Views of the Summer Library Construction

Time to Unwrap and Summer Progress

While we all went away for the summer vacation, the construction crew was hard at work all over the building. Part of their efforts were in the library as the photos here show. There is now a new entrance to the library, adding some square footage to our usable space, and a new rug in the High School Room. More improvements are in the works. Still to come: new rugs for the Elementary Room, some new bookshelves for the office and HS Room, and a new photocopier to replace our old one.

Construction can lead to dust, and in our case lots of it. The plastic sheeting helped reduce the amount of dust on the shelves and elsewhere, but there is still plenty around to clear away. Unwrapping and heavy duty cleaning is already underway in the Elementary Room. Since construction is still going on in the HS Room, with the installation of the baseboard moldings, we are starting in the Elementary Room. When the HS Room is ready, shelves will be put in place, and the rest of the cleaning and decorating will take place. Anyone looking for an opportunity to volunteer? We are welcoming helpers for Monday through Wednesday, Aug. 31st through September 2nd. If you can join us between the hours of 10 and 4 pm. Come join us!

Wrapping Things Up in the SCS Library

Library inventory was a big job. Despite a few set backs we persevered, and were able to get it all done before July. Mrs. Nunez, Miss Pedersen and I put in long hours for a solid week and thanks to tech support from Mr. Zuber we were able to finally scan in all the books and media items -- more than 17,000 in all. We had a terrific bunch of student helpers in Cappy, Gio, Rebekah A., Rebecca G, Sarah G., VJ, and Justin. A couple of parents pitched in in a fabulous way too -- thanks to Lori and Vinny Tunkel.

Wrapping Things Up in the SCS Library

Library Inventory with Miss Pedersen

Library Computers, Clean-up, and Inventory

It has been a whirlwind, this coming to the end of the school year, and with it, plenty has been happening in our library. Mr. Zuber has brought us another printer that will print much more quickly than our old one, and the library computers are set up. Students have been making use of them since their day of arrival, as secondary students have been in finishing assignments and doing research, and elementary students have been doing OPAC searches for books and answering the library weekly trivia questions.

Speaking of whirlwinds, the last few weeks have seen record numbers of students in to help out during their recess times. Last week especially they came through like a cleaning tornado -- taking down posters, dusting, vacuuming, reshelving books, covering books, and doing end-of-year room clean out for us. Thanks Ashley R., Anna, Kristina, Liz, Riya, Kayla, Andrew, Gavin, Rick, Julianna, Juliet, and Nadya. We are so proud of you!

Time finally has come for our end-of-year inventory. What is involved, one may wonder? Inventory means taking every book and AV item off the shelves to scan into the computer and verify that our computer records match up with the actual holdings of our library. Considering we have in the neighborhood of 18,000 items, and our library automation system tech support states it takes 2-3 seconds to scan in each item, we expect to spend 60-90 hours on the job. While in process, we are also doing repairs, discarding well-worn items, cleaning, and getting the library ready for its summer hibernation. It is a big job, but we believe it to be worth the extra effort, as we upgrade our computer records to better serve our school community. We are looking for volunteers: anyone interested in lending a hand with inventory during the weeks of June 22nd and June 29th, please let Miss Gleason know.

Mr. Zuber setting up new library computers

Labeling AV materials, reshelving HS non-fiction, new library computers, SnapGrades, and more!

It was time again to fill our patrons in on the latest and greatest of innovations in our library during the past month since our last post. The post title will clue you all in on the various newsy items I will discuss here. Early in April, I set about the task of reorganizing our High School non-fiction. We were short on space, and books were starting to get piled up horizontally on top of the shelved books in that area, so drastic measures were in order. One Friday, during a day of teacher in-service activities, I started moving things. If you have seen the video of Mrs. Nunez reorganizing the fiction shelves, you should have a good picture of what I was doing. It was time to make use of the very top shelves on the non-fiction side of the room so as to allow for space on each shelf. After a few days, we had our non-fiction books going right up to the ceiling, making for a bit of a collegiate-feel, and freeing things up so that there would be room on each shelf to shelve and add new books.

Our 3rd - 6th grade helpers along with Mrs. Nunez, have been up to the task of relabeling the AV materials. The row of educational videos are all exclusively spine labeled with their DDC numbers, and any other spine labels have been removed or covered to avoid confusion while searching. The other dvds and videos -- have been labeled alpabetically by title, old labels covered, and an additional letter label placed at the top for easy alphabetizing, reshelving, and searching.

They have also been doing computer checking with our OPAC against the more than a dozen shelves of books still to be previewed for consideration of being added to the library collection to see if there are any duplications.

9th grader, Noelle, has been busy reworking the biography section to alphabetize all biographies, Christian and non-Christian, so that anyone looking for a biography will see all their options. Christian bios are still clearly marked with a sticker on the spine.

Mrs. Nunez is working feverishly to process, process, process! We have hundreds of new and gently used books, videos and DVDs to add to the collection, and she works hard to keep getting the new things ready to go on the shelves quickly as more materials come in.

With the start of the third marking period, the SCS Library began using on-line gradebook SnapGrades for the elementary classes. Several of the secondary teachers have been piloting a test of the program, with good success, and SCS is moving toward implementing next year. Elementary parents and students now can log in to the SnapGrades website, and check on their library grades, and book checkout status. Specific information on logging in will be mailed home shortly. Secondary students and parents will be able to use the site to look up current information on book due dates, overdue books, and fines. Log in info has already been e-mailed to those currently utilizing SnapGrades, and a regular mailing with log-in info will be going out on Monday for all secondary students with books currently checked out.

Just today, our IT manager, Mr. Zuber was in to begin set up of the new library computers. The new machines are here, with 19 inch flat screen monitors, and some of the hardware is now in place, and loading of software applications will be taking place shortly. We are looking forward to having four new computers available for student use, and to upgrading the library staff computers for more efficient service to our school community.

Finally, we were recently awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The images of famous art work depicting our national heritage are currently on exhibit in the High School Room. This particular news item definitely warrants more blog coverage, and so more will be said about it at a later date.

Reorganizing the Audiovisuals and adding pictures to the SCS Library page

Our library has an aisle reserved for audiovisual materials. Here patrons can find videos, DVDs, audio tapes, and playaway books. One of our recent projects has been the reorganizing of those materials to make them easier for our patrons to find things. Currently, we are in the process of separating the educational videos (all coded with Dewey Decimal Classification -- DDC -- numbers and shelved in Dewey number order) and the general videos which will be shelved in alphabetical order by title. What will this mean for our patrons? If a staff member comes in looking for a DVD on some educational topic, he or she can use the OPAC search to find the DDC number and go to the AV Aisle, look on the left-hand side where those videos are listed in number order beginning with 000 in the upper left corner of the aisle and ending with 999 in the last shelf on the bottom far end of the shelves on the same side. Other DVDs/videos will be shelved on the right when standing at the computers and will have a letter at the top of the spine and call number at the bottom, example Superbook will have a large "S" at the top of the spine, and "DVD Sup" at the bottom. All biography videos will also be shelved together alphabetically and will be in a separate section at the far end of the "other" video aisle on the right hand side. This is a work in progress, and though the videos are already reshelved in this order, the labeling is not finished yet. Please be patient and bear with us as we complete the relabeling.

Another new library feature: photos on the SCS Library page! If you haven't seen them already, you will want to check the SCS website, log in and go the the Library page where new student pictures have been posted. We will be changing those pictures out regularly, so be sure to check back every week or so.

Clearing out the old to make room for the new...

Our "Teachers Help Yourselves" cart grows daily. It includes titles we have discarded from the library through the "weeding" process. The problem is that though the number of books keeps increasing, the cart doesn't grow with it. After several concerted efforts to get books in the hands of teachers -- and giving away a fair number -- we still had quite a few items that weren't going to good use. It was time to start fresh; to clean off the cart of those books that weren't going to be getting a good home around SCS, and make room for new giveaway titles still to come.

Enter our posse of helpers! Fifth graders Lizzie, Ashley R., Kayla, and Anna arrived today at recess time ready to volunteer to do some work. In a short amount of time, they had boxed up the entire cart to be donated to another ministry or non-profit organization that can make use of them.

We can't really say enough about our helpers. Third graders Daniella, Katherine, Mikayla, Christiana, Hannah, Danielle, Amy, Steven, Michael, Tabby, Emma, Noel, and Noelle, as well as fourth graders Cory, Julianna, and Juliet, other fifth graders Kristina, Julianna, Ashley B., Lauren, and Emily, and high school students Noelle, and Kristy have all worked hard to serve in the library at various times during the past few months shelving and stamping books, dusting and doing other things to cheerfully help where needed. We appreciate all our enthusiastic volunteers.

Getting warmer...warmer...and Interior Decorating

It wasn't long after the post regarding our furniture rearranging in the office that Eddie from the custodial staff came in to help us get those heavy pieces out of the way so that the whole wall of radiator could be unblocked. Immediately, there was a noticeable difference in our temperature, so much so that it is now a rare day that we turn on the space heaters in the HS Room. Before, turning on two space heaters was one of the first things that needed to be done in the the morning, and that extra heat only served to take the extreme chill out of the air. Now, all rooms are fairly comfortable even on the coldest days. Undoubtedly part of that comes from the fact that the construction area on the other side of our white wall has been enclosed in the last couple of months, and so our white wall is not an outside wall anymore.

The Elementary Room got a bit of a facelift a few weeks ago. Just before the February vacation, Miss Martin's class brought in dioramas that they had done in their research on animal habitats. They are on exhibit in various places around the Elementary Room, and will be here for about four more weeks if anyone is interested to take a look.

New Materials

Books, books, everywhere, books! It is a good thing to have plenty to read when you visit a library. One very nice thing about SCS is the generosity of our patrons and their parents. We have received donations of books over recent months and are doing our best to keep up with the processing of those and our new books. In fact, in the past few months we have added in excess of 800 new titles to our library. Part of that came through the purchase of materials with funds from our NYS library allocation (we receive a certain amount per child from the state for materials for the library), some through the recent Scholastic Book Fair, some with money from our library budget, as well as those previously mentioned donations from teachers, parents, and students. It is one of our goals to expand and update our offerings, and we have been weeding out items that are well-worn while we add new things that will be of benefit to the SCS community.

Did you know that in a addition to the HS and Elementary Rooms we have a Parent Collection for parents to check out as well as Professional Resources for teachers? We are working on adding to our foreign language materials. In a previous post we mentioned the addition of a set of Christian biographies in Spanish, and will soon add some resources in Korean. Keep checking in with us as new things are being added to the shelves daily.

SCS Library We Recommend Pizza Party with the Principal January 16, 2008

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1st through 6th graders who were selected to come to the library for a special pizza luncheon with Mrs. Golden. 

Getting Warmer...

The colder the days, the colder it is in our library space. This is partly due to the fact that our white wall is right next to the construction site. After some discussion with Tim Barnes, and a few of the custodial staff members, we came to the conclusion that we might get more heat if we did some rearranging of furniture in the office. The west wall in the office is completely covered by a radiator, but that heat is currently blocked by the two bookshelves that go from floor to near the ceiling. Mrs. N and I spent some time in there today moving furniture to expose more of the heater. We were able to move some old bookshelves out since they weren't being used anyway, and shifted one of the big bookshelves to the north office wall, the one with the glass window in it. The custodians have promised to help to get the black file cabinet moved, and ultimately the other bookshelf as well, but so far it seems to be working. The office space is noticeably warmer, even with just half of the radiator exposed. If some of that heat seeps into the HS and Elementary Rooms it should be a big help.

Other good news: with this week's Scholastic Book Fair we have been able to get some new books for our library collection.

3 Steps Forward: We Have a Phone Now...!!!

What a day, What a day! Well, two days actually...progress occurred in the area of communications here in our library. It seems a good way to delineate these major improvements would be to outline the three steps forward in improving our tech capabilities in the library:

Step 1: We have a phone now! Sometime last year, because of the construction going on beyond the white wall in the HS Room, the phone line was cut to the library. Because there is also no cell service in our part of the building, we have been without any phone to communicate with the staff here in-house or with the outside world. That meant being creative when needing to communicate: walking around to speak to people in person instead of calling their extensions, going to another room to make phone calls (usually the Teachers Room or Mr. Contes' office), leaving notes in mailboxes, relaying messages through others, or using IM on facebook since we could get internet on two of our computers. As of yesterday, our phone has been hooked up in the office and we can make and receive inside and outside calls! Our extension is on the intercom list, but in case you don't have one, try us at x.608.

Step 2: I can access the internet from my laptop in the library. While enjoying the new library office phone, I noticing that the phone jack in the office had a jack for ethernet. While attempting to plug my laptop's ethernet cord in, I found it didn't work. Bob Z.said that was a simple fix -- he needed to turn that on for us -- and he did that today.

Step 3: I can plug my laptop in at my desk! Time spent using a laptop at one' desk is limited by access to electrical power of some sort. Batteries are limited, and so I found that using my laptop at my desk was going to become a problem. Until about 4 pm today, I didn't have outlet access to plug the laptop in at my desk. The nearest outlet to my desk -- a power strip just on the other side of the door in the HS Room -- is not working for some reason, and the next nearest outlet was about 15 feet away just on the other side of the door. An extension cord across the floor would be a tripping hazard, so another solution was needed. Again, Bob Z. came through: he got a 25 ft. extension cord from Vinny in the Custodian's office and to minimize the eyesore that draping wires can create, neatly and discreetly hooked it up so that it would go up and over the door frame, behind the bookshelf next to my desk, and have the plug coming up just in front of my desk. Now there is electrical outlet access from the Library Office desk, and no one has to step on any wires.

What's next? We look forward to seeing the set up of our new library computers. We will fill you in as that step unfolds.

Dry again! New Books, and College Materials

With over a month since our last post, it seemed expedient to fill everyone in on the latest. Since Fred added our flag holders and coat hooks, we have had quite a few new additions to the library. The order we placed for books and materials using our state library allocation has arrived, and we have been busy trying to get those books processed. Within the same time frame, we also received orders from YWAM publishing for some new Christian literature (including 11 biographies en espanol), hard cover fiction and non-fiction books for both the elementary and HS library rooms, and some additional biographies.

At about the same time as the new book arrivals, also came water. First, with the torrential rains we experienced there was a ceiling drip in the HS Room (A.K.A "The Red Room" so monakered for its bright red rug). That wasn't too monumental, and as it was only in one area, the water could be collected in a regular garbage pail, but it continued to drip for a few days even after the rain stopped. Less than a week later, on a weekend, I popped into the library office to find the rug becoming saturated from below. Where that water came from was a mystery to me, but all the boxes of new arrivals were moved to higher ground, the custodians were notified, and minor damage was averted. Subsequently, we are back on dry land, and it appears the ceiling leak has been stopped, and source of underground springs causing the problem in the office has been eliminated.

After consulting with Mrs. Anderson in the Guidance Office, we have reestablished the College Materials Shelf and relocated it in the highschool room. It is here that college catalogs are made available to any secondary students who are interested in looking at them.

Virtual Tour of the SCS Library

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Take a virtual tour of our library

Thanks, Fred! Video

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Thanks, Fred!

Today our library saw a few new improvements. Fred from the custodial staff came in to hang some coat hooks in the office so now Mrs. N and I both have places to hang our coats when we come in to work. Up to now, mine has been draped over the back of my office chair and my long winter coat regularly risks being run over by the wheels on the chair as it moves back and forth, and Mrs. N. has been hanging hers on the back of our extra chair. The High School Room received the addition of a flag hook, so our Christian and American flags are on proper display on the white wall.

As the weather gets colder, our High School Room has become more and more frigid and those who need to use it have been seeking other locales to hold their classes. A second space heater was added last week, and it takes a few hours, but that takes the edge off the cold, but only enough to make it comfortable if one wears a sweater or sweatshirt. Tim B. came in today to suggest another solution to our lack of heat problem: move the bookshelves in the closet that are covering the radiators. He said he can send some of the custodial staff in to help us move the heavy furniture around to make that happen. That will probably be one of our next library improvement projects.

More Wiring and Lots of Noise...

With construction comes loud sounds, and Friday our decibel level must have pegged the meter. The contractors who had come to work on getting the wiring in so that phone and Internet could follow calmly warned us that we might want to move out of the way as the sounds would be loud. I admit, their calm attitude with the statement lulled me into a sense that movement might be unnecessary (after all, I had tolerated some pretty loud noises before) so I didn't move immediately, as I wasn't expecting what came. Lisa P., preschool teacher, and I remained at the computer to use the library searcher when suddenly we were nearly paralyzed by a shrill piercing sound that came with a drill bit penetrating a concrete wall ten feet to our right. We both instinctively put our hands to our ears, but it was too late; some temporary hearing loss resulted before we could cover. It seemed amazing to me that the contractors themselves could tolerate it -- without the use of earplugs -- and I admit we both decided to exit rapidly. The worst of the noise passed quickly, but the fear of its return kept me searching for work projects that would be constructive but could be accomplished outside of the library rooms all the rest of the day. The end result of that pain was that our wiring was installed that day; no small feat. What's up next? The setting up of the phone and computers...and I have heard that should be happening shortly.

Working on the Wiring for Phone and Internet

Progress continues. Some days ago we had the workers in to drill holes for wiring and internet. I watched late one evening as they drilled and tapped on walls on both sides -- inside the library itself and in the teachers room, and boiler room which are on the west side of the elementary room.

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HS Library Under Construction -- Maximizing Use of Space in the Fiction Section

About two days ago the time came to attack the fiction section in the high school library. Our ongoing problem of having more books than shelf space needed resolving. The temporary solution: adding a small bookshelf and moving materials over beginning with the end of the alphabet (authors whose last names begin with Z) and working our way backwards while incorporating more space on each shelf in the moving process. Mrs. N worked hard on that and had some help from our faithful third grade assistants as she worked.

Biography Section -- HS Library

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Moving Furniture in the High School Room...

Friday I wasn't around SCS, as I attended a Librarian conference sponsored by CLASC, and heard authors Rob Reid, and Avi speak. Coming back today, I felt inspired to tackle what is probably the most underdeveloped area of the library -- the High School Room. Thus far, that particular space has been a partially completed area, with books mostly in place, but hard to find. Mrs. N and I spent time rearranging the biography shelves. Before today, one was near the door, another on the opposite wall near to the fiction section, and the third in the adjacent corner nearest the non-fiction. We decided it would be more intuitive to have all the biography bookshelves together leading into the corner of the room nearest the non-fiction. We spent time emptying shelves, moving bookcases, and then replacing the books on shelves. The nearly empty bookcase near the non-fiction has been moved back to its original location near the fiction books so it can be used to spread out the books on those shelves. This will allow for room to add more fiction books, and get the things that are piled on top of shelves onto the shelves.

While we were at work, some of the construction crew came in to check out the white wall for work they will need to do soon installing an airconditioning unit for the newly constructed area. Admittedly, we were a little nervous, wondering if we would be told that the bookshelves we had just moved would need to be moved again, but were told that the shelves shouldn't be in the way. With those reassurances, we will continue to work on labeling and redistributing the fiction books to make better use of our space and allow students and staff to have easier access to materials they need.

More 4th graders come to work...sprucing up the HS Room

We had an enthusiastic group of first time 4th grade workers come in today during lunch time. Cory, Juliet, Julianna, and Ashley came in to lend a hand and set to work reshelving (putting recently returned books back on the shelves), shelf reading (making sure books are in their proper places) in the Elementary Room, and putting up posters in the HS Room. Our faithful third grade regulars came in too, with newbie Daniela, and worked on getting the discards processed for the teacher cart. Which leads to the following announcement -- Teachers: we have a cart of "overstock" and newly retired books that are up for grabs if you are interested in adding to your classroom or personal/professional teaching libraries. Stop in and take a look.

The Dewey Song with 5B

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Full house...

Today was busy. We had a full house of third and fourth graders today during their lunch time. I imagine the cafeteria felt a bit empty then as these middle elementary students were all in the library. What for? You may well imagine. About a half dozen were there to help stamp books, dust with our cool brightly colored fuzzy dusters, shelve books, rearrange some materials stored on carts . Some of our regulars are Tabby, April, Emma, and Hannah. Today they were joined by Noelle. They come often, along with some of our fifth graders (see a previous post), and pitch in wherever they are needed. The rest were in to return and check out more books. I have been pleasantly surprised to see how many students are coming down during their lunch times on days in between their weekly class library time to trade the book they are finished with for a new one. What a blessing to see our students developing into such avid readers!