Week 3

 This was a very busy week!  I started the week out with my normal activities as a Media Clerk; i.e., shelving books, assisting students with checkout, and laminating for teachers.  Here are a couple photos of some Kindergarten students browsing for books on the tables we have setup this year.  They browse 2-3 students at a time so they can maintain social distancing.

We got new books in from Follett this week!  I unpacked five boxes of books and spent the next two days getting them completely processed.  The first step is unpacking the books onto a Media Cart.  Next, I double check the titles we received to the packing slip and highlight each title as I locate it.

After I have accounted for all the books, I move on to barcodes.  Since they are usually such large orders, my Media Specialist has Follett add barcodes to our books for us to save a bit of time.  However, we take the extra labels Follett sends along and add the barcode label to the title page of the book. This way, if a student removes the barcode for any reason from the back, we still can track the book. 

Next, I stamp each book with our Baggett Media Center stamp on the title page and on the top of chapter books if they are wide enough.

Sometimes, the category Follett places on the spine label is not correct.  Then I will print a new label for the proper category, add any additional stickers (such as blue dot for our beginning chapter book section), and change the record in Destiny.

On Friday, I spent the day at Dacula Middle School.  I learned a lot from the Media Specialist Mrs. Greer!  I observed her teach two sixth grade classes a research lesson about Cuba and Fidel Castro.  I walked around during the lessons and assisted students as needed.  She had both in-person and digital students so I was able to see how she teaches both at the middle school level.

Dacula Middle School's Media Center is grouped by genre.  This is something I am interested in.  After observing and assisting students throughout the day, I noticed how easy it seemed for students to locate a book they were interested in.  Due to Covid, they are using a similar table setup like we are for book browsing.  I did not get pictures of the tables though.  However, the tables were even grouped and labeled by genre.  The students would come in the Media Center and go directly to the section of books they enjoy.

Mrs. Greer was an elementary school Media Specialist before she transferred to Dacula Middle School.  She was able to give me her unique perspective on the pros and cons of each level.  We had a wonderful discussion and she gave me lots of great ideas!  She also showed me how I can access School Library Journal articles free through Galileo since our county no longer pays for the subscription.  It was a great learning experience!