Getting a jump on spring

The end of this semester was brutal; filled with meeting after meeting after meeting, my relief last Friday at 5:00 pm was palpable. A week makes all the difference. Today finals are over, grades submitted, and students are gleefully on their way home for holiday break. Right before closing Wednesday evening, I asked my student worker to pull a list of recently acquired picture books in preparation for a spring Mock Caldecott session.

• Looking Like Me
• We Troubled the Waters
• Sweethearts of Rhythm
• Cool Cat
• The Longest Night
• John Brown: His Fight For Freedom
  
• Let There Be Peace on Earth
• The Goblin and the Empty Chair

On an aside, check out this Amazon video of Mem Fox reading The Goblin and the Empty Chair.

I have four journals to peruse tomorrow for juvenile books, two Booklist (11/15 & 12/1) and two School Library Journal (Nov. & Dec.) issues. If I submit orders tomorrow, I should have a few more choices available for the spring session.

Stop and smell the roses

Due to a course deadline countdown on the resource center door, for the last month we have been almost preternaturally aware of time remaining in the semester. As the countdown progresses, we know on a daily basis there are "x" number of days until the last day of class. While an exciting rite of passage, once the sign goes up its very existence makes the last month stretch ... on ... for ... ever. A bit of a conundrum.

Focused on getting us all through the course with minimum of fuss, it is easy to lose sight that with the end of the term excitement is finals and graduation. With graduation comes the yearly loss of great student workers who move on with their academic lives and careers. Both of my graduate assistants and two student workers are anticipating graduation on Saturday. One of my student workers has been with me for three years. A sweet young woman who has already secured a teaching position out of state, she has been joyfully anticipating her walk across stage. She also stopped in my office on Monday with a bouquet of flowers; a thank you and wonderful lift to my spirits.

The difference a day, or two, makes

Friday was the last day of classes. The library and resource center were hives of activity with students finishing assignments, putting final touches on presentations, attending virtual class meetings (we have speakers and requisite headphones) and printing like there was no tomorrow. As an area that encourages group work, we don't enforce quiet (there are study rooms available elsewhere) and the sounds were an interesting cacophony of music, laughter, and conversation with overtones of quiet desperation that permeate each semesters end. It was equal parts exhilarating and exhausting.

Today is the second day of finals week. Outside the weather is overcast, cold, windy and raining (the meteorologist who said it would reach 50 degrees was mistaken). Inside, every computer is taken and study tables accommodate single students viciously claiming their spots with a variety of paraphernalia scattered over the surface; the almost deafening quiet is broken only by furious typing on keyboards and stray cell phone ring tones. There will be fewer students on campus tomorrow and residence halls close on Friday morning for winter break. The term has officially come to a close. For the first time I can honestly say, "Wow, that went fast."

End of the spring 08 semester

Today is the last day of finals. Fewer and fewer students are in the library as the last final is, I believe, scheduled no later than 4 pm this afternoon. Students are required to be out of the dorms by 10:00 am tomorrow. Graduating seniors have until 5:00 pm on Saturday (after graduation). Parking is at a premium today as a wide variety of student and parent cars line nearby driveways and parking lots adjacent to dorms as they drag everything home for three months.

I had a lot of task-oriented things to complete this morning; resource center signs for summer hours, updating web pages with summer hours, updating chat/im services with summer hours, and another budget check is on my list. My student workers finished last evening at 11:00 pm (regular closing time) and I have a GA scheduled to work until 4:00 pm this afternoon. I plan on letting her leave after I finish lunch as there is really no need for her to remain if I cover the resource center for a couple of hours.

My agenda this afternoon is comprised of finding a hotel and flight for ALA. I have been dragging my feet somewhat on this project since due to family matters I was not sure of attending. Money came through from the university, enough to pay for part of the cross country trek, and I should be able to swing the rest of the costs. Contrary to AL Direct this morning, most of the ALA conference hotels are toast. I am concentrating on hotels near the conference center and close to an ALA hotel so I may catch a shuttle when necessary. I have choices narrowed to three different hotels and just need to make a final decision. After several years of flying out of Columbus, this particular trip is less expensive if I fly from Cleveland. Go figure.

A thank you

It is easy to get caught up in the day to day responsibilities of any job, even more so at the end of an academic year when the pressures often coincide with some of the joys related to working in an academic library. A few weeks ago a student came to me with a thoughtful and charming request; an instructor was leaving the university and her class wanted to place a book in the library's juvenile collection in honor of her accomplishments. I was thrilled to accommodate their request and appreciated they would come to me for help.

We decided the students would purchase a juvenile book that would be of interest to others taking their class block in the future. They purchased two copies of Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand, one for the library and one for their instructor that each student would sign. I nagged (smile) the technical services staff to push this item to the front of their cart, catalog the title, and add a library bookplate to the inside cover. I wrote a letter on official library letterhead to the professor informing her of the donation, naming each students, thanking her for her service to the university and library, and then had it signed by the library director. We were all pleased with the outcome, especially on such short notice. It was fun to be a part of their celebration of this teacher's accomplishments.

Today, I recieved the nicest thank-you note signed by all of the students in the class. They thanked me personally, but this was icing on the cake.

Closing the door

After spending several hours, so much for the changes not taking long, on the article revisions yesterday, this morning I emailed my article submission, author information, abstract with keywords, and publication permission to the journal editor and assistant editor. I've already received a reply from the assistant editor thanking me for the submission. It appears the second of two invited articles has passed the peer review process and will be published. What a whirlwind adventure that was. I checked the journal database this morning and the final edition for 2007 was published (yes, an obvious statement when we are less than three weeks from the end of the year). It follows that both of the article submission will be published in 2008. Works for me; I have two more things to add to next year's end of year report and this years evaluation. Good thing goals for this academic year included publishing and presentations. Closing that door and moving on, at least until I wax poetical about how fabulous these articles look in print during a future blog post, I need to think of something to submit for a poster session this summer.

Grades will be submitted later this week; after evaluating this morning there remain only two outstanding projects to be completed and a rousing 91% completion rate for the course. The I.T. department created, or rather recreated, my course materials into WebCT. After meeting with the GA tomorrow I will make a few minute adjustments to the course in preparation for spring 2008. Things ran smoothly, especially considering the loss of GA six weeks into the fall term. The remaining GA and my student workers helped make the term run smoothly by picking up extra hours and making an effort to work closely with the students. I even got my paycheck for teaching the course last Friday! By the end of this week I should have the spring course ready, know if I have a second GA for the term, and will have effectively closed the door on fall 2007.

Now I only need to survive the library web site meeting(s), a strategy meeting with my boss and the actual meeting with the web page committee. This almost two month lull in the process has effectively stopped progress that had been made. A new site ready for summer is looming on the horizon. It is always possible, but as of now I feel it improbable. We - actually I - have to know if using the university template is the final decision so we can close the door on that portion of the design discussion and move on to content. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Channeling the scarecrow

The last day of classes is survivable, even when large contingencies of procrastinating freshman wait to finish a lab project. With an hour to spare, last evening at 5 pm 90% of the students had successfully finished their coursework; smiles were big, relief was palpable, and there was joyful skipping from the building. Even better, the number who would need to make corrections was basically infinitesimal. Next week is finals and it is a denouement of sorts for the resource center. With the course completed, traffic will return to normal and "the regulars," students who routinely use the space and avoid it during course due dates, migrate to their favorite computer and library space to settle in and study for finals. The relative return to normalcy is accompanied by its friend, blatant finals panic; often characterized by lack of sleep and mainlining caffeinated beverages.

As for me, though the frantic pace is energizing my brain is pleased to be able to not only focus, but also prove itself known and capable of stringing together a few coherent thoughts, words, sentences, and possibly paragraphs. I will complete final editing of my journal article this weekend and send of the information Monday as requested. Of course, Monday is also the traditional library holiday luncheon and I have a learning community meeting on Friday, and ....

Good thing the pace is so much slower when finals are over.

View from my window ...

The last day of class and we are enjoying the second winter snowfall to hit in three days. It is really a lovely view of the snow covered campus from my office window, but scraping my car has already gotten old.

Procrastinating with purpose

I have a deadline of December 10th for editing my journal article. However, my problem remains having sufficient brainpower to make sure said edits are better than the original submitted work; something I have serious doubts about during this time of year.

Quality time is at a premium during the next two days. As of this morning, 57 of 150 students (38%)were finished with their portfolio projects, leaving a significant number to troupe their way through the resource center before six o'clock Friday afternoon. I estimate checking multiple assignments for twenty plus students today and know at least ten finished (45%). I have faith we will have close to a 90% completion rate and the remainder will take the course during another term. But during this time the pace is frantic and my brain is mush. I am less than brilliant, bordering on embarrassing myself. With that in mind, I am currently procrastinating with purpose. Enter the books added to the new book shelf yesterday afternoon.

I will accomplish things needed at the beginning of spring term. This is critical since I will be in Philadelphia at the midwinter meetings during the first two days of classes for spring 2008. Today I started pulling books and compiling a list of juvenile picture book titles for the spring semester Mock Caldecott panel. My current list/handout features thirteen books and I am hoping to add three or four additional titles from recently ordered picture books due to arrive in the next couple of weeks.

Here are the thirteen books I selected, list even includes non-fiction titles:

• Mars Needs Moms!, by Berkeley Breathed
• When Dinosaurs Came with Everything, illustrated by David Small
• The Boy Who Painted Dragons, by Demi
• Jazz on a Saturday Night, illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon
• Henry, the Dog with No Tail, illustrated by Jules Feiffer
• How to Catch a Fish, illustrated by Peter Sylvada
• Scribble, by Deborah Freedman
• Four Legs Bad, Two Legs Good!, by D.B. Johnson
• At Gleason's Gym, by Ted Lewin
• The Crow: A Not So Scary Story, by Alison Paul
• The Lemonade Club, by Patricia Polacco
• Velma Gratch & The Way Cool Butterfly, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes
• Cowboy and Octopus, illustrated by Lane Smith

Recent winners of the Caldecott award have been an eclectic group showcasing different artists and styles:

• Flotsam (part of last years spring mock Caldecott)
• The Hello Goodbye Window
• Kitten's First Full Moon
• The Man Who Walked Between the Towers
• My Friend Rabbit
• The Three Pigs (my personal favorite)

With this in mind, I selected a mix of new and well-known illustrators including previous award winners (Dillon's, Small, Demi, Lewin, Polacco, Hawkes), artists known for work in different media's (Breathed, Feiffer), a personal favorite (Smith), and an illustrator new to the children's book market (Paul). The next step was to find books featuring different mediums used to present the illustrations. The following information was garnered from individual books (some did not specify):

• Demi - "Paint and ink with Chinese silk brocade"
• Feiffer - "Charcoal pencil and watercolor"
• Freedman - "Pencil with watercolors, magic markers, and digital coloring"
• Johnson - "Hand lettered text and mixed media illustrations"
• Breathed - "Virtual acrylics and watercolor on 100% rag archival virtual illustration board"
• Small - "Watercolor and ink"
• Paul - "Collages of hand-dyed cut out and torn paper"
• Polacco - "Pencils and markers"

Lastly, even though this post is rife with lists I would be remiss not to include links to Caldecott medal information:

• 2008 Caldecott Committee
• Association for Library Services to Children - ALSC
• The Caldecott Medal
• About the Caldecott Medal
• Caldecott terms and criteria
• Caldecott winners 1938-present
• Caldecott medal and honor winners 1938 - present

Time will tell if I have made any pertinent selections; regardless, it is a class session the students enjoy and it gets them into the library again. Tomorrow is another busy day. In addition to the continuing mayhem in the resource center, it is the library open house.

On another note, I did get a chance to start reading Spanking Shakespeare today at lunch.


Tags: Mock Caldecott, Juvenile collection, Picture books, Picture book illustrators

Missing, lost & paid, or under the bed

Approximately twice a year the technical services/cataloging assistant brings me a listing of juvenile books that are missing, lost and paid, or gathering dust living under beds in the dorms until the end of the year. I go through the list and determine what titles and their corresponding records can, and should, be deleted from the catalog. The multi-page document has been sitting on top of my growing "to do" pile (yes, I did mean to write pile and not list) beckoning me for attention. The end of last week I determined what could be deleted and what I wanted to re-order. And, because I am greedy about my book buying budget, I asked the acquisitions librarian if the replacement copies should be ordered from a specific line. If money was collected for "lost and paid," that same money should be used to purchase replacements.

While the cataloging librarian was a bit taken aback that I asked, she almost speechless to learn the answer to my question was yes (hah!). The answer I wanted, as opposed to the answer I was expecting, did not change the number of titles I had slotted for replacement; but it does mean I can spend that money elsewhere. Many of the missing books were dated with the topics better served by newer titles and others were unavailable due to the short publication life of non-award-winning and/or classic children's literature. However, some of titles were award winners and purchasing replacements was easy. Here are a few of the books being replaced:

• Dream snow, Eric Carle (Eric Carle!)
• Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, Eric Carle
• Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech (Newbery Medal)
• A Year Down Yonder, Richard Peck (Newbery Medal)
• The Deaf Musicians - Pete Seeger (curriculum use, new title)
• The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales - Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith
• The Messenger - Lois Lowry
• Remember: The Journey to School Integration - Toni Morrison

As the end of term nears, Friday is the last day of classes, it is also time to clean up things around the resource center. Bulletin boards were updated before Thanksgiving, and today the new book shelves were emptied and sent to the circulation desk for shelving. Even with constant use by the students, there were six shelves of books to be returned to the collection. I no sooner finished loading books on to a cart than the technical services assistant brought me a full cart of new titles! Here are a few of the juvenile and young adult books that caught my interest and have been added to my personal cache of reading materials in my office:

• The Chicken dance, by Jacques Couvillon
• November Blues, by Sharon M. Draper
• Looking for JJ, by Anne Cassidy
• The True Meaning of Smekday, by Adam Rex
• The Slippery Map, by N.E.Bodeand Brandon Dorman
• Spanking Shakespeare by, Jake Wizner and Richard Ewing
• Bounce by, Natasha Friend
• The Black Book of Secrets by, F.E. Higgins
• What the Dickens: The story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy, by Gregory Maguire

Whether or not I actually read all of these books is still to be decided. But, as of today they are mine for a month. Plenty of time for some lunchtime reading and even to take home over the holiday.

Click, clack

With apologies to Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin, I was tempted to finish this post's title with "moo," especially when I could have begun the post with "cows that type." I managed to restrain myself somewhat (Click, Clack, Moo). The clicking, and clacking, mentioned refer to the desperation gripping students in the library this week. Next Friday is the last day of classes for the fall 2007 term and it is crunch time. Every computer inside and outside of the resource center was in use today (after 10:00 am, naturally). It is eerily quiet. Instead of happy and consistent chatter, the only sound that carries is the sound of frantic typing on computer keyboards.

Have you ever noticed how annoying, almost disquieting, that persistent sound can be? It is almost easier to work in noise than quiet clacking.

Due to the course we facilitate, the next eight days are arguably the busiest in the resource center. All but two of my student workers have experience with this phenomenon, so they are rather blase about the prospect of panicked freshman. Out of the one hundred fifty students taking the online lab course, as of this afternoon approximately one third of them had finished. Many are in various stages of completion and some, there are always some, have yet to begin. This makes for an interesting time for the GA's and my student workers. We will all survive with a healthy dose of patience and a sense of humor. Plus, next week is the library open house - there will be refreshments - and I will be making fudge for the student workers. Chocolate and cookies, that oft mentioned sugar rush not withstanding, make the week go by more pleasantly.

I already have three meetings planned for after the last day of classes. One with the library director to plot our strategy regarding the use of the university template on the new library web page. That process has stalled somewhat and I am hoping the subsequent meeting with the university web team will move the decision making process forward. I can not start until I know if we are designing our own or working within the university template parameters. The third meeting is the previously scheduled faculty learning community session; it features powerpoint and I do not have to present.

Now, if I could only decide what kind of cookies to take to the open house ...