Re: [LM_NET] Dewey

[Barbara Braxton <barbara.288@BIGPOND.COM>]

Hi Marsha
I have to agree with you about subject headings - schools here use a national 
system and Baby
Animals is Animals-Infancy.  Even though there are "see' and 'see also'  fields we 
can use, what
under-7 little one is going to look for that?  I am writing a series of books about 
information
literacy (K-2,  3-4, 5-6) and I surprised myself at how early on I was suggesting 
teacher librarians
show the children how to search the OPAC by author and subject to find fiction 
books.

Like everyone else, whenever we have this discussion, I believe we sort out 
collection to suit our
students, and with little ones like I taught, there is time enough in later years 
to learn all the
formalities so they can use a library anywhere.  By the time my students left for 
middle school they
knew all they needed, and because they had been able to be relatively independent 
from kindergarten,
they were confident and competent.

I also documented everything I did but given that I wasn't replaced and the library 
is now a book
depository run by a clerk with no qualifications (but a lot of knowledge) that was 
a waste of time.
When I drop in, rarely as I now live interstate, the teachers bemoan the fact that 
I am not there to
find stuff for them.  I suggested they use the OPAC and Jenny's knowledge and the 
signage but then I
discovered there was not one OPAC working!  Not a priority or even on the radar of 
the IT
technicians or the principal who assigns their tasks.

How many tens of thousands of dollars of resources (many of those $$$ my own) are 
unused because
they can't be found even in though they are Dewey order because of the decision not 
to replace me?
How many students are going on to middle school unable to function in a school 
library, let alone
the public one? The shelving system in a library is more than its classification 
system.


Barbara


Barbara Braxton
Teacher Librarian
COOMA NSW 2630
AUSTRALIA

E. barbara.288@bigpond.com
Together we learn from each other 

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