#libday8

I have participated in Bobbi Newman's Library Day in the Life for rounds 4 and 7. This is the 8th round.

I'm a high school librarian in North Alabama. This was my work day. It was a bit unusual in that I was out of my library doing professional development for my faculty most of the day, but typically breakneck.

5:48 Get out of bed, before my alarm goes off. It almost never does.

5:53 Am mostly dressed, in a tweed skirt from Jigsaw, boiled wool jacket from Anthro, and the new black Frye boots I splurged upon for my birthday January 2. I put the kettle on to boil.

6:05 Breakfast: Earl Grey Choice organic tea in a gorgeous typographic mug one of my students gave me at Christmas and steel cut oats. Go out and get the newspaper, glance through it. Check email and feed reader on the iPad. Another teacher from my school has followed me on twitter. He has a locked account. I almost never send follow requests to locked accounts...

6:17 Out the door. I do not scrape, but I probably should have. It's 32 degrees. I went out without a coat, so I cross my finger we WON'T have a fire drill.

6:36 Arrive at school. Meet science teacher in the parking lot, who asks how long the professional development I am leading happens to be. I tell her 45 minutes, which turns out to be way optimistic.

6:38 Turn on equipment. I'm rather frantic because I did not prepare adequately over the weekend for the workshops I am conducting for our faculty in preparation for Digital Learning Day. We are really focusing on BYOD. I crib shamelessly from a workshop I did two years earlier... frantic file location, transfer, and a little xeroxing ensues.

7:16 I run downstairs and get the custodian to let me into the multipurpose room to hook up my laptop and turn on the projector.

7:30 Students are allowed in the building, so the library opens officially. Our busiest times are between 7:30 and 7:50 and the fifteen minute break mid-morning. I get into conversations with students about the Beatles, Cassandra Clare, a supersonic Christian rock concert, and check out a slew of manga and fiction.

7:50 Before I leave to go to give my first presentation, I ask our two first-block student helpers to box up some old projectors and tape players I am hoping to get rid of.

7:56 Begin first workshop session. All day long, the groups are enthusiastic and engaged. There is a lot of conversation about online tools, I emphasize how we need to have students creating more digital products, instead of just pushing our own content at them (at which we have become rather good, I think). Our assistant principal for curriculum chimes in enthusiastically allaying policy concerns. There are excellent questions about accountability and digital equity.

9:10 Back up to the library for break. Check email. Have a talk with teacher about my husband's craft brewery. Check out books ranging from Becca Fitzpatrick to Love in the Time of Cholera. Check on the second block aides' reorganization of overflow storage.

9:45 Back down for the second faculty group. We have four blocks, so I will theoretically see all the teachers at some point in the day.

10:55 Back to the library. I told the third group to report at 12, so I have some time. Found out that the overflow shelving reorg has already attracted two sci fi readers...

11:00 Lunch at circ desk: peach Chobani yogurt

11:22 Our scheduled class comes in. I check out Simone Ekeles, Vampire Academy books, and find the "blue fairy books" (Melissa Marr). Also direct students to dinosaurs and basketball.

12:00 Round three with the faculty PD.

12:55 Back to the library. In the third session, a teacher claimed she cannot use PollEverywhere without installing plug-in. We spend twenty minutes immediately after the workshop trouble-shooting. Even my terrible student computers under restricted student logins can create polls. It is just her, but I am afraid she scared off her colleagues. I also think I agreed to help create rss feeds for one classes' vodcast and help another teacher craft an electronic textbook.

2:41 Back to the library. Talk to a student who wants biography of Langston Hughes for scholarship application topic. I check email. One of the students from my online cataloging class tells me she has a family emergency and, shockingly, that she has not internet access at home. Umm, why would you choose an online degree program without internet access?

2:50 Faculty kids invade the library as they do most afternoons. I agree to meet a teacher at 7:15 in the morning to help her set up equipment. We also have some girls staying after school for tutoring in the library. I hate to kick them out at 3:30, but I have to scoot to prepare for class.

4:02 Arrive home. Make and eat a grilled cheese sandwich.

4:30 It's Monday night, so I'm adjuncting Cataloging and Classification. Dial into the Wimba classroom and rant about Sears subject headings until 7:20. I work through about half of their next assignment with them (I'm a really easy teacher), and then let them out ten minutes early.

7:22 Email, feed reader, mail-mail (which includes UK pb of the latest JoJo Moyes, Me Before You).

8:15 My husband comes home. We talk about taxes and the brewery and local talk radio.

8:37 Bathtime, bedtime. I listen to an episode of the Archers on my iPod, as I do most evening before sleep.