Student Blog update

Following our very sucessful use of our student blog for Carnegie this year, we're not going to stop!  We'll now be shadowing the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, which is a fantastic set of eight books:

My Name is Mina by David Almond

Mr Gum and the Secret Hideout by Andy Stanton

Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans

Twilight Robbery by Frances Hardinge

Return to Ribblestrop by Andy Mulligan

Moon Pie by Simon Mason

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

Momentum by Saci Lloyd

This will be a much more independent project than the Carnegie, but we have a dedicated team who are already gathering their books together and reviewing! With the award stretching over the summer, there will also be the challenge of getting books to each other over the break, so we're going to trial use of an enbedded forum.  I'm still sorting through the security settings, but I'm hopeful that this will give them an ongoing point of contact during the break.  

Last Day of Term

Phew, we're finally here!  *flails, falls down*

It's been an exhausting last couple of days and I think we've all hit the burn out stage.  The rush on summer loans hasn't let up and there are huge gaps on all the shelves, but some of the faster readers who took out their stacks last week have already returned handfuls of books that they've finished, so if your book wasn't here earlier in the week, it may be here now!

Today is also a sad day as I'm saying goodbye to my form.  7NAd are no more!  I'd really hoped to carry on with them right up through the school,  but sadly this hasn't been possible (ggrrrr...) so it's quite upsetting.  But I hope they know that I will be their unofficial form tutor for as long as they're here.  Next year they'll become 8RWa, with Miss Way taking over.  She's a wonderful form tutor so I know they'll be well looked after, but I'll miss them horribly.

So, what's happening over the summer?

Those students who are taking part in shadowing The Guardian award will be posting their reviews over the summer on our student blog, so do take a look at what they think.

The Nerdfighters will continue their projects and continue the amazing research that they've already put so much time and energy into.  Some of the things they've discovered and learned about already has been really impressive.  Year 8 students have been putting the sixth form to shame with their knowledge of psychology.  We're going to have a fantastic collection of rollercoaster experts by the time this is all finished, and some of the ideas for their final pieces sound absolutely brilliant and so exciting!  

Some lucky folk are off to the Edinburgh book festival over the break, which I'm very jealous off, but I'm running away to the other side of the world to play with hobbits*, so I'm hoping that they will all bring back signed books and interesting news for us all.

Hope you all have a fantastic summer!  Read a lot, then come straight back up to the library when we're all back in September.



*I might not find hobbits but I will look carefully! Will also keep  my eyes open for worryingly attractive dwarves, though I do think Thorin looks a bit like a Klingon.

Counting Down the Days

Five to go.  Then summer.

All around the school, things have been winding down.  Not in the library though...  Here, spurred on by the extended loan period and increased allowances, students have been flocking to the issue desk with armfuls of books to take out over the summer. It's aces.  Friday was a particularly crazy one, with over 260 issues going out over the course of the day.  There are huge gaps on the shelves now, and it's not just the most popular reads that have been going out; there's been a lot of interest in the hidden gems too.

News of the new Cherub book by Robert Muchamore has been drawing a lot of attention, but I'm sorry folks, you'll have a bit of a wait for that yet!  We'll be getting a few copies in, but probably not as many as folks who've been asking for it.

And of course it's been a huge week for Harry Potter fans, with the release of HP7b.  There were some interesting discussions about spoilers on Twitter and other sites, resulting in a determination that you can't claim to have had a plot spoiled if the narrative came straight from a best selling book that's been out for several years and that if you haven't read it, then you're not a big enough fan to justify your irritation.  Fair play.  

The other exciting news of this week is that we've taken receipt of our first library Kindle! Now, I must confess that I'm not a fan of them.  I don't like the lack of a touch screen, the buttons are clunky, it's made of plastic for heaven's sake.  But I've been trialling it and I think it's starting to grow on me.  The key thing is when you stop noticing the device and your attention goes back to what you're reading.  

The trial book of choice is Holly Black's Red Glove, sequel to White Cat which I adored earlier in the year.  The happy point has been reached where I'm no longer thinking of the Kindle, but of the book.  The advantages of this thing are starting to present themselves.  You can read one handed, lay the book (not book!) on your lap while you eat and turn the pages by hitting the button with a chopstick*, it's lighter than a book of double the thickness if you take it out of the case** and it's right - the strain on your eyes that I've come to expect when reading off a screen just isn't there.  The electronic ink is quite fab.  But the flash up of the next page in negative is horribly off-putting and I do keep coming back to the fact that it's plastic and for me, that just feels a bit wrong.  I reserve the right to change my mind when I'm tired and it reads to me.  

With a bit of luck we'll get the eBook management system up and running and over the next few months request either some additional funding or some donations so that we can get a couple more and start loaning them out.  Exciting times! 

Speaking of exciting times, thank you to all the students who have helped me out this week while I hobbled around the library and shouted at you all from the comfy chairs.  After pulling a tendon in my knee (not recommended) I've been very grateful to you all for being so fab!



* Please do not hit library loans with chopsticks.
** Which weighs almost as much as the Kindle!  Daft, but also detracts from the overwhelming plastic-ness of it.

Stock-take Challenge!

It's Activities Week so there are no classes booked into the library.  This was our best and only chance to get a stock take done, something that I haven't done since I took over the post.  The difficulty is my contract - term time only, so instead of doing such things that require an empty library in the holidays, I have to try to squeeze them in around manic numbers of students.

Our catalogue lists over nearly eleven thousand, which used to take two and a half weeks to stock-take.  Our challenge was to do it in one!  This required careful planning and a cut-throat system.

1. Acquire wireless netbook and a spare scanner. 

Then the computer can be put on the reshelving trolley and wheeled around.  I'm pretty sure that three days of the old time was spent just carrying books to the desk. Nightmare waste of time!

2. Instigate system. 

Pick up a book, scan it.  Then PUT IT BACK.  No stopping and checking it through, no thinking 'gosh, this looks interesting,' and flicking through the pages.  Such things were FORBIDDEN.  If the book was in the wrong place, never mind.  Parent volunteers can help us to check the order another week.  If the book fell apart in my hands, a small green PostIt would be stuck in the top, then it was to go straight back on the shelf. Barcode unrecognised?  Add it to the pile on the trolley and LEAVE IT THERE.  No investigation, no 'Oh, I'll just check the title on the catalogue...' No.

3. Keep going.

On Monday I worked alone, annoying the rest of the staff using the library for their Review Day, and took one half hour break to eat lunch.  Coffee was drunk at the trolley, toilet breaks were limited. On Tuesday, Mrs Sweet helped to keep everyone else away from me while I carried on.  And when Mrs Clarke arrived on Wednesday, she was shown how it all worked and since then, the sound of beeping has not paused for more than a minute.  We've staggered breaks and lunchtimes, had one of us working though constantly.

Of these I think that the portability of the computer probably made the most difference, but The System is the one that I'm most proud of.  It took guts and it took discipline, but it's really worked.

And you know what?  We've done it.  10.30 am on Friday morning, and the stock-take that used to take two and a half weeks is complete.

The 'Missing' list is quite long - about 200 items, but this is less than 2% of our stock, and in the two years since the last one, we've migrated the catalogue to our new system, moved a lot around, and been fantastically busy!  Over the next two weeks we'll spend time mopping up - Mrs Sweet is the finding stuff queen and I'm sure will get that number down to under 100 before we break up for the summer.

WIN.