Second 6 Weeks Check In

 Another six weeks is behind us, and I think I am most proud of the books circulated this time around.  After comparing last year to this year, I believe we are on the right track.  I believe that has something to do with our new reading program, Beanstack.  I have both teachers and students participating.  That is what is driving up the amount of books being checked out.  This is also my goal this year due to my disappointing numbers last year.

Pam and I are presenting later this month at Region 11 and at TCEA this year.  Here is a slide where I am comparing last year to this year, as far as books checked out goes.  The first 6 weeks was a bit disappointing, but I was just rolling out Beanstack to my library introduction classes.  So maybe that is the reason for a few less books this time around. However, my hope is that by our presentation on Nov. 21st, I will have surpassed the whole of the 3rd six weeks from the year before.  I just have to fill in the blanks when the time comes.  As of the first presentation, I will be about 11 days into the 6 weeks.  Wish me luck!

Besides the book circulations, I am also proud of the database usage. My first year here, 1st 6 weeks, I recorded 354 searches within our databases, and roughly 200 of those were teachers using TeachingBooks.net.  Yes, I said 354.  @#$%! Google was definitely the friend of this campus when I first arrived.  Today I am happy to report we had 42,002 database searches this 6 weeks.  Less Google, more authoritative sources.  Yay! And I'm not saying Google is bad; it's just our students and their refusal to vet their sources from said search engine.  They want answers, and they want them fast.  Showing them how to vet a source is always taxing, but I still do it.  I guess more choose our databases after that presentation.  LOL!