It's a blast!

Start your school year with a blast.  A book blast, that is!  A book blast is simply a campaign to get a book in the hands of every student in your school in a short time.

Send a quick email to the teachers at your school that you have a goal for every student (and teacher!) to have a book by the end of the first week of school.  Too ambitious?  Huge campus?  Maybe you need to tack on a few more days, but if you set the deadline too far out, the sense of urgency is gone, and so is half the fun.

Ask teachers to bring their classes to the library for only 10-15 minutes.  You can warmly greet the students, mingle around, and help with reader's advisory.  No need to set them down for booktalks or a beginning of the year speech about your circulation policies.  It's a book blast!  Simply meet students, help them find a great book, get them checked out and back to class.

If teachers aren't able to bring whole classes, encourage them to send small groups or individuals.  Take a cart of books and a laptop out of the library and bring books to kids!

With you goal of every student quickly jumping in to reading, the first of the year will be a blast!

On being new

Starting this week I'm the new kid again.  After years of being a library administrator in a large public school district, I'm a librarian in a small independent school.  I'm excited about the change and everyone is great, but it's still a little unsettling.

Questions abound.  What the heck do all these acronyms mean?  Am I on this committee? Where is this room located?  What do I wear?

And even more odd, how do I check out books with this different circulation system?  How do I place a hold for a student?  Will teachers want to work with me?  Will kids want to come to the library?

Because I've been in education a few decades (ahem!) and I've been a librarian a couple of these, I'm able to step back and realize it will be ok.  But I have had to talk myself off the ledge a couple of times.

The point of this post?  Find the new person on your campus and show him/her around.  Any insider tips you can offer?  Seek them out at lunch and invite them to go with you (because that icky middle school fear of eating alone has reared its ugly head again for new folks).  Take them under your wing.

The great thing about being new is it's exciting.  How can I grow from this experience?  Who can I learn from this? What can I contribute? 

I once read that in a new job we have 60 days to see things with fresh eyes.  After that, we're part of the system.  While that's kind of comforting to think my anxiety is short term, it's also challenging.  How much can I take in during these two months?  What plans can I set in motion? 

So hey, new kids, we'd better get going. The countdown has started!

Best of luck for a great year!