I haven't had time to catch my breath since the Alabama Library Association conference wrapped last month. I was immediately thrust into administering the AP tests. We gave lots of them this year, so it was pretty much nonstop, with lots of makeup exams (and a makeup for a makeup, still to come). I really don't mind this, as ours is a small faculty, the test administration does not use the library space, and I like the opportunity to be kind and hopefully ease the stress of the students testing. I have been working on being soothing and trying to calm them, trying to modulate my voice to that end.
In the meantime, the library has been open with various substitutes. While that's not ideal, at least it makes the facility and the collection available to students. I worry that, in many schools, the library as space is going to get repurposed as a computer-based lab, the way AR once took over so many libraries as spaces. I know high school librarians in other states who have described this happening. But I think my school appreciates the role that the library and the librarians serve in supporting student learning. We definitely hear about it when we are away.
In the meantime, I keep looking around our library in the vocational building. Part of the drop ceiling got soaked and fell in last month, and the solution was to cover a bank of bookshelves with heavy duty plastic and rope off that area with caution tape. It hasn't leaked again, but the custodians don't want to remove the tarps yet, "just in case." Now the latest timeline says we won't be able to move into the new space until August 1, but one of the other buildings will be moving into ours in the meantime, so we have to box everything up. It's daunting, to say the least.
Not that I don't have things planned for next month: the state school library association conference, the state ed tech conference, some workshops, then a whole week in Las Vegas for ALA Annual. Yeah, more on all that after I've boxed up the library.
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