First Author Visit

East Valley HS had our first ever author visit on October 8, 2009. We won the 2008 Ed Pert Award from California Readers and the last part of the award is a visit by a California Author. We chose Caroline Arnold. She has published over 140 books in mostly fact format. Our library had nine before her visit and we purchased a few more and had them autographed for our school.

Ms. Arnold was prompt, organized, friendly, knowledgeable and patient. She spoke to seven classes of history students and even stayed after school to sign books for teachers. A lovely lady who shared her experiences with travel, choosing a career, editing process, and the creation of some of her artwork.

Banned Book Week

We just celebrated Banned Book Week in the EVHS library with a large display of banned classics and books challenged in the last year. And it is true what they say, "If you want a teenager to do something, tell them they aren't allowed to do it." We had great circulation and lots of interest in why was this book banned?

I talked about Banned Book Week in my freshman library orientation and the freshman class took off and ran with it! Obvoius favorites were the Bunny Suicide books and Rennison's Full Frontal Snogging, but I really enjoyed the renewed interest in reading and the busy open lunch periods with over 100 students per day.

Now to prep for our Author VIsit from California readers and get read for Teen Read Week.

May 2009

Life has gotten very busy. We won a grant from California Readers and got 100 new books by CA Authors and Illustrators! So we are processing and shelving on a special cart so students can start reading new books.

We also finally got some School Library and Improvement funds from the school site council and spent it on new books and videos and playaways for our school. We got nine boxes of books, and two more of audiovisual materials. I love unpacking new books and seeing the excitement on student's faces as they see things they requested finally arrive. The bad news is that we already have a new wishlist of over $300 of books that we now want. But we are always trying to improve our collection and make it more accessible to all students.

I still have a job! Budget concerns are very scary in a cash-strapped school, district, and state but it looks like I will still be here to serve the North Hollywood community for at least one more year. We are going to start inventory in a few weeks and are reminding our seniors of overdues and fines so no one is held back from graduation by uncleared debts to the library.

We will be losing at least one administrator, our literacy and math coaches and at least two, maybe 6 teachers. I repair and reuse as much as possible, but new books and videos are a must in today's society. Wish us luck and government funding.

Cambric- I still cannot view your blog. Please re invite me since it is listed as private.

Finishing First Semester

I have finished grading all the research project powerpoints and am waiting for the last January bookmarks to hit my desk today. I thought I would share the subjects students chose for their research. They were allowed to choose a person, place, or thing. The last research paper was a biographical paper so no one chose a person this time, but we did get lots of animals. ( This may have something to do with the last database we wrote up, Science Online from Facts on File.)

Anyway, I got projects on African Lions, giant pandas, chimpanzees, wolves, Bengal tigers, Panthers, hurricanes and Amsterdam. Even their bookmarks are reflecting diversified reading interests: manga (Tsubasa and Bleach), Fantasy (Skellig and Harry Potter), Biography (Tupac Amaru Shakur) and Adventure (the Ranger's Apprentice series). It makes my job much more fun, to read the reviews they do in bookmark format and provide them to our patrons on cardstock. Kids pick them up almost everyday and we are getting the news out about books that other students are reading now.

I will get allnew students in a week to train about OPAC, Dewey Decimals, order and database uses and citations. Life is good. I love living where the temperature can change 35+ degrees from 7 AM to 3 PM. I love having an avaerage of 200 studetns per day come through our library and I'm glad I have a job in this economy. Good reading to all.

Only three more weeks

We have officially made it to December and our financial accounts at school are still frozen. I keep getting resource requests and we keep a list but hope is fading for new library books and videos. An article in today's LA Tmies says some are trying to oust our superintendent. Hmmm. Will that save us over $200k a year even after the buy out of his contract? It might be worth it, but why did they hire him if they didn't want to trust him?

We have made bookmarks for Diwali, Hannukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Years and Thanksgiving with an emphasis on how so many festivals of lights and family togetherness are similar. They are disappearing fast. We also put up a book display of multiple celebrations and my student practice workers hung up small stockings behind the circulation desk. I love the cooler weather, finally, and the fact that I don't care to brae the malls any more so I go straight home and try ot sort out my house and presents to mail off packages to loved ones far away. I wrapped for a few hours last night and my memory is not what it used to be, so I need to send the packages before I forget what I gave to whom.

My college daughter texted me today about a title she must have. It looks like the last Georgia Nicholson novel is called, "Stop in the name of the pants." So I have to go find it. They are hilarious books. The first is called, "Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging." Musings of a teenage Brit with boy issues and cat quirks, they make me snort out loud. Thus the joy is spread to another reader who asks what is so funny...

I did see "Twilight" and "Transporter 3" but the movie I most recommend is "Slum Dog Millionaire." The otehrs are fun but not worth the 8-12 dollar admission, I think. Edward worked better for me as an ideal, not a Brit trying to sound American, who lets off steam when you want him to be marble perfection. Jason Statham is nice but I don't find the female character very sexy. She reminds me of Eurotrash. So Sad.

We loved having time off over Thanksgiving. Most of my family were home. We played games, watched Tivo and movies, ate pie and bird, and spent time together. What bliss! Now mi esposo has a screening coming up that has been added to the schedule so we may not see him except nights and an occassional early morning. Blech. I like when he has a day off now and then. I guess there is another holiday coming up soon, so I will make it. But I treasured our weekends and now there will not be any until late December.

Life is good. Circulation is up, my students are learning the Cengage databases and I haven't been tagged yet this week. So I am hopeful. Have a great December and I will share some more great books soon.

I am reading "Three Cups of Tea" and need to review a few more books for CA Readers over my weekends. V