First, I have to say YOWZA! And second, I have to say how happy I now am
with my job.
Finally getting to your question (the sympathy card is in the mail LOL):
I would start by doing a quick and dirty weeding of the collection. From
everything else you have said I'd say there is a lot of out-of-date and
biased material there. Even if you end up with fewer books than required
by accrediting standards you'll have a better collection. You'll also
have fewer books to catalog when you do automate, and you'll familiarize
yourself with the collection while weeding it.
You might also want to slap new Dewey Decimal labels on the spine, and
pockets of books you're keeping where you notice the call number is
especially wrong.
You didn't mention your budget, but somehow I suspect it is low to
non-existent. If you do have money start looking into an automation
system like Follett now, and think about hiring a retired librarian (NOT
the one who was at your school) to start cataloging books. Or if you
have the budget or can get a grant, see if Follett can do the cataloging
for you.
I know others will have suggestions also, and I'm out of time for now,
so with best wishes I leave you.
Deb Waugh
Librarian/Instructional Technologist
The Emmett G. Shufflebarger Library
at Graham High School
Bluefield, Virginia
debwaugh@frontiernet.net
-----Original Message-----
From: School Library Media & Network Communications
[mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Jerol King
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2003 8:30 PM
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Help! There is so much to do!!
Hello Everyone:
I am experiencing a "project overload." :-) I am starting the year at
a
high school media
center, which is a new position for me, having left a middle school
media
specialist position with a different school system.
When I say there is much to do at this school's library, there is MUCH
MUCH
to do!!
I don't know where to place my energies first, it is so mind boggling:
1) This high school library has been MANUALLY checking out books for
the
last four years
because the previous media specialist(s) have not been able to get the
automation system working for one reason or another. Resources that are
on
the shelf are fully processed with spine labels,
pockets, etc. When students have wanted to check out a book, they would
bring the book to the front desk and leave the card that was in the
pocket
with the media specialist.
2) There is no meaningful inventory available
When I say no inventory I mean no meaningful inventory of books, videos,
equipment, software, magazines that would tell me the the age of the
collection, what's missing or lost, what sections need to be "shored up"
and
what sections they have enough material in. There is one massive
notebook
with print outs of things the library owns, but I don't know how
accurate or
current it is and it probably does not list the copyright dates.
3)Students have no way of looking up resources in the media center,
manually
or otherwise. I think the media clerk said students come to her to ask
where
certain sections are. There is not
even a poster of the dewey decimal system for students to use. (When the
media center was beginning the roll out of this now non-existent
automation
system they assumed everything would be working okay, so the entire
card
catalog was discarded, so the
students nor myself even have that to fall back on.
4) And perhaps worst of all, the way the sections are organized are
trully
questionable:
There is a separate section for Black biographies and a separate section
for
white biographies
A person could not come in immediately and know which sections are
which, as
there is minimal
labelling and signage.
5) Items are not shelved accurately accordingly to dewey decimal system.
This library program is trully a case of the worst media practices, and
obviously has very
low standards and expectations set for its users to be self sufficient
media
center users.
As you can imagine I have my hands full!! I am prepared to push on with
this school year with or without automation. Where would some of you
begin
tackling these issues???
P.S. Contacting the previous media specialist is not an option, because
she
has not returned
my phone calls to date. We do however, have the help of the media clerk
who
is returning.
Jerol King
Media Specialist
Washington High School
Atlanta, GA
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