children and youth programming, reading, and cataloging projects I created for courses before I started. I also appreciate how much recording posts for this blog has helped me keep track of the various aspects of the job. I believe it will be helpful in synthesizing the experience. 

Today's Hours: 7    Total Hours: 74    
​Hours remaining: 26

Below are the notes that I took during a Connect Library Liaison Meeting, run by Lori Slingerland and Josh Pease, on Tuesday morning, as well as photos from a library visit I did to Western Reserve Academy after meeting their Library Director, Holly Bunt. As I finalized this blog post the next day, I shared some of the resources of information literacy with Dr. Harper, who teachers LIS 60618: Information Literacy, and emailed Lori a thank you and a request for permission to share her resources and expertise with the class. I also emailed Holly to share the photos and let her know how wonderful her library is and how grateful I am to have toured it.
 
I have copies of the handouts and the certificate of attendance, although I believe since this is for my practicum I may not be able to submit it. Heather approves continuing education credit for Old Trail School; they submit conference materials, a certificate of attendance if given, a summary, and an impact. Connect hosts the servers for all building and teaches classes on cataloging and how to use their software. For Connect, Heather has given presentations on mail merge and volunteer organization. She learned from a colleague about genrefication from another presentation. There are approximately four meetings a year and districts send one or two liaisons, who then go back and train any other librarians or volunteers.
 
Lori opened the meeting by previewing the agenda. They are the only ITC in the state with the connection to a shared collection through OverDrive. She promised to uphold request to include origami in the future, as well as breakout sessions for different groups, such as parochial schools or high schools. Then, she asked for the guests to be introduced, which Heather did for me and for her senior on a job shadow. Lori was glad to know my name since they recognized me from the cataloging training at Reinberger Children’s Center on Kent’s campus. It was great to see them again.
 
Another independent school’s liaison asked if it was fine to send updates of patron information multiple times throughout the year, which was OK; they discussed that many independent schools (Heather said it is true for them) and some larger districts need to do this.
 
She provided interesting background on INFOhio, such as that in the past, providers were speaking for the school librarians, and now they ask for users council representatives; one librarian from Hudson was one volunteer but they are hoping for another.
 
There are so many new projects going on that there is fighting over the rooms, so they asked everyone for the best days for the 2017-2018 meeting schedule. Most librarians were interested in knowing when others’ school years were ending and when they started back for the first day of the next school year (some schools start the week of August 14th, while others start the week of the 28th). She recommends a full professional development day in August and another half-day meeting in September. She also discussed whether they want book talks – pondering that it is often elementary librarians who prioritize this - or whether they prefer to have hands-on learning and materials they can take back to their libraries; a liaison suggested sending out a survey. She planned October dates with the OELMA Conference in mind, since many attend that as well. She joked that they plan ahead to spend more time on scheduling than other things since it takes awhile to make it work for everyone. Heather used AirDrop to send me a copy of OTS’ 2017-2018 schedule.
 
They offer Circulation/General Overview, Reports-Overdues, Reports-Overview, Cataloging I and II, and Database Cleanup; they also host an Open Lab in fall and spring for which it is possible to drop in, spend as much or little time as you need, and troubleshoot any topic. 
 
They congratulated Natalie Dickerson from St. Michael’s school on receiving the Virginia Hamilton Arnold Adoff Grant for her proposal of a social justice project.
 
The Senate is considering HB 59, which would restore the budget to FY15. The line item for INFOhio funding has a large increase. It could be reviewed and revised in the Senate, however. They do not want it to be pulled away, so they recommend contacting the Senator to explain the increase and what it will be used for; it buys digital content at a reduced cost for every student and teacher. Josh and Lori call on the schools’ behalf, but they also asked how many had called. One librarian was told she could not host an all-district event since it was political versus nonpartisan. I used AirDrop to send Heather a copy of my advocacy podcast.
 
One librarian's administrators put a hold on her new furniture order after visiting libraries without books. Another librarian shared that she talked to others about how INFOhio’s databases relate to students’ needs such as gender identity or impact specific groups, such as refugee populations.
 
Many advocate as citizens of the district they live in as well as an educator for the district in which they work; one example was a woman living in Stark County, whose schools can only afford INFOhio resources. Another librarian brought up sending thank you emails and following up contacts with photos of students or videos from events, in addition to sending initial advocacy calls. Lori pulled up the May 4 Testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, which included a great analogy of INFOhio and the Louvre.
 
The evolution of the school library included debates about library spaces; Heather shared with the whole group that her survey of students found data that most students preferred books rather than e-books (she shared with me that Angie in Chagrin Falls told her the middle school lost its book collection last summer). Lori recommended statistics as well as anecdotal evidence. Some of the major concerns were the struggle of more windows clashing with more computers and the struggle to be included in conversations about renovations and building projects. We all laughed at “trailers” being called “learning pods.”
 
The librarian from Avon asked if Carolyn Brodie was still at Kent State – she “was amazing when she talked about books.” I am sad to have missed her presence and her teaching.
 
The OverDrive representative talked about the need to read in the format that students will need to read on assessments; therefore, we need a digital content solution. There are staff librarians who work with the specialists on top content and there are others working on ease of use. The collection is device agnostic. In web browsers, students can read and listen and add and export bookmarks, highlight, and notes (students’ accounts include a notes & highlights page that keeps history of when it was opened, how many times it was opened, how many pages were turned, and the total reading time, as well as keeping record of changes for each note). Other settings include large font, background lighting/contrast, dyslexic font, and theme. There is offline access with the OverDrive app, which is read only. The collection is approximately 500 in size and is shared among 13 schools. Students will use their same authentication. Stephen Reyes talked about recently going to a Google conference and a Brainstorm conference; he found that many educators, at the former, and technology specialists and administrators, at the latter, did not know of the resources. Therefore, (fun) promotion is key! They provide email templates, bookmarks, etc. A librarian from an elementary school with 350 students whose circulation was over 6,000 items explained that the teachers received it well; they promote it since students can continue reading a book on their device as they finish a classroom activity without getting up or searching.
 
While we transitioned presentations, Heather pulled up CLEVNET, Akron-Summit County Public Library, and Cuyahoga County Public Library’s sites, and we compared their digital content. We both loved the audiobook version of Pam Munoz Ryan’s Echo; I liked the “no wait, no problem” or “available now” feature to see a list of obtainable titles for audio and video material. We also discovered that Javaka Steptoe of Radiant Child will be at the Warrensville Heights branch of the CCPL on Wednesday, May 10. She recommended Donalyn Miller’s The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child, from which she adapted the Read-A-Lyzer © survey that she previously shared with me. She also recommended I apply for a card at the Peninsula or Hudson Library.
 
The final item on the agenda was a presentation on Fake News. Lori asked, “What is news? Do students know the definition?” She also referenced a Marketplace article which quoted Daniel Levitin, who states, "‘I object to the term 'fake news', actually, because I think it sounds a little bit too gentle. It's not news at all. There's nothing newsy about it. And 'fake' sounds sort of like a kid faking sick to get out of class. I think we need to come together and just call it for what it is’" (Brancaccio, 2017). Holly from Western Reserve found data from a survey conducted a few years ago that students and faculty got news from social media more than any other source. I wanted to note to go back into the PowerPoint slide on “Holly’s Tips” and to use the INFOhio’s Curriculum Toolbox for Digital Literacy or the INFOhio Citation Guide.
 
After Heather and I had lunch, we went to see Western Reserve Academy’s library and campus. I have included the photos I took below. It is a beautiful space with extensive resources, but the most impressive aspect was the care and critical thinking of the librarians for the students – they are strategic in how they plan and use their time, spaces, and resources to make sure it is most beneficial to them. For instance, one of their spaces will be a classroom next year, and Holly worked hard to advocate for placement of the teacher with whom they collaborate on students’ yearlong research project, which requires them to find and use twelve scholarly sources. They have also moved both the most engaging and most crucial books for students to the central location where they lounge and work so they see them most easily; books on difficult topics no longer have a barcode, so they can be taken without fear of judgment or stigma. The students in the library looked both happy, comfortable, and productive, and the library clearly meets their standard of excellence and works in tandem with the school’s educational ideals.
 
I appreciated the professional development and networking of the Connect meeting, lunch with Heather, and WRA library tour today and have many ideas from them that I am ready to implement in my own work. 

WRA Photos are shared with Library Director Holly Bunt's permission. 

Connect Liaison Meeting materials can be found here, and are shared with permission by Joshua Pease and Lori Slingerland, Connect Library Support. 

Today's Hours: 7    Total Hours: 67    Hours remaining: 33

By now, I am set in my routine of turning on the computers, opening browsers (set to different bookmarks), turning on the circ computer, and opening SirsiDynix. Heather showed me the MobileCirc app on an iPad and there was an error message on self-checkout so we put up the sign to go to the desk. A high school senior who is shadowing came and Heather began showing her the early childhood program books and songs for today, talking about how much experience she has reading to young children. I checked in and out books to the students who came in.
 
After this, I performed the Little Readers story time on trees. We only had three kids and their parent but it was an energetic group and I am grateful for the experience. We sang the “little readers” song, gave them their name tags, and then I sang a song, read a book, sang another song, and read 3 more books. The parents took the worksheet home and got board books, and I gave the kids a leaf stamp on their way out of the library.
 
Back in the office, Heather chose the next three Little Reader themes and updated her 2017 list, and I added my worksheet to the Little Readers binder. We talked about Grandparents Day, which went well. She showed me a letter from a local rebinding company, HF Group (www.hfgroup.com, 8844 Mayfield Road, Chesterland, OH 44026), that can provide DigiCover for paperbacks and repair textbooks. We also discussed Junior Library Guild (JLG)’s library sale in fall and spring in Columbus (nice hardbacks for $5). It is similar to a “book of the month” club - subscribing to different levels. She went from 6 to 4 levels this year. Since they are tied in with Horn Book, she trusts their collection development review for the levels. She receives upper elementary, graphic novel, humor, multicultural, nonfiction, series nonfiction (how-to); humor is cheaper ($177.60 for the year), multicultural was $204.60 (average cost), and nonfiction is most expensive ($243). She chooses shelf ready processing ($2 for 72 books, so $144). She tried audiobooks from them but did not like the brand, Go, versus Playaways. Another company was Mackin, which did not customize as much as Old Trail’s cataloging policies request, but which has a good reputation.
 
We looked at the plans for 2nd and 3rd graders. She talked about matching to curriculum as it changes to stay current (Searchasaurus changed to Explora at INFOhio for endangered sea animals). She was going to do TRAILS assessments but since they are doing standardized testing in class, she decided to change it to activities that let them get up and find books in the library as they learn the Dewey system.
 
OTS’ school counselor sent an email out about the show 13 reasons why. Heather was kind enough to forward me the email. We also discussed that Kent and Cleveland have microfiche for many magazines and periodicals, but once, recently, she requested something and they offered to scan and email it to her.
 
A Librarian of the Day wanted Warrior Cats, which we catalogued and covered with Mylar. She ordered that from Amazon since it was cheaper; she also orders Discovery Girls and Make magazines from Amazon since it is not available from EBSCO. She lets students check out the most recent copy of a magazine, which not all libraries do, and she gets Velcro sleeves to put them in (rather than zippered) from DEMCO.
 
She got a new scanner and we talked about how to program them. She chooses carriage return, presentation mode, and reread delay (USB terminal interface).
 
We reviewed previous summer reading lists. The independent school librarian group works on creating and submitting a summer reading list jointly. This is organized using Google Groups. On the library website, she embeds this list as well as the school’s required summer reading.
 
She asks volunteers and teachers to share their recommendations as they read new books, and she also checks the ALA awards lists if there is an area that is weaker than others. When they share the lists, they knock off one year so it is the previous four, and do allow anniversary editions to be part of yearly lists. There are two versions, one with color-coded sections and color book covers, and a printer-friendly version of the lists with authors and titles only.
 
Vicky came in after lunch to let me know she appreciated seeing how I handled a parent the week prior, since I helped her with a technology question (checking a zipped file; changing icon view to see which photos she downloaded and wanted to select). She was impressed I asked, “what do you need?” and how polite I was. The parent paid for Vicky's lunch buffet at her favorite Indian restaurant in North Royalton after they talked for an hour about early childhood education (if her 5 year old is ready for K or not), which she said she probably would not have done if she hadn’t been inspired by me. I appreciated her feedback and it was a lovely boost to my dedication to positive customer service.
 
After discussing books such as Turtle of Oman and Extra Credit, I catalogued the Warrior Cat books and new easy picture books for the gift book program; we printed bar code labels for the former after running reports in SirsiDynix. 
​
It was another productive and positive day and I enjoy how much experience I gained.