Tales from a Loud Librarian

Click here to read my article Click here to read all five teen reviews It has been a great run, but the December 18th edition of SLJTeen was Bookmarked's last contribution to the twice a month newsletter. I was pleased that we could end with a bang. The students submitted five reviews , and I wrote an article to say goodbye . In the reviews, you will find a student reviewed Noggin by John Corey Whaley; the same book that I reviewed in the December 4th edition . I hate to admit it, but I think that Vy nailed it better than I did. Click the links above to read the student's reviews and my swan song.  Click here to read my review of Noggin

BEFORE the holes were drilled in the counter AFTER the holes were drilled in the back of the counter fro the cables and cords Patrick Taylor Academy moved into the new building in Avondale at the end of July. School began on August 9th. The classrooms were ready before the library, and I couldn't open the library until August 22nd. Even then, there were still finishing touches that were not completed. I have been waiting since August for holes to be drilled in the counters for computer cables, shelving in the storage room, electrical outlets to become live and stool height chairs for students at the computer counter. Having the cables and electrical cords hanging in front of the counters looked ridiculous and also were a safety hazard. Wednesday, two days before our winter break, the stone man and carpenter came to drill the holes in the counters with the student computers and my circulation desk. I can go on break a happy camper. See for yourself in the photos above and

I have been teaching for over 30 years. You would think that I would not get nervous about being observed by my principal. She has certainly popped in the library many times while I was teaching a class. However, having a formal teacher evaluation did make me a bit jumpy. If you would like to read the rubric used to evaluate school librarians in Louisiana, open here . To plan for this event, I knew that I had to do a collaborative lesson with one of my teachers. I selected the biology teacher because we have worked together before, and she was going out on maternity leave. I knew that having me work with her students for two 90 minute periods was not going to eat into her teaching time. Together we decided to do a project on human diseases. Last year, after her students completed the Louisiana end of course test (EOC), they told her there were some topics on the test that were not covered in class. How technology is used to diagnose and treat human diseases was one of those areas.

                          Click the above image to enlarge and read I hadn't read the amazing description about me that Dodie had written in this week's edition of  SLJTeen  until I received an email from a fellow librarian. She was sending me kudos about something that I hadn't even seen. Dodie, you had me floored. I just don't think of myself in that way. I do what I do to provide the best library program that I can physically do for the students at Patrick Taylor. The fact that I love it is a big plus in my book, and I realize this is not a given. It also helps to have supportive administrators, faculty members and parents, too.  The students were a little light this week with their reviews for SLJTeen . So Dodie and I had an opportunity to wax eloquent about some books that we have been reading. Though I write in this blog regularly, which means I am published on the web, it still gives me a little thrill to see my own byline in SLJTeen . Read

I am not going to bore you with the stress that I have had over the last three weeks. Just suffice it to say that life can hit you with some very difficult curve balls. What makes it nice is to have a collaborator who watches your back. In September when I decided to present at the annual conference for the Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators (LACUE), I had no clue that time would get away from me. Kelly Maher and I have presented together before, and we planned to do it again this year. I like working with Kelly because we are very different and each of us are able to make unique contributions to our presentations. So I am writing this and offering a HUGE shout out to Kelly for probably pulling way more weight on this presentation than I did. I really appreciate it because I think that we nailed it.  This time around we wanted to inspire, share some of what we have done by telling stories and introduce some new web tools. We wanted to emphasize that most of