Total Elementary/Middle Hours: 7 hours
Total Hours: 7.5 hours
Today I spent the entire day at the Milwaukee Jewish Day School. It was a full day but, compared to my normal schedule, it was kind of a relaxing and fun day. I know that a large part of this was because they do not have or teach any classes in the library on Monday's. This is sure to change and, since I am going to be there next Monday as well I will see a good comparison.
The day started out with a tour of the library. It is shaped kind of like a 'U'. On one arm of the U is the Fiction section. It takes up an entire wall of the library and then some shelves in the middle. In the other arm of the U is the Non-Fiction and Biography section. This takes up about a wall and a half with the center completely full of shelves. On the "bottom" of the U is a sitting area with chair and tables, and this is also where the YA section is located. There is also one special section here that is dedicated to a former teacher and, another special section dedicated to a former student in the Non-Fiction section. On the other wall of the "bottom" of the U there are 8 computers. This library is shared among 3 schools, so 5 of the computers belong to MJDS while another 3 belong to Hill-el Academy. This is also where the mobile computer cart is stored.
I was introduced to all of the different kinds of labels on the books because I had never worked in a children's library before - at least not since I was in 8th grade and a child myself. For instance, I learned about AD (Advanced Reader), Historic fiction, Animal Fiction, religious books, the Easy Reader and Beyond Easy Reader categories for this library. I was then given some time to wander around the library on my own and get acclimated and come up with any questions that I might have. Overall, this who process took about 2 hours, I believe.
Next I was shown a little bit about the circulation system. They use Destiny, which I use at my school, so I was familiar with this and did not take much time with it. I then moved on to a project for one of the teachers. He needed some books pulled that dealt with realistic fiction, historical fiction, and animal fiction for the 6th grade level. I used Destiny to set up a list and then went out to pull the books. This good a good 2 hours. I wanted to get a good spread of books for differing reading levels and interest levels. Most of the books were around a 6.0 reading level and were mainly interest levels of 5-8. I did spread out on both ends of the spectrum including books down to about a reading level of about 5 and up the the YA reading and interest level.
Next I moved on to pulling books for the seasonal interest. This happened to be the Winter Olympics. I again searched for these books first on Destiny, then by hand. I came up with a good selection of winter sports and biographies going into both fiction and non-fiction. This took maybe an hour.
Later in the afternoon I started processing new books. This just included putting date due slips into the front covers of the books and then stamping them with the school stamp. This took about an hour, maybe.
Finally, I moved on to helping the library prepare for the school folk fair. They are going to have a pretend plane ride and decorate their gathering place like an airplane as if they were taking a flight. They are even going to hand out in-flight snacks, which I put the stickers ("Thank you for flying MJDS Air") on. I also attempted to help come up with further ideas on how to make it look like an airplane entrance.
All in all, it was a fun and busy, but somewhat relaxing, day.
