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Library Day in the Life Wednesday: The Hardest Spreadsheet to Spreadsheet

9:07 a.m.: Go to deliver my books to the Ontario Early Years program that’s in my branch every Wednesday. The ECE coordinator tells me that 1) The keys for our cupboards are missing. And this is okay because she has her own (howdidthathappeniwonder?!?! 0_0) but someone has been rifling through her cupboards “looking for something.” I will have to take this up w/ management, but… remember that to-do list?

9:30 a.m.: Hunker down with the final throes of the FLD report - make it coherent, add some pictures and send. ZOOM…

10:03 a.m.: Month end-report and statistics. This requires looking at calendars and spreadsheets. I … do not like this. I manage to get all of the programs entered (20 or so to Teens 1 and Adults 3… jeesh) and start tabulating the stats. I also get the main points of my month end report bulleted. Sound-proofing, Cabinet Security and Winter 2010 registration and programs… it’s going to be a scorchin’ good read!

11:10 a.m.: All that staring at spreadsheets and now I have to get my storytime ready for Ontario Early Years in… 4 minutes!

My what? Oh right - break it down:

So we have a partnership w/ Ontario Early Years (OEY) so they offer a drop-in play based program for children 0-5 years and their caregivers. They provide a wealth of information about child care, health, development, literacy, etc. We provide the space and a liaison (yours truly) to lead circle time for 15 minutes every Wednesday. This is a pretty sweet deal as far as I’m concerned, but it’s incredibly difficult to entertain many children that literally range from lap babies to JK’ers looking for a fun day out of school. It’s also my number one source of baby hugs!

11:15 a.m.: Go into OEY and rock their little socks off! A good time was had by all.
We read:
On the First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
10 Rubber Ducks
(oh yes, they’re learning about numbers).

11:30 a.m.: Baby-hugged and back at statistics and emails. Which are far less interesting.

12:00 p.m. Lunchtime!

1:00 p.m.: Information Desk time! I spent a good 10-15 minutes on the phone trying to direct a customer how to access a downloadable audiobook on our website - really difficult to coordinate over the phone! She finally gets to where she needs to be - literally clicking “Click here to Download”, but then her computer has some kind of connectivity error?! Yeargh.

3:05 p.m.: Back to the safety of my office where I have the BEST intentions of hunkering down and finishing my month-end report but then, but then BUT THEN I see that the Summer 2010 (yes we program this early) draft has come out. And proofreading is due soon! This means looking at more and further spreadsheets. Both computer generated, and human-inputted (word? ohwell) So in order to proofread I have to look at the information generated by our online-registeration system, a spreadsheet that the librarians all over the system use to schedule programs, and the Outlook Room Booking calendar for our branch.

3:58 p.m.: It appears as though someone has changed the curriculum-based (ohgod I will explain that later) programs around for our branch and the person all happens to be “not me.” This being the case, I’m not quite sure how I’m expected to proof-read, since I don’t know which way is up or down or where my butt is. Will have to figure this out. But the good news is - the programs I’ve contracted are looking good. FTW.

4:02 p.m.: SPREADSHEETS. SO MANY SPREADSHEETS. I’m trying to make all of them match what we have on the online-registration document. This is “tedious” to say the least.

4:48 p.m.: Finally have located and identified my programming ass from my programming elbows. It’s all looking good up in my various spreadsheets. I turn back to Month End Report and other spreadsheets… but … nope. It’s too late. I’m out!

Well that was my fairly boring, administratively laden and tedious day. Now I have to go back and blog about yesterday!

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Library Day in the Life Monday: Blergh.

Today I woke up and looked at ye olde Twitter feed and what should happen to appear? The announcement that Round 4 of Library Day in the Life is starting! Ahem: “Yippee-skippee!” as they say. So, fellow librarians and students of information science: tag yer blogs w/ librarydayinthelife or use the hash tag #libday4 on the Twitterz and let’s git r’ done!

I had the good fortune of being off-desk all day (I know, I know, practically unheard of in public libraries!) so I tried to take advantage of that and try to finish things that need doing so I could try to relax the rest of the week. So this was my to-do list for the day:

• Call about preschool about class visit (52 kids!) on Friday. Incidentally, I got an email saying that they aren’t coming due to “rescheduling.” Considering that they said they were coming last, oh Thursday and could we have a room and program for them, I’m considering it a good thing. Even though I like the preschool set… jeesh. Short notice and a whoooole lot of munchkins. I wonder what the collective noun for that would be?
• Call doctoral student about workshop re: infant speech development and infant/caregiver communication. If you’re in the GTA and interested, I can pass on some information.
• Write report for Family Literacy Day events and Month-End report.
• Tabulate programming and display statistics
• Make a list of partnership opportunities for programming in my catchment of Markham.
• Storytime rhymes/songs for Week 3: Phonological Awareness
• Make subject headings for Kid’s Databases
• March break publicity
• Outreach materials for this week: Info on Tumblebooks for parents and teachers. I have 2 outreach visits for Family Literacy Day, which is January 27, 2010.

So I’m not going to lie - some things came up. I got through… well, I got through everything that was truly going-to-come-down-on-my-head-tomorrow kind of urgent, but otherwise… FTF, to do list. I’m disappointed because my kick-off for round 4 is totally a “Let me tell you about how I didn’t do anything!” entry, but this week’ll be exciting! I promise. I have 3 storytimes, 2 outreach visits, and I’m planning to retro-blog (is that even a word? Well now it is…) about Saturday and Sunday because - hey - that’s when my week began. And as a result, I’m a bit fried. Oh! But there was a fire alarm today. And we had to evacuate alllllll of the students out of the library. They were… not so pleased to go outside. Because it’s finals week. Fortunately, (or unfortunately as the case may be), the alarm stopped just as we had told about 1/3 of the lower level to leave. Then we had to go around and tell them “Just kiddin’ guys!” Which I always love, because you look like an alarmist and next time chances are they won’t leave…

Me to Disgruntled Student (avec sheepish grin): “Err, sorry. It’s all clear. Carry on, guys.”
Disgruntled Student: “Man. Seriously?! I don’t even WANNA carry on, now!”

Me neither, buddy, me neither…

More tomorrow! With added and further energy!

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Storytime on Demandate Part 2: So what’s the point?

So, 15-20 min. after getting all of the kids together, reading books, jumping around, and saying goodbye, I’m pumped on adrenaline and sweaty and embarrassingly out of breath. This is where also I run into the other stumbling block in the process besides actually making the mini-mes sit down: Parents are usually thrilled that we offer such a service, but I inevitably get the question “when do we have to come for you to do this again?” Explaining the spontaneous nature of the “on-demand” story time, how it differs from scheduled story times, and the reasons behind offering the service is quite difficult.

And it’s not all spontaneous fun and impromptu games - we do have a quota to fill. 20 Storytimes On Demand per month. Eeeesh. At my branch, besides myself, we have one full-time information associate, and two part-time information associates dedicated to Children’s Services. This usually means that the information associates do one on-demand per shift and I help out and even though the quota seems lofty, we’ve able to not only meet, but exceed it on several occasions.

While this is probably mainly to ensure that all of the branches are pulling equal weight on this new service endeavour, I’m not sure if we as a public service institution should be putting a number on services. What happens to the value of a particular service, (especially one so reliant on enthusiasm as story times), if we institute limits based on quantity and not quality? Or at least not one that’s so high that we’re scraping to find appropriate books to read and children for whom to read. Thennn there’s all of the implications for desk time, break time, etc. whew! That being said, we’re still in discussion as to what is the best practice for this service and what is most profitable in terms of customer experience and our service mandates.

There’s also the question as to whether this is, as librarians, what we should be focusing our energy on doing. When I was home for the holidays, my parents had their annual Librarian Spaghetti Dinner (I’m a second generation librarian) and we had a bunch of awesome librarians over for carbs and wine. One of the lovely ladies and gentlemen to grace our table was my former boss at Bloomfield Township Public Library, who I love, adore and use as a model for the way a department should be managed.  I’ve told her a bit about these storytimes on demand, and while she’s not an “old-school” librarian by any means, she was a bit hesitant about whether or not the service actually fit into a model of library service. Her (very good) point was that as librarians, we are not there for entertainment purposes, but to serve our communities by providing information-based services (including storytimes) rather than song and dance routines. (I do apologize if I’m paraphrasing awfully - I was a few glasses of wine into dinner when I had this conversation).

So is it “Do the storytime and they will come?” or “They will come, so do the storytime?”

My answer would be a bit of both. (I know, I know, do I ever have an opinion that isn’t based on compromise?) True: We provide scheduled storytimes and it is in our best interest to focus our energies on ensuring that these are of the highest quality and truly promote reading and literacy awareness because we have the education and the knowledge to make them of greater value than a simple “song-and-dance.” Also true: The nature of libraries and the services provided therein are changing and we have to be willing to try new things. (Please note: I do not believe that “relevancy” is an issue when it comes to early literacy - but … that’s another blog post in itself). And we can use our statistics for on-demand as feedback for how we could schedule our “official” storytimes to better serve our community. Basically, it’s my belief that these traditional and informal programs can coexist and possibly even help us to improve library services with reasonable expectations and best practices in place of course.

As a children’s librarian, I believe that education about literacy and promotion of reading and books is a fundamental part of my job and I should try to do that however and whenever possible. This is especially crucial in terms of school-age kids: We have a whole curriculum for storytimes specifically for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, but beyond age 5 the children in my system are so overly-scheduled that they usually participate solely in the educational programs at the library rather than good, old-fashioned, free storytimes. So, realistically speaking, there’s little demand, but it doesn’t mean it’s not important! And perhaps these brief quick-and-dirty storytimes aren’t the most fulfilling pedagogically speaking, but if I can randomly squeeze in 15 more minutes of book-time into the day for these kids, why not? Moral of the story(time): I can’t make parents bring their kids to storytime, but I sure as hell can bring the storytime to the kids.

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Storytime on Demandate Part 1: Overview of Service

I think that I’ve mentioned MPL’s “out in the open” policy with regard to storytimes before: namely, all of our storytimes are to be delivered in open space in the library, rather than behind closed doors, in order to promote our services to newcomers, new users, and customers who are otherwise unaware of programs provided by the library. This has been met with a good deal of success so far, actually, one of the main problems is that we sometimes have more people than the open space in the children’s department can accommodate!

In addition to this change in our storytime philosophy, we’ve also started offering “Storytimes On Demand.” Quite literally, going out and offering storytimes to the people as they’re in the library. We’ve been offering story times on-demand since the beginning of 2009, so this is more or less still a relatively new service for us and I find we’re still trying to work out best practices in terms of delivery: a several stories or just one? 15 minutes or five? In its inception, I provided these services when there we had reached “critical mass” in the children’s department, sometimes giving a storytime on the fly to more than 30 people. And subsequently, the spontaneous story times were a bit longer (about 15 minutes) to compensate for the time it took to gather a decent sized crowd in one location and get all of the kids settled.

One issue we’ve come across is competition from the toy collection that we’ve recently added to each branch at MPL. Being the sort of library diva that I am, storytimes on demand usually fed my need to be centre-stage and to make babies happy, etc. but it was a little nerve-wracking to walk around to the groups of children who were happily running up and down the ramp, jumping around our story nook, playing with cars and legos, and savagely beating each other with cloth blocks and try to peddle books as a more worthwhile activity.

Imagine this if you will: It’s Saturday afternoon, the children’s department is so busy it’s become a sentient, writhing being in its own right. I grab some books and slowly shuffle up to a group of kids gleefully destroying MPL property and their oblivious parents. “Uhm, hey kids - do you want to listen to a story?” (no response.) “Hey, uh… HEYYY YOU GUYYYYSSSS.” (everyone freezes. I’m painfully reminded of my nerd-dom as a zygote). <breathes through mouth and reflexively pushes now non-existent glasses up nose> “Who … uh… who wants to read stories with me? It’ll be fun! Storytime! C’mon!”

At this point, a couple of things can happen:

1) The parents think that I will be putting on a storytime and am asking them to move out of the way and they’re confused and sometimes upset. Or the parents think that I’m asking them if they’ve come for a storytime, and they’re confused. By the time I finish explaining what it is that I’m doing and start the actual storytime, I’ve probably screwed up the break schedule back on desk.

2) The parents are absent and the kids throw blocks at me and say “NOOOOOOOO that’s BOOOORRRRRING!”

3) The parents are enthusiastic and present, but the kids are having a better time playing so they throw blocks at me and say “NOOOOOOOO that’s BOOOORRRRRING!” and then either their parents politely say “Thanks, but no thanks,” or their parents force them to listen and they cry.

4) Everyone is delighted and on board and we have a really awesome time.

Once everyone is settled, (I usually try to collect as many kinder as possible), I read one to three books and do like a “greatest hits” rhyme/song set list and say “goodbye.”

Say goodbye with your feet,

Say goodbye with your knees

Say goodbye with your bottom

Say goodbye with your tummy

Say goodbye with your elbows

Say goodbye with your hair

And say goodbye with your hands! Bye, bye, bye!

(Continued in Part 2…)

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Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time and I LOVE IT SO MUCH!

I was disinterested in reading grown-up things today. So, I decided to peruse the recently returned carts outside the office and happily came up with one of my favourites, Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time by Lisa Yee. I re-read a bit of it and thought I’d like to re-endorse it as one of the best children’s books I’ve read all year. Stanford Wong, basketball genius and also “the only dumb Chinese kid in America” (his words), finds out that he’s failing English and therefore will not be allowed to be on any basketball team the following year. Since he’s flunking, he has to give give up the opportunity to go to a prestigious basketball camp AND he’s forced to accept tutoring from his ultimate nemesis, Millicent Min. To make matters worse, his beloved grandmother, Yin-Yin may be sent to a retirement home and his parents won’t stop fighting! In a single summer, Stanford is forced to turn his academic career around while balancing basketball, friends, family, and … girls. Well, just one girl. Writing it out, the plot sounds relatively banal, but in reality, Yee’s character development and writing style make the book really funny and warm. The kind of thing that makes you want to both cheer and cry at the same time, even! It’s great. Nonsequitor WARNING: This book WILL make you want to eat dim sum like nobody’s business. I’m not even joking.

Something that is interesting about Yee’s plot structure is that there are no true antagonists in the traditional sense of the word. Really, Stanford’s worse enemy and best friend in the book seems to be himself, as is the case with so many kids at that age. Sure, there’s Millicent Min, the uber-nerd who seems to perturb Stanford every chance she gets. But the reader can see that Stanford, while annoyed with her, truly deep-down has a fondness for her that transcends their outwardly differing world views; a fondness that is finally realized in the denouement of the book. Also looming large on the “conflict” side of the line are the seemingly disapproving parental units, but Stanford’s need for acceptance bleeds through so strongly that the reader cannot help but understand that while his parents stress him out with their expectations and their own problems that he really cares for them and they for him.

Finally, there’s Digger, the tough, bullying, self-imposed “leader” of the Roadrunners (Stanford’s basketball gang) who actually IS an antagonist, but since he’s on the basketball team he sort of has the sense of “the positive aspect of Stanford’s life” even though he’s a major stress on the team and in the novel. Digger seems, at first glance, to be a classic antagonist in the novel: rich, strong, handsome, brutish and conniving. But part of his character development that makes him, in my eyes, a pitiable character, is the physical abuse he suffers at the hands of his rich, strong, handsome, brutish and conniving father. This abuse is possibly the only aspect of the book that really bothers me: It’s always alluded to, but never fully addressed… and also never fully resolved. Instead, towards the end he’s awkwardly villified and as part of a final conflict resolution, Stanford and the other Roadrunners walk away from him and are subsequently a lot less cool, but much more better off. [Oh - SPOILER ALERT I suppose... but you knew it would happen. This is, after all, tween fiction.] Yes, this teaches good life lessons to adolescent boys (money and popularity are not as good as friends and being kind, etc.) but the adult in me (yes, there is a little bit of one) really felt badly for this kid who tries to buy friends and bully and blackmail them into staying in the friendship. I thought it was fairly irresponsible of Yee as an author to touch on such a serious topic and then never brings it into the plot more fully, or resolve it. I ended up wondering about Digger’s safety, especially since his group of friends, who really could have helped him, have deserted him.

The other protagonists in the book are simply delightful. My particular favourite are the pair of grandmothers, Maddie and Yin-Yin (Millicent’s and Stanford’s, respectively), who have been best friends since they were girls and “when they get together, they don’t sound like grandmas, they sound like normal people.” They are hilarious, kind and caring - the kind of grandmas anyone would be proud to call their own. Also, the remainder of Stanford’s basketball team, Tico, Stretch, and Gus are in my opinion, the sweetest group of adolescent boys ever to have dribbled a basketball across the pages of fiction. There’s a scene during which Stretch and Stanford watch Sesame Street together. Simply precious. It should be noted that Yee wrote Stanford Wong for her daughter, Kate, to make her try to like tweenage boys, so… maybe not the most realistic depiction in the world… but what’reyougonnado?

The best part is, if you end up liking Stanford Wong, it’s a series! Well, a series… of… perspective, if you will. Yee writes about all the occurances of one summer (of flunking, winning, and moving) from the perspective of three different people in this series of books. Millicent Min, Girl Genius and So Totally Emily Ebers are the other two installments told from the perspectives of Millicent Min (girl genius) and Emily Ebers, Stanford’s “girlfriend.” So - I will leave you with that. Stanford Wong may flunk big time, but his story does not. And now, I’m going on vacation! Hurray!

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Taking 5. Or… 10.

So… I’m taking a break from the Twilight book report. I’ve been rereading New Moon and Eclipse in the process - and the more I read of the “saga” and also criticism about said saga, I find myself becoming lost about how I’d like to present what I want to say. And - I realize that… it sounds kind of stupidly self-serious to say I need to take the time to think about the formulation of an argument about Twilight of all things, but quite frankly I’m a little overwhelmed with those tomes of vampiric banality. Hm. That phrase might be a review in itself. But, I realize that I really haven’t written anything for awhile so I thought I’d take a little break and focus on books that are actually meant for, you know, children…

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This Bites: Twilight

**SPOILER ALERT**

Girl (one Bella Swan) moves away from her emotionally needy, child-like, yet perceptive mother in sunny Arizona to live with her quiet, introverted father, Charlie, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. The weather is terrible, she hates it. Blah, blah, blah. I felt as though Meyer goes through a lot of trouble to really drive home how “normal” Bella is. “Hey, look, kids! She’s a REAL LIVE TEENAGER TYPE PERSON!” The beginning of the novel is made up of many excruciating pages of text in which Meyer painstakingly enumerates the minutiae of Bella’s everyday existence. Her sweatpants. Her intellect. Her insecurities. Her food preferences. Her quiet, awkward -yet-loving relationship with Charlie. Her inability to accept presents (???). Her clumsiness. We get it, Steph, “Bella” is spelled B-O-R-I-N-G. Or it was, until …

She begins school and notices a group of beautiful teenagers, the Cullens, who don’t eat and keep to themselves. One of them, Edward, appears not to be able to stand her. This DEVASTATES her. Why? The reader isn’t sure. She’s used to being a relative outcast, but she seems generally well-accepted in this new school. She’s smart, she’s capable (physical prowess notwithstanding), she’s pretty. But we get it, rejection from hot guys is hard. Fact of teen life, right?

Edward disappears for quite awhile from school and when he comes back he suddenly takes a special interest in Bella - giving her rides to school, questioning her incessantly, etc. He even saves her miraculously from potential physical harm during an out-of-town shopping trip (rape is generally implied, later confirmed) after which he takes the stunned Bella to a very expensive Italian restaurant. It’s all very mysterious and romantic. Then, during a weekend trip to the local Native American reservation, her old friend Jacob Black (remember that name, ladies and gentlemen) tells her about the Quileute (Jacob’s tribe) legends regarding “the cold ones,” and their antagonistic relationship with the Quileutes’ wolf-spirit forefathers. She puts two and two together and then: OMG, you guys, Edward Cullen is totes a vampire, amirite?!?

It turns out there isn’t just ONE vampire there’s seven. The Cullen family consists of Carlisle, Esmé, Rosalie, Edward, Emmett, Jasper, and Alice. The Cullens have a unique world view from most vampires - they’re “vegetarians,” meaning they only feed on animal blood, even though it’s generally a poor substitute for human blood. Subsequently, Meyer goes about deconstructing all of the old vampire legends: destroyed by sunlight, silver bullets, and stakes through the heart. Basically anything that makes it more difficult for this romance to be a reality. In fact, she incorporates attributes to her breed of vamp that makes them even more sexy! Their beauty, for one thing: they’re just so brilliantly beautiful that they can’t go out during the day because then everyone would KNOW something was wrong. But that’s not all, folks! Some vampires have special “talents,” and it just so happens that the Cullen family has three such vampires: Edward can read minds (except Bella’s), Jasper can influence moods, and Alice can read futures based on decisions as they are made. So they are breathtakingly beautiful, harmless vampires that have a stable home life, supportive vampire role-models, not to mention extraordinary talents, (even for a vampire). Oh, and did I mention they’re pretty? Because they are.

So girl meets vampire. Vampire meets girl. They are in so. Much. Love. They kiss, he spends the night in her bed watching her sleep, he straps her on his back and takes her on runs through the countryside. It’s awesome. She’s generally accepted as part of the family and everything is great UNTIL:

They’re playing baseball (the great American pass-time, why not?) and suddenly Alice sees another coven of vampires coming towards them. They see Bella, normal human teenager girl hanging out with a bunch of vampires, and all hell breaks loose. One of them, James, tracks Bella, despite her best efforts, to her childhood home in Arizona. For a minute it looks like Bella’s going to bite it (oh, pun intended) but of course Edward saves the day just in time. Hooray! So Bella’s got a broken leg but also a boyyyyfriend. The End. Of Book 1.

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This Bites: An introduction to an introduction to Twilight

I’ve been getting requests for Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga since it came out. I was really surprised at the series’ popularity with everyone under the sun - First it was the teens … then adults … then … kids. Some parents were quite proud that their children were reading such long books; their kids were avid readers and chose to challenge themselves by reading longer and more difficult works of literature. Or conversely, children who were previously reluctant readers were influenced enough by the subject matter , or peer-pressure, to try to read the four bulky volumes. While I question the logic that length = quality of content, this pride is by no means a crime! Kids wanting to read is a great thing! And then, as it happens with these things, I inevitably got the question as to whether or not the Twilight saga was “appropriate” for children.

“Appropriate.” Such a dangerous word when it comes to children and literature. Is it too violent? Too sexual? Too profane? All of these are parental concerns, naturally, but taken too far can be … limiting to a child. Exposure to different viewpoints via literature is a powerful experience, and something I personally wouldn’t deny a child without good reason. On the other hand, reading material meant for more mature audiences (even the difference between children and teenagers) is a delicate balance when you’re young, but ultimately, I find it hard to prescribe censorship of any literature. A book might be perfectly acceptable in my opinion, but I’m a 20-something, idealistic, extremely liberal woman with no religious affiliation or children of my own. So, what’s acceptable for me, might not be so for the parent at the other end of the sociopolitical spectrum. Overall, it’s my opinion that parents need to read what their children read - especially in the case of these so-called “controversial” texts - so they can be aware of issues that may come up and address them if necessary.

So is Twilight “appropriate?” Having previously vowed a life of Twilight-celibacy, I wasn’t in a good position to answer such a question. Well, abstinence-only sex-ed doesn’t work, and neither does a life un-touched by Twilight, especially when you work with kids in a library. So, I read it. I read the whole thing. Why? So I could write a BOOK REPORT on it. It’s forthcoming, probably in several instalments… What I plan to do is give summaries of each book (with as much brevity as can be expected) and then let the criticizing (for better or worse) begin. Stay tuned!

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Library Day in the Life - Friday: In which I try not to go insane before the 3-Day Weekend.

Before I start this post (two days retroactively) - I should explain my wonky work schedule. We’re scheduled on 2-week cycles. On Week 1, I work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, have Thursday and Friday off, and then work Saturday and Sunday. On Week 2, I work Monday through Friday. “Wait a minute, Megan,” you might say, “Doesn’t this mean you work Saturday through Friday between the two weeks?” And I would answer - “Why yes, you observant soul, that would be correct.”

By this point in the week, my brain is mush, my fuse is non-existent, and I sometimes feel as though I scare my co-workers by deviating from my usual even keel with wacky mood swings and bleak muttering. It’s a challenge to get through the most simple of to-do lists, and just as difficult to interact with customers with and expression that doesn’t resemble a snarl. So this is the premise for my day…

Email, email, email. Not unlike the Little Engine that Could I look at my to-do list and begin muttering “I think I can!”

Finish month end report - attempt to re-read it, give up, spell check and send.

Story time project work. Read articles about dialogic reading and phonological awareness. Try to put it in a format that will easily fit into the flow of story time. Write learning objectives and metrics. Get stumped on the metrics since the same people will not be returning to story time each week. Make the executive decision to stop thinking about it.

Update collection profiles and chide myself on coll.dev.fail.

Go to buy batteries for the digital camera. Buy guessing game supplies for the Summer Reading club. Next week is “Guess how much pasta is in the jar!”

Lunch

I get to the information desk. The internet is slow. Customers are angry. Whoo!

I try to keep a certain amount of glee from my voice when making the “library will be closing in 30 minutes” announcement.

I am the proud owner of a brand new, 3 day weekend! The end.

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Library Day in the Life - Thursday: Quite possibly the longest day ever.

12:55 p.m.: Listened to Rage Against the Machine on the way in to work today. This may not have been the best decision I could have made because afterward I was ornery… Will try to listen to something a little lighter next time.

1:00 - 5:00 p.m.:

• Sent off emails regarding drama drama.
• Worked on Story Time project assignments - ensuring the babies of Markham Public Library get all their 6 early literacy skill goodness per 8-week story time serving
• Children’s Department Meeting - first one since… last year. A lot of minutiae to cover.

Dinner - fritatta and veggies, which in turn made me all bloaty.

6:00 p.m.: Begin my stint at the infodesk upstairs.
7:05 p.m.: Tweenage gamers take over all the computers up here and are engaged in an epic battle on the interwebs.

Other than the epic battle - my infodesk experience was relatively uneventful. Surreptitiously work on email and Winter programming. Stress about Winter Programming. Attempt to alleviate stress by social networking.

8:55 p.m.: Antsy because it is five minutes to close, I have a party to get to in Toronto and I work tomorrow morning.

9:00 p.m.: Get out of Markham like a bat out of hell.