Thursday, may 18 8:30am-3:00pm

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Today, I also continued on my 800s database clean up/inventory/weeding project by marking out the barcodes, adding a “withdrawn to find a new home!”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.

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