Internet Media Specials

Now that we are about three weeks into the summer, I decided to stop by school to catch up on mail, deliveries etc. It turned out to be a very interesting day. In my box of mail, there was a rather thick and rather well-taped box which bore a return address from West Virginia. When I said it was well-taped, I meant really secure. Of course I was suspicious, since 1. I never ordered anything from West Virginia, 2. I had no idea who the person was who send this package, 3. The news makes us concerned about strange packages. Once it was opened, I was surprised to see a library book which was stamped with our school's name, and a note which read:

If you are too young to remember Rod Serling's Twilight Zone series, you can catch episodes today on the SciFi channel. "The Obsolete Man" was originally broadcast in 1961 and tells the story of a  totalitarian society killing people who they find to be obsolete. This was the case of Romney Wordsworth, a librarian played by Burgess Meredith, who also appeared in another episode as bookworm Henry Bemis. Here are the two episodes:

When I stepped into my role as an elementary school librarian in my current school last year, I was in
awe. The library had been completely rebuilt from the ground up and stocked with brand new books.
I had worked at this school a few years before and the transformation was absolutely astounding. As
I spent more and more time in my new “home”, it became apparent that as nice and updated as this
space was, there was still some room for improvement. As the months rolled by, my library began to reveal to me five important things I would absolutely need in order to keep my students engaged and
falling in love with books.

You Need To Know Your Collection
While almost every book in the library was brand new, I noticed that our fiction and biography
sections  were lacking. While we had books in these areas, there definitely wasn’t enough. Most of the books in the biography section were on a level way above what my students could read without difficulty. My school serves students in K-2, so it became imperative to find books they could actually use. I found several books in our collection that were appropriate, so I made sure to shop from those publishers to beef up our collection in these areas. The process is still ongoing, but we’re headed in the right direction.

You Need To Use What You Have
I also noticed a wireless barcode scanner tucked away in a cabinet that had never been used by the
previous librarian. I got our district technology coordinator to connect it properly for me and it makes
inventory a breeze. There were also a ton of literacy center games that had never been used. I dug
those out and put them to work. What I discovered in my new library was that we already had a ton of
resources but they were doing nobody any good tucked away in cabinets. See what you have and if it’s not what you want, think of how you could use your resources in a different way.

You Need To Step It Up
When I first started as a librarian years ago, my main job was merely checking out books and keeping a class quiet. Gone are the days when this was the norm in school libraries. My library is a hub of learning and a visitor walking in might mistake it for a regular classroom because of the energy inside. I know that in order to keep this momentum of learning going, I have to stay in a constant state of learning myself. This spring I took three online classes that have taught me some new ways of teaching my students. I would also encourage you to join online learning communities for librarians and get digitally connected with your peers. I read a ton of blogs written by librarians just like me and connect with several of these librarians on Twitter and Facebook. I love to see how others are doing things in their own libraries and gather new ideas to try in my own.

You Need to Go All Out