What I have learned after a year of being a solo practitioner (an incomplete list)
There are possibly five people in the school apart from me who have any idea about what I do (two of them are students)
I am on my own (in the school)
In the UK I am one of many (twitter, e-mail)
In the year that I have not had them I have developed a lot of respect for the backroom teams of cataloguers, book processors and those that handle orders in public libraries – I miss them!
It takes me approximately 10 minutes to process a softcover book – from cataloguing to covering
Time is NOT on my side
It has taken me a year to *almost* be happy with the layout of the library (I have changed it six times during the year)
Students will never tell you that they like a particular layout but once you have changed it and they finally notice it is different they will complain
The Justin Bieber biography is one of the most popular leisure reading non-fiction books in the school
The One Direction biography is the most requested non-fiction title (I have not bought it as my budget did not allow)
The English Department is my friend (but they can’t have my budget)
Chewing gum is the work of the devil (but I knew that anyway)
National Geographic magazine has not been opened in the year that I have worked at my school (bye bye)
A really interesting post, I’d love to say I was surprised by those popular books but somehow I’m not.
Teeheehee, lots of these ring true with this humble school librarian!
Tip for speeding up the processing of books: order from a supplier that will cover books, put labels on etc for you. Then get a LMS that will assign keywords, dewey numbers etc automatically, but allow you to edit them as well.
I’m pleased to say that those books would be burnt by the kids in my library 🙂