Gen: School and Public Library

[Kathy Keck <kkeck@ideanet.DOE.STATE.IN.US>]

Dear All,

I have read this thread with interest since I presently do both.  I work
full time as a high school media specialist and part time as a public
librarian.  The one distinct advantage I have in my high school job is I
can walk down the hall and get a clarification of the assignment from the
teacher.  This is not the case at the public library and there we are
often found reacting to the assignment as many of you have indicated.

One thing that I enjoyed was our former public library director had
regular luncheon ( brown bag ) meetings where all the public, academic and
school librarians were invited.  That is where I networked with my
colleagues outside of my school system.  Now I was not able to come to
many meetings, but I did manage a few.  There is NEVER a good time for
everyone to meet, but we would try.  Now we attempt to meet sometime
during the year for dinner and some casual program.  The last one was the
local college librarian was demonstrating his online catalog.

I would recommend that attempting some joint enjoyable evening would be a
worthy goal especially since my student is also their patron.

BTW I do ask the public library patron where they have searched in my
informational interview.  I do think that some librarians do too much and
prevent the public patron from learning some useful skills.:-)
My personal gripe is the patron who wants you to make photocopies for
them.  I think this a skill everyone can master with a little guidance.

Kathy Keck  kkeck@ideanet.doe.state.in.us
Crawfordsville High School
Crawfordsville, IN