Practicum Reflections By Catherine Bates

10/12/12 Rock Canyon Elementary Letty Meibos 3 hours I have been lucky enough to get into contact with an elementary school librarian here in Provo. She is the paraprofessional who runs the Rock Canyon Elementary School library. Letty is a great librarian, she is good at aligning the library curriculum with what the students are doing in their classrooms. Lettys district supervisor has instructed all of the librarians to convert their non-fiction section to the Barnes and Noble way of organizing things. This means there is to be a vast restructuring of not only how the books are organized but also the huge project of changing spine labels and location labels for the books in Destiny. Since Letty only has one part time aide and only works part time herself, I have volunteered to help her with this transition. Today was my first day there, we sat and chatted for a bit about the obstacles she was facing with this project. We got to talk about what the best subject headings would be and where they would go in relation to each other. Once the class came in for her to teach, I sat and listened to her give some book talks. The students were then allowed to find a few new books to check out from the library. It was really neat to see how different the atmosphere is in an elementary school as opposed to a junior high or high school. The kids seem so excited to be there and so excited to check out some books! After the kids left, I shelved some books while Letty took care of cataloging things. I cant imagine the time crunch she is under. There seems like an insurmountable amount of work to be done in an elementary school libraryjust as in all libraries---but with half of the support. Letty does a great job managing it all and being cheerful about it. I also had the opportunity to print new book labels and put them on the books in the section she had been working on. I have always disliked this way of organizing books simply because the uniformity between libraries is completely lost. Each librarian chooses their own subject headings and which books belong where. Because of this, one library might have a section for U.S. History, which would encompass all U.S. History and another might have smaller sections like Civil War history, or Utah History. I think it would be a difficult adjustment for a kid to figure out a new library system each time he went into a different school. On the other hand, it makes a lot of sense to have this system in an elementary school library. In an elementary school a good portion of the population will not have had exposure or a good handle on decimals, so the Dewey Decimal System might seem confusing to them. Overall it was a great experience to see an elementary school library and to see how this way of organizing books might be put into practice.

10/19/12 Rock Canyon Elementary Letty Meibos 3 hours *I am feeling very lucky to have found Letty, she is letting me come volunteer in her library twice a week. Today Letty and I talked about grant writing. I decided it would be fun and a good resume builder to try and write another 100% for kids grant. Letty is looking to improve the sports section of her library. Currently there are about 30 books that have extremely high circulation statistics and 40 other books in the section that have abysmal circulation statistics. Today Letty and I tried to determine why the books that were being checked out were being checked out so often. The first thing we did was weed the books that had four or fewer circulations in the past four years. They were what you expect, some weird books about rollerblading and ice skating that looked like they were from the 80s. The next thing we did was pull the books that were highly circulated so that we could see what they were and if they had any similarities. This was a lot harder than I anticipated. It seemed that there werent any defining factors that caused a book to be more circulated. We finally decided that Letty would just ask some of the fifth grade boys who she knew liked to check out sports books. I really enjoyed seeing this process completed. It was a great lesson in weeding as well as selection. I really liked the idea of letting the students have input on what is purchased. I really would like to do that in my library when I have one. It seems to make a lot of sense to have the patrons be involved in the selection process. The other thing I got to see today was Letty doing story time for a bunch of third graders. I have to admit I sat with rapt attention as she read the story to us. I forgot how enjoyable being read to is! Unfortunately I dont think I will have that opportunity in a high school or a junior high, but you can be certain that if the opportunity presents itself I will certainly jump on it. It was so much fun to see how engaged the kids were and how much they enjoyed being read to. What a wonderful experience.

* I volunteered in Lettys library twice a week for around three months for three hours each.

11/23/12 Albion Middle School Marianne Bates 3 hours For one of our assignments for class we were supposed to create a list of books to buy on title wave. Luckily enough Marianne Bates at the Albion Middle School Library was looking into buying new social problems books. This was a very good experience. Marianne let me review her collection analysis, weed her collection, and then help choose new books to buy. It was great to see this procedure in practice and made things a little more clear in my mind on how to do things. For the weeding part I found books that had fewer than two check outs in the last five years or books that were older than 1995. Marianne had asked the English teacher who had inquired about the books for some ideas for their replacements. The English teacher provided Marianne with a list of topics that the kids had chosen to write their essay on and that is mainly what we used to go off of when we were selecting new books. I really liked seeing collaboration and the weeding and selection process being merged. To me this makes a lot of sense, especially regarding the non-fiction section. The books that were being selected directly supported and enhanced the English teachers curriculum. It was good to see how having a relationship with the librarian allowed the English teacher to be a better teacher. Weeding and selection has always been very intimidating to me, it is scary to have that much responsibility and seeing this process made it seem a lot more manageable to me. It has become clearer exactly how I can support teach curriculum with the books I purchase, I simply just need to ask them! I also really liked seeing Mariannes relationship with the principal and the administration, it is clear to me that they trust her and are confident in her abilities.

1/13 Albion Middle School Marianne Bates 3 hours Today I went back to visit Marianne Bates in the Albion Middle School library. Today Marianne was having an English class come each period to do speed dating with books. Speed dating with books is set up like this. There are six different tables set up in the library, each table has a different genre on it. Mariannes tables were as follows: science fiction, fantasy, contemporary fiction, sports, non-fiction, and historical fiction. Each table has 10 to 15 different books in the genre. The students sit four to a table and have 10 minutes to look through the books. The students also have a sheet of paper that is separated into the genres and they are required to write down two books and authors from each table that they might like to check out and read. This is in conjunction with an assignment that the teacher is requiring of the students. Marianne had Sidney and I walk through the tables and do mini book talks to the kids at the tables. We were able to tell the kids about the different books to see if they might like to read them. She also had us explain the process of speed dating with books to a couple of classes. This was such a fun activity and the students seemed to really enjoy the variety and the fast pace of everything. They all seemed very engaged and interested while it was going on. Marianne also briefly showed us her wiki. She has this awesome wiki for her library that not only includes links for teacher professional development and collaboration, but also links for students to explore as well as information for other librarians. I think this will be a great resource for me It was really cool to see Marianne interact with the students and the teachers. This was a really neat and interesting way to collaborate with a teacher. I am kind of wondering how you approach a teacher about something like this or if the teacher generally approaches here.

12/19/12 Weber High School Joanne Christensen 7 hours I went to go visit my aunt Joanne Christensen at Weber High School. Mrs. Christensen had me do a lot of different things at her library while I was there and it was a very informative and enjoyable experience. Joey showed me how they get things started in the morning, she checks her box, and turns everything on, she gets her aide started on a project and then kids start coming in. At Weber High they have time in the mornings for the kids to come in and use the library. They keep track of how many kids come in by having them sign a piece of paper. The school has asked them to keep track of these statistics so they know whether or not to keep the before school program going. The first thing that I did was help her do some inventory. I learned that in destiny inventory is broken down in sections. I did the video section as well as the professional development section. It went a lot faster than I anticipated. Joey told me that she generally does her inventory in sections throughout the year. I think that is a really good idea. She has a list of the sections and then her aides start working on it when they have some extra time. It seems much more manageable this way instead of doing all of it in one go. The next thing she had me do was enhance MARC records. I did this by adding pictures to books that didnt have any as well as adding access points to the 504 tag which is details in MARC records. This makes it so that the search parameters encompass not just the title but also the table of contents. The day I came to visit they were having a luncheon in the library awarding some students. It was interesting to see the librarians role in setting things up and assisting with things. Joey helped get the tables up and looking nice, She also helped organize the SBO kids. the library staff got to eat with everyone and that was really nice. The last thing I saw her do was some collaboration with a teacher. The teachers 10th grade English class came in and Joey told them how to access the different databases and how to efficiently and effectively search in them. It was really cool to see her teach. She only took about fifteen minutes but all of the kids seemed to find it useful and relevant. It was nice to see a high school librarian successfully collaborating because I have heard that they are pretty protective of their time. I really like how Joey handles her library; her desk is out in the open and really close to the door so she is easily accessible to the teachers and the students. I also liked hearing her talk to all the kids about what they were reading. I really cant wait to be able to do this and some of the librarians I have seen dont really interact with the kids very much so it was great to see an example of a librarian who does. That is the kind of librarian I would like to be.

5/21/13 Brighton High School Sue Saunders 6 hours I was lucky enough to go up to Brighton a few times during the school year to talk with the librarian to get some things figured out before I take over next year. On the 21st I went in and helped Sue check in books mainly for AP students. It was interesting to see the way that she handled it. I also had the opportunity to attend an Ipad training done by the Ed-tech as well as sit down with him for a while and talk about some of the challenges he faces. Sue had the teachers sign up for a five-minute time slot to check in books. This to me seemed like too short of time but it ended up working out very well. The book rooms are very dispersed at Brighton so there was a significant amount of running around which I was pretty accustomed to after being at Alta. I dont know that there is really any way around that. The real problems arose when some teachers who were bringing books to the library book room signed up next to teachers who have their books in a different book room. I think next year I might try checking books in and out by department instead of letting teachers pick whatever time and on whatever day. At Alta, Jenny Olsen asked the department heads to choose one day to do check in and outs and since most departments were grouped together it made things really easy. One thing that really stood out to me at Brighton was that the aides never work at the circulation desk, they always work in a room behind the circulation desk. This resulted in it kind of looking like no one was there and thus made it less welcoming. A large part of the problem with this is that the circulation desk is high and they dont have high enough chairs to sit at it comfortably. I am going to try and fix this situation by getting new chairs, getting a new desk, or altering the current desk. Hopefully one of those options will fit within the confines of the budget. Sue and I talked about a number of issues that she had struggled with at Brighton. One of those being some of the problems with the cataloguing put in place by the previous librarian. I was thinking that would be a good long term project for the aides to be working on when they have some down time. As I mentioned I sat in on the Ipad training, but I also got to sit with the Edtech, Jared Ward, while he helped teachers set up their Ipads. It was a really good experience to listen to him help the teachers, as well as to be able to talk to and get to know some of the teachers. I talked with Jared about helping with further training on the Ipad and have signed up for an Ipad education class through UEN over the summer. He seemed really open to the idea of doing it together and I am really looking forward to becoming an expert at education apps! Jared also expressed to me how much he would like to have the labs more closely supervised. Although the school does have LAN school, I dont think it is used very often and I think it would be easier and more effective to use two monitors to do this. He agreed and told me he would see what he could do to get another monitor at the circulation desk. This was very encouraging to me, Jared definitely seems like a good person to have on my side and I am glad he will be around to be an advocate for the library.

5/20/13 2.5 hours Hillcrest High School Librarian Kristina Graves Kristina has been the librarian at Hillcrest for five years. We mainly talked in her office for the majority of the time. I really like how Kristina does things. She said that for the most part she sits at the front desk but will go into her office to write answer e-mails. That is definitely how I want to do things. She seems very involved in her school. While I was there I went with her to check in a couple of classes worth of textbooks. She generally just takes her laptop and checks them in and the students put them away. She has the teachers sign up using the outlook calendar available to all teachers. I really like her way of signing up. All of the other schools I have been to the librarians have the teachers sign up on a piece of paper and the 21st century learner in my recoils at the thought of that. It seems to make a lot more sense to do it through outlook and I think that is how I am going to do it when I start at Brighton. It wont require too much training for the teachers because they already use outlook to schedule lab use and checkouts and ins will be on the same calendar. We also talked about principals. Apparently Kristinas principal is very similar to the one I will be working with at Brighton. Both are very involved in their schools, and for lack of a better word, kind of controlling. She gave me some advice on how to deal with that which I was very appreciative of. She reminded me as virtually all the librarians I have talked to have that I needed to make sure that the teachers and administrators dont walk all over me. I know I will have a hard time with that as I have experienced that in many jobs I have had before. One of the things we did while I was there was go judge food that a CTE class had made. They were doing some sort of contest and she and another teacher were the judge. She told me she thought it was a good idea to try and be involved in things like this, if not just for the students to see her outside the library and recognize that she is a teacher too. We also talked about orientation. Kristina, unlike the other high schools in the district, does orientation for all grades. She has an altered orientation for 11th and 12th graders that includes more advanced things. I really like this idea and plan to implement it in my library. Another thing we talked about was statistics. She has every student who comes into the library sign a sheet. She does this not only during class periods but also during lunch and before and after school. I have been puzzling over the way I could implement this because Brightons library has three separate entrances that all get used quite frequently. I need to figure out how to do this effectively and efficiently. I had a really good time visiting with Kristina, I found out this week that she will be my mentor for my first year, she seems like she really knows her stuff and will be very helpful during my first year.

5/22/ 13 Jordan High School Laurel Harris 3 hours I have been lucky enough this week to spend time in each of the high school libraries in the district I will be entering. Jordans is the last library I have visited and it was wonderful. I have been in a lot of contact with Laurel because she is the district cataloger and since I have been cataloging textbooks at Alta I have communicated with her on a daily basis. Laurel is a great resource to have she has been a librarian at Jordan for at least five years and really has everything down to a science. Laurels library is the only library in the district that has four aides. Her aides are incredibly well trained and take care of the majority of the day to do day details in her library. Laurel mainly fills her time on working on projects for the administration as well as cataloging for the district. When I went to see her we talked about a number of issues that I would be facing at Brighton. My biggest concern at this point was textbook check in and out. I have seen the way it is handled at all of the schools and it seems that is inevitably going to be a big pain in the neck. That being said I really like how Laurel does things, all of the classes sign up for times and come down to the library. They solve the fine issues by including a member of the secretarial staff to be there to clear fines off of the students skyward account. This decreases the amount of back and forth the students have to do, and seems to cut down the margin of error. Laurel and I talked a lot about circulation. I discovered that Brightons circulation statistics are currently the lowest in the district and that was very disheartening to me. Some of the things Laurel suggested were having a theme every month, updating displays regularly, including teachers favorite books, and adding genre stickers to all of the books. All of these things are things I would like to do in my library. Laurel was also kind enough to share her orientation outline with me, I think I will be using a lot from it. I really like the feel of Laurels library, it seems full and vibrant, there are comfortable couches and chairs and a ton of different displays to look at. One of the things I have noticed about Brightons library is how much space we have but how little of it is used to promote books! I got a lot of great ideas from Laurel regarding this, and I am very excited to try some of them out next year.

Alta High School Jenny Olsen 19 hours a week for 4 months I wasnt sure whether or not I was allowed to count my time at Alta as a textbook cataloguer as practicum hours, but since I have fulfilled the time requirement without it and I count it as one of the most significant and useful experiences I have had while doing this coursework I decided it was pertinent for me to do some reflecting. During my time at Alta I worked very closely with the librarian Jenny Olsen, I felt incredibly privileged to be privy to the struggles and obstacles she had to overcome in her first year as a librarian and because she kept me in such confidence I believe it has prepared me for my first year in ways that other parts of the program have not. My primary job there was to assist her in cataloging every textbook in the school. When I arrived at Alta they had about 15,000 copies catalogued and by the time school ended there were 32,000 in the system. Although the majority of my time was spent simply putting barcodes on textbooks, I had the opportunity to work in the library during school hours when the aides were otherwise occupied. I also had the opportunity to problem solve with Jenny on many of the issues that arose with such a large project. These problem solving sessions would invariable degrade into other library topics. I learned a lot of things Alta but what I count as the most prominent is that being a librarian is hard work. It doesnt have to be hard work, there are multitudes of opportunities to do nothing, but a good librarian always has a task, always has an idea and always has a goal to be working towards. Jenny demonstrated to me what sort of an asset a qualified, competent, and passionate librarian can be to a school. I was able to watch how she dealt with fickle and unresponsive teachers, with compassion and understanding. I saw the way she transformed her library from the dull drab student-less place it was to a bright cheerful place that students congregate. Many of those methods I plan on incorporating at Brighton High School in the fall. Some of those include, a friendly, helpful staff, decorations and signage, displays that advertise new books, and of course a librarian who keeps her head up in the face of the insurmountable. Another great thing I learned from Jenny is that it always helps to have someone to talk to about your problems. Puzzling over them yourself will generally not get you anywhere. Whenever we had questions she would immediately call the district cataloger, if we had questions in Destiny she would ask me to talk to my mom at Albion Middle School. She frequently talked and collaborated with the other high school librarians. One of my greatest worries about taking on this job is all of the questions I simply do not have answers to, Jenny showed me that asking questions doesnt make you weak or inadequate, it makes you a good librarian. Another thing I saw in the Alta library that I would like to emulate is Jennys involvement with the administration. Because of her involvement she had tremendous support from them. They clearly value her input and the contributions she can make to the school. I am not quite sure how to cultivate this relationship with the administration, but I am going to start by doing my job to the best of my

ability, doing the things I am asked to do with a smile on my face (even if I dont want to do them), and assisting students and teachers at every opportunity. A great part of working at the Alta library was that Jenny trusted me and was confident in my abilities. I was able to exercise a certain amount of autonomy that has made me much more comfortable and confident in my role as a librarian. Being able to watch Jenny manage the million little things that a librarian does over the course of a day has helped me to understand how to better manage my time as well as rely on the people who will be there to help me. I dont know that I could have asked for a better experience and Jennys fantastic letter of recommendation for me definitely did not hurt my chances when I was looking for a job.