Reflection for LIBE 465

At the beginning my LIBE 465 course, my goals were to: 1) get a game plan together for my Library regarding learning resources and 2) get a better idea of what constitutes learning resources, how to catalogue them and to become more familiar with what is ‘out there’ to better assist staff and students with their learning needs.  Thankfully, at the completion of this course, I have met these goals.

Using the Catalogue and Library Advocacy

Sadly, this is one area that requires a lot of work in my Library.  Having staff and students able to search for resources within the Library is limited if at all existent.  Staff are able to access the Library through the district WebCAT system, that being said, I have never had a staff member come up to me and ask for a list of particular titles that they have located on a WebCAT search.  The only teachers who I have seen use the system are my fellow TL’s looking for books on a teacher’s behalf.  In fact, that is generally how the staff does a resource search in the Library- they ask me.  I have no problem with system for 3 reasons: 1) it builds library advocacy 2) helps me learn the needs of the teachers and what subjects they are teaching which in turn helps me build the collection and 3) it helps me become more familiar with the collection.

When it comes to student access, this is where my Library has a major shortfall.  Teaching access in terms of student independence and critical thinking would be wonderful; however the Library is not set up to help students in terms of these skills at all.  If a student is looking for something in particular they would come to me.  I have no problem with this; however at the core of information literacy, “asking a teacher’ is not always the way to go.  Initial asking would be fine, however I have no way to teach this student to be able to find the information on their own in the future. Helping students become independent searchers of information is the main purpose of a Library; unfortunately the way our computer system is set up, students would need to log on with their individual account (which takes approximately 10 minutes) and thereby negating the entire checkout time.  There has to be a solution to this problem but I have yet to find it. 

Cataloguing and Library Organization

As a Teacher Librarian I have taught the general basics of the Dewey Decimal systems to grades 3 and up.  I generally show a movie to introduce the topic and then play a few games of “Name that category” in a charades format.  My own knowledge of the Dewey Decimal system was limited to that of a 30 minute introductory movie and shelving books.  The information in module was 9 was very informative in the theory of the Dewey Decimal System.  All the books that I purchase get catalogued by my Library clerk that comes in once a week, therefore, the way things were categorized remained a mystery.

                This brings me to my next point I would like to talk about, assignment #2.  If there is anything I really took away from that assignment, is that I am so thankful creating catalogue records are not a component of my job.  I have never needed to create one, however having the knowledge on how to create one I could see coming in handy one day.  I find the whole categorizing system very hazy and slow- in part because it is all very new to it and that I have no real way of practicing it- short of inventing work for myself.  Learning the ins and outs of creating MARC records took a painstakingly large amount of my time, as a result, I do feel a sense of familiarity with it all instead of all the codes looking like a foreign language.  There has been a few instances that my Library Clerk has asked me about cataloging where it comes down to a judgment call on the best place to put a book, this is where I can make an informed decision using the new knowledge I have gained.

The ‘cataloguing’ that I am responsible for falls under the “precataloguing” and “postcataloguing” umbrellas.  Any book that goes onto the shelves gets the go-ahead from me.  This generally does not take a lot of time as I alone do all of the purchasing.  There are some book donations by students, staff and parents that do take some time to sift through.  At this point, it comes down to a basic judgment call of whether or not we already have copies in the stacks, replacing an existing copy with a fresher one, or whether or not the information is current/interesting.

At the “postcataloguing” stage, I basically go with the already established system in the Library.  This follows the Dewey Decimal System for the non-fiction and alphabetical for the fiction.  The other great system that is used extensively in my Library is the use of ‘bins’ for series of books.  These are used to group series of books, authors and sometimes themes.  I love this system for two reasons: 1) it makes shelving a snap and 2) students can quickly find similar books much faster- especially if the series has more than one author.

In short, the skills that I have gained throughout this semester have been useful in transforming my Library.  As I have moved through the assignments and readings I have grown more confident in my role as a Teacher Librarian.