So even before I started this job, I decided it would be awesome to try and get some advertising for the SRC at the Farmer’s Market just down the street. My supervisor didn’t hear back in time for the kick off weekend, but today we set up a table at the market. It started POURING at 5 am and continued for a couple of hours, with loud thunder and lightening–I was sure that my plans would be washed down the drain.

Fortunately, it stopped in time for me to haul my stuff down at 8am. We had a small card table–which was smaller then I thought we’d have. I made it work by storing the forms in our box under the table. Not the most organized, but it worked. My room mate came to help me set up and hung around for the market, and I had two volunteens come to help as well. And boy did we need them! We signed up 68 people in 3 hours and talked to at least four times more–including the two kids who finished at our location first.

I’m so excited that it was a success, since it was my first solo activity and my first idea on the job! The latest shift of volunteens are probably still entering the info into the computer, but I got to come home finally!

Under here? Underwear? Yep! Today’s reading corner featured an assortment of books on every young child’s favorite topic. Undies! Socks and Pants–under pants! While Thursdays are usually sloooow days at our library, the 10 participants were enthralled with these tales of underwear and socks. I read the stories to two groups, since even a great topic like underwear can’t hold a 5 or 6 yr old still for more then 5 picture books. There were a bunch of kids on the game computers who barely even looked up when I asked them if they wanted to come hear stories. So I grabbed a bunch of kids who had just walked through the door, and they were the most enthusiastic crowd ever–even though they were pretty young, they listened to the entire story of Timothy Cox and also Dirty Joe. My boss came to check up on me at 2, when I was supposed to be done, but these kids were SO entranced that they didn’t even notice him come by.

So here are some of my favorite underwear tales:
This combines both Underpants and Socks!

This is quite long, so definitely an elementary tale, but it is entrancing! What happens if you don’t change your socks for a month? In real life they’d probably fall apart before they could smell as stinky as Tim’s.

This was actually more popular then Parr’s Underwear dos and don’ts, a British take on Pants!

Ack, I really mean to post everyday, but with the craziness that is Summer Reading Club and getting used to working full time for the first time in a long time it just hasn’t happened. My dad would say “Any excuse for non-performance, no matter how valid the excuse, only weakens the character.” So I’ll just say I’ll try harder to post at least a couple of times a week!

Today is my evening on, which gives me time to cook food for tomorrow’s lunch this morning. It would probably be fresher if I got up early on Thursday or stayed up later tonight. Since I know that it wouldn’t happen if I waited, I’m baking brownies this morning and am considering starting chopping the onions for the baked beans. I’m still struggling with the vegetarian bean issue–since my father always makes the best beans with hug chunks of bacon. But, apparently over half of the staff are vegetarians, so it would be nice to be obliging.

Even though this is my second week at work, I’m still trying to get my schedule worked out. This morning we have an author visit that I’m going in earlier for, but I’m not sure that I’m ok’d for leaving an hour earlier. This whole schedule thing is a bit frustrating–since I want to come in earlier in the morning and take a shorter lunch break, but can’t leave any earlier. It is probably because I’m still so new and enthusiastic that it is hard to keep me from jumping in and working more–though I know I need to restrain myself.

I just came from my final exam for my youth services reference course, it is good to have it over with so I can focus on the summer reading club. The questions focused on all the typical things that such reference classes do: electronic databases, reference interviews, and different types of reference materials. However, having worked the past couple of months at the reference desk in the youth services department, I know that this is really a small part of the REAL questions that we get asked.

Here are is a small sampling of the most typical information needs that people had when they came into the children’s department:

*I’m looking for my daughter/mother/father/son/small Martian
*Where are the bathrooms/drinking fountain/computers/dvds?
*Have you seen my bag/headphones/jacket?
*Do you have a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid/The Clique/Twilight?

The only question on the exam that came close to this was about the three types of reference interviews–saying that directional questions are not part of this–I had to add that they are probably among the most common received.

What are your most commonly asked questions?

This week I started my new job, and I LOVE it! However, it has left me with less time and energy to dedicate to this blog. Partially that is because I am also finishing my class at the same time. Today is my evening on, so I don’t have to go in to the library for a while this morning. So I thought I’d post about the exciting preparations for the Summer Reading Club that we are busy putting together!

Decorations are going up–with the theme being GAME ON! READ! There are lots of cool games that can be featured, so it is a matter of selecting which ones to feature. Since neither I nor the Librarian I’m assisting with the decor are really into sports, we are focusing on some other outdoors games. We have hula hoops, jump ropes, hop scotch, and a few sports related items. I’m working on signs to advertise our programs each day–there is so much going on that it is important to make sure everyone can see what is scheduled for that day.

We’ve divided the supervision of programs between the four of us Youth Services staff–and I am SO excited about the activities I will get to observe and host. I’ll be working on science themed Tuesdays as well as non-family story time Wednesdays, as well as a variety of other activities. For my first day of work, we went on class visits and I was sharing all of the exciting visitors and programs we will be having and encouraging them to come see them. The kids LOVED hearing about the Turtle Lady, with her buckets of turtles, and the Reptile guy with his ALLIGATOR!! I have to say that I am looking forward to both of these as well, though I can only imagine the potential mess and chaos.

I’m also still working on my passive programing ideas–lots of fun crosswords and word searches!

Today is my first day at my new job, and I am super excited! It is sort of like the first day of a new school year. I’m going to meet all my new coworkers, figure out lots of information I need about my job and their expectations, and jump right into work. The only difference is that I am the only new student starting right now.

Just like starting the first day of school, I did a little clothes shopping in preparation. Back when I was in grade school I always went shopping with my mom to get all the clothes I would need for the school year. She and I didn’t always agree, and I’ve never been the most fashionably dressed. But somehow in elementary school it was enough to do a big shopping trip before school began, and get through the school year with maybe only the purchase of a few sweaters for Christmas. For my new position at the library I don’t exactly need a new wardrobe, but it is the beginning of the summer so my wardrobe needs some nice staples for the warmer weather. I bought two pairs of khakis and a new black skirt, a few short sleeved tops, and a new pair of brown shoes.

Beyond worrying about looking nice for the first day, I’ve been getting ready in other ways. I got a new notebook, a stack of books for a program next week, piles of stickers and prizes, and files of information on schools in the area. It is kind of silly in a way, because I don’t really have all the information I need to start making plans, but I’ve been so excited to start that I run ahead of myself.

Since I really want to get all the staff excited about the HHC and my work in general, I am concerned about making a good impression with my coworkers. I really should have taken more time to try to familiarize myself with the staff I will be working with–all of their pictures and job titles are on the intranet, but I was too busy at work to take the time, plus it is a little stalkerish. My hope is that they will be as excited to have me as I am to join them–or at least excited about having a HHC!

I am still in the midst of preparing for my new job–which I start Monday–and working on my reference project. So I have more fun reference sources for my core collection–these are internet links that I think will provide good sources for directing students when working on their homework. It is always hard to know without actually trying them out on kids, but here are a few that I’ve found:
Websites

Math
Math Forums @ Drexel:

Biography
Presidents of the United States

Language Arts
Factmonster Language Arts

Multimedia Grammar Glossary

Science
Especies Fact Sheets

Windows to the Universe

All Science Fair Projects

Social Science
The World Factbook

Ben’s Guide to U.S. Government for Kids

One of the scariest parts of my new job is going to be providing homework help in math, since it has never been a strong subject for me. But in my quest to become as prepared as possible, and in my class assignment of creating a core-reference collection for the center, I have been examining a variety of math related reference materials. Since I don’t have a passion for math, I didn’t expect to be terribly excited about these reference materials, but I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of math reference materials out there.

In particular, I found the book very colorful and informative on all kinds of math problems and concepts. It is aimed for middle school students, but could help younger children and even older ones.

I’m currently taking a four week class called “Reference Services for Youth” and our main project is to create a core reference collection of about 30-34 works both print, electronic, and hopefully audio visual. Personally, I am not sure of what the professor means by “reference” as she sometimes seems to refer to all non-fiction books and other times to refer to a distinct sub-set of non-fiction. Regardless, I am finding this particular assignment to be very helpful, and am creating a core reference collection for the homework help center.

Since the homework help center is a distinct area within a larger branch, it doesn’t need a full complement of reference materials. Students can bring reference materials into the center from other parts of the library, and certainly if there was a project that all the students were working on that needed a specific set of books, we could move them temporarily into the center. This said, there are some basic print reference materials that we could keep in the center for use of the students.

In deciding which materials to include, I’m trying to select works that can be used by the broadest range of students in the largest amount of projects. Since the library system has a lot of amazing databases, I will work on marketing those as well.

Here is the tentative list:
Print
Dictionaries
Random House Webster’s unabridged dictionary 2005 423 R1948r2, 2005
Macmillan dictionary for children 2007 423 M16, 2007
The American heritage student thesaurus 2007 423.1 H477s, 2007
The Facts on File dictionary of mathematics 2005 510.3 F142f4
Larousse French-English, English-French dictionary 2007 443.21 L332, 2007
Bilingual visual dictionary - French 2005 443.21 B595
Collins Spanish dictionary 2006 463.21 C7123c3
Writing Aids
Grammar essentials 2006 428.2 G7451g3
Ready, set, write! :a student writer’s handbook for school and home 808.02 R287
Encyclopedias
The World Book Encyclopedia 2008 031 W92, 2008 Almanacs
The World almanac and book of facts 2008 031.02 W927
The world almanac for kids” 2008 031.02 W9273
Atlases
“School atlas–DK” 2007 912 S421s, 2007 Historical Works
Opposing viewpoints in American history 2007 973 OPP

This is just a start–I’m still thinking that I’d like a general science reference work, but I’m undecided on what would be general enough for the largest variety of students and assignments and not take up too much shelf space. In case you are wondering about the two French dictionaries, we have two French immersion schools in our service area, both k-8, so it seemed reasonable.

This week is my last week at my old job, but hopefully it wont be the last week of Ready to Read activities at the center. I have been working hard to get instructions and supplies together so that these activities can be pulled out and used after I am gone to work at my new job. The plan is to provide enough supplies so that each activity can be used at least once without any further preparation then looking at the instruction sheet and grabbing the box of glue sticks and the box of crayons along with the prepared supplies.

For some reason, I’d forgotten that it would be a shorter work week because of the holiday, but I’m still sure that I can pull it all together. Well at least I hope so! This week’s activity is pretty simple. We will be making collages on large letters. I have boxes with a huge assortment of different scraps of different types and colors of paper. That and glue sticks and scissors is all we need for a lot of fun! We made samples on Thursday and stuck them on the Fridge door in the break room–they looked nice and were fun to put together. Plus kids love to work on cutting paper and gluing, skills they get lots of practice in this activity, along with practicing some letters.