Re: GEN: librarian's objective

["Karen G. Schneider" <kschneid@UMICH.EDU>]

>saturated with that subject.  Surprise, surprise .... one of our 9th grade
>environmental science teachers assigned dinosaurs! (Thank goodness our
>Middle School has a generous supply of donosaur books because of Earth
>science/geology/paleontology.) I *will* purchase a few more dinosaur
>books by next year.

If we ever do "Library Science--the Movie" we will have to include a scene
with dinosaur assignments, complete with scary music.  But this is one area
where your Internet connection can help.  With an Internet account and a
$500 color printer, you can churn out quite a few dinosaur pictures.  For
the most part I think color printers aren't that useful, but when it comes
to services to youth, I see endless possibilities (in other words, I wish I
had had one...!)

>those, I photocopy it and mail it to the public library here. The problem
>is, research assignments are sometimes spur of the moment or "teachable
>moment" types of assignments. Also, teachers do not like to fill out the
>forms in advance. They don't realize how important that information is to
>both school and public librarians.

This is something we can all commiserate on.  It's hard, too.  We can come
up with all kinds of formulas, forms and schemes, but ultimately it is the
teacher who calls the shots on this one.  We had a second form, though, at
one library, for telling teachers that we didn't have the materials they
had sent the students in for.  That calmed down the students and sometimes
opened channels of communication.  At another libary that didn't have these
forms, I finally got on the phone one day and told the principal (since the
teacher wasn't returning my calls) that the assignment wasn't supportable
in its present form.  It was changed...

Karen <kschneid@umich.edu>