It's Not All Fun and Games

As much as I like to talk about the "fun" stuff  we do in the library, it's not all fun and games.  Blanca, Karen, Judy and I work hard in order to justify the play.  Not a new concept for sure, but it fits.  After looking at our September statistics, we definitely did our fair share of teaching classes, helping students, and checking out books.  However, since we all enjoy what we do, even the work becomes the fun stuff.

Above are our stats for September.  It is the first month we collected data this year, and we were pleased with the results.

As far as the circulation stats and database searches, those numbers are self-explanatory.  We checked out 2,474 books this month, and the number of searches on each database varied with the end of month report each company sent us.

According to the report above, we saw 157 classes in the library last month.  A third of those were co-taught with the teacher, which usually includes us designing a Libguide for the class ahead of time.  Then we model how to use the Libguide once the students come to the library.  Here is an example of one of our current libguides that we used with a 12th Government class last month.  http://duncanvillehs.libguides.com/crights  

To see our most current Libguides, go to http://duncanvillehs.libguides.com/.  A libguide is what we previously referred to as a Pathfinder.  For those of you not in the library world, a pathfinder is a kind of bibliography of materials in our library targeted to a specific topic to help our patrons navigate through the materials we have.

These Libguides usually have a link to our card catalog, recommended databases according to the students' topics, recommended web tools for the students' presentations, and an MLA guide.  After we go over the Libguide, the teacher takes over the lesson, and we fall back to help.  In order for the co-teaching to happen seamlessly, we have quite a few conversations with the teacher before he/she comes to the library with students.  Many conversations initially start in person and evolve into a series of emails after that.  Those are the co-teach classes.

The other 2/3 of our classes this month did involve us, but we were not directly teaching the students.  In these classes, the librarian is either actively or passively facilitating the classes as they use our facility.  If we are actively facilitating, we are present with the class helping individual students, pulling a group for a Web 2.0 workshop, helping students find books, etc.  In order to prepare for our workshops and help the teacher and students, collaboration with the teacher in the form of emails or conversations is still part of our agenda, but the conversations are not as involved as the co-teach classes.

In some cases, the librarians are not as involved; these are the classes where we are passively facilitating. We are present to help with technology issues or a quick question.  No conversation or collaboration ahead of time is needed with these classes.

Our report also tracks the number of students that come through the door before school, during the day (with a pass from a teacher), and after school.  These students are in addition to and not a part of the 157 classes that we saw.  They scan their IDs into a database for us as they check in and out of the library, and we are able to pull reports by the hour, day, week, or month. Quite handy!  Thank you Dr. McHaney for designing that database for us.

Next on the list, we report the number of trainings we host in the library by week.  These can be our clubs, administrative meetings, department meetings, staff developments, etc.  We are not always running these meetings, but we do set up the area and make sure the technology is ready to go.

Technology check outs are pretty self-explanatory as well.  We track what we have and to whom we check it out.  Then the CIT requests are last.  As librarians, we are also Campus Instructional Technologists.  That means we are the first line of defense when a teacher has a piece of technology that is not working.  If one of the CITs is not able to fix it, the teacher opens a ticket with our technology help desk.  So the number in the report lets us and our audience know the number of items we were able to fix and not send to the tech department.

The first year we started collecting this information, I only shared with the library staff.  Since then, we have branched out and shared these reports with our campus administrative staff, some district administrative staff, and even a few school board members.  It never hurts to let others know what the month in the life of a librarian entails.

OK...next time I promise to go back to the fun stuff.  I just wanted you to get a picture of what is happening each month in addition to the programs and holiday fun we are having.  See why we have 3 librarians and a wonderful clerk to run this place?  One librarian would not be able to do this alone.

See you next time.  Thanks for stopping by.