The happy life of teacher librarians: a dusty day

Like many of us today, home and the journey to school and school itself were brown experiences, dust in the air, the sky brown too, the wind whirling dust and visibility reduced; the colour of the day oddly orange as the sun struggled through.  Dust from the inland brought by gale force winds has changed the look of the day and the world around us in an unusual way.  Even in my office you can (barely) smell/taste it. 


Before school conversation:

Miss?

Yup?

The dust is scary...

Nope, it's dust. Brown stuff.  Flying dirt.

I guess...We'll be allowed to go home if it gets too dusty, won't we?

And that would be why?

Because it's dusty.

Right. Because it's dusty, we'll send you out INTO the dust to walk home instead of keeping you at school where we have buildings that you can be in, protected from the dust.

Oh. It wouldn't be sensible to send us home then, would it?

No.

I guess not. There isn't a rule about sending us home if it gets too dusty, like the one about when it's too hot?

Not to my knowledge.

Oh well.

You can always hose your lawn after school and see if you get a rates notice from Dubbo, as a man said on the radio this morning...

(they take a moment to digest this, then chuckle).



Cheers

Ruth

PS If you'd like to see a gallery of pictures like the one below, the Sydney Morning Herald has one, including this unusual view of the Sydney Opera House - click here.

Anticipated reading/book covers

There are a couple of books I have on order for myself (not the library) and am eagerly looking forward to reading when they're published.  Or rather, when they're published and I have a copy in my hands.  Likely to be the upcoming holidays, VERY nice timing.

The covers form an interesting insight into how one book can look quite different in different markets.

UK covers (the usual ones in Australia, unless you order other editions specially, either at a bookshop or online):

US covers for the same two books:

Would you think them the same books?

And why is it that I find myself preferring one over another, when the INSIDES are the same (bar American English spelling vs English English spelling)???  I'm also amused that one set is blue and black, sorta kinda, while the other set is black and blue, sorta kinda.

I've read the rest of the Gabaldon Outlander series, and have been looking forward to book seven (the first book is Cross Stitch if you want the UK edition, or Outlander for the US one) so this one I'm not likely to dislike - it's a pretty safe bet for me.

The Time Traveler's Wife is one of my favourite books, but Niffenegger has such an original imagination that while I wouldn't not read Her Fearful Symmetry, I'm not sure what to expect.  And I do hope I enjoy it too.

Both are due out in Australia in early October, just in time for the NSW school holidays, hurrah hurray!

i LOVE reading! too. (as per yesterday's blog entry).  And the other books by these authors have taken me great places, intriguing story-journeys.

Cheers

Ruth

Images from bookdepository.com and amazon.com

i LOVE reading

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i LOVE reading!! I love where the book takes u...so beautiful :)
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She's in Year 9, and she's not alone.  Who says teenagers don't read books?

Cheers

Ruth

PS.  Maybe this has bookmark potential...I've been mulling on a series based on student comments...

GIFSL* 44: : Duchamp seating for the masses...

Did you know that the artist Marcel Duchamp spent some of his working life as a librarian?  And that his 'readymade' work of art, Fountain, has (as more than one art teacher commented) a counterpart (homage? echo?) in my office?

No, not an exact replica.  Sheesh.  But this:

...is part of my office furniture that gets regular use.  I own these - bought them over time from op shops, junk shops, garage sales, wherever.  While I have a chair in my office for visitors, I quickly learned that you only need three or five kids telling you things and wanting to talk about cabbages and kings, or schoolwork, or the outrage of Disney buying Marvel, or whatever, to know that standard size chairs aren't the answer.  With these, my small office can seat five extra kids - and when they're not in use, the stools are Duchamped from the overhead beam.  Practical Art! (I'm happy to acknowledge that it was one of my school assistants who had the inspiration of hanging these up).

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I know not every teacher librarian has an office - but I do know that my glass box at the library entrance has become part of how I teach and work.  Can't count the number of times every day, every week, throughout the year, that I have conversations here, hunt things on the computer here, think through projects, advise, listen, offer tissues, dispense advice, dispense discipline, solve problems, encourage, mentor.... door open, door closed (sometimes it's so valuable to be able to close the door).  

I have a few oddities hung on the wall, too, personalising the space and providing conversation starters with kids and staff.  Sadly, I'm given to lying about them (yup, that old photo is Great Aunt Grace...).  Maybe one day I'll tell you about the photo that's part of the biggest lie - I've had a LOT of fun with that (and so have the kids who've worked it out and then participated in its perpetuation...!!)

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It's part of our work, though, isn't it?  The daily meeting and greeting and listening and engaging in lots of small ways, sometimes educational, sometimes welfare, often both.  Those mismatched stools earn their keep.

Cheers

Ruth

*GIFSL = Good Ideas for School Libraries

GIFSL* 43: : The Twilight cabinet

One of the faculties around school took a cabinet off a wall they wanted for something else - and did I want the cabinet, because they didn't?  oooo yes please.
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Hmmm, and where will I put it in a library that doesn't have a lot of spare walls? (oh, and also has brick walls, with bricks which don't like being drilled into At All).  After some cheerful negotiation with Eeyore the general assistant (a lovely man with a sadly lugubrious nature) and his partner in crime, Tigger, I manage to persuade them that the wall by the stairs would be dandy.  And no, we won't have to move the existing (adjacent) noticeboard. And yes, I know some of it will be behind the wire of the staircase side, but this also means it will be easy to look at things in it.  Pretty please?
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They fixed it up over the last holidays.  It's a bog-standard DET pinboard-backed wall cabinet from school furniture.  Two tiny problems: the key to um, open it appears to be missing....
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...Eeyore, bless him, finds one and one only that we dare not lose...
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...and it won't open.  Tigger fixes that one with a bit of brute strength and soap on the runners. (He's less afraid of breaking glass than I am).
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Yay!  We have a cabinet.
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Now what to put in it?
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Well, I could use it for all sorts of worthy educational displays.  Yup.  May well do that, on occasion.
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But for now, it is devoted to material considered Extremely Worthy by the kids: Twilightery.
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And do the kids love it, and pore over it?  Oh my giddy aunt, yes!  It is selected material - I aim to avoid gossip mag stuff about private lives, and put in things about the film and its making.  Thus, sometimes, I'll just use a picture I come across, and skip the article altogether.  The Twilight fans love it and the Twilight haters are able to vent in a very healthy way, while I chuckle at both.

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It feels, amusingly, like I'm papering a teenage bedroom wall, or something like.  But it makes the library kid-friendlier, addresses something that really interests them, and turns a dead spot (the brick wall sans wall cupboard) into a feature.  And the locked cabinet lets the pieces survive...

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I know I'm not the only TL with a Twilight display (but I won't name names!).  Even if you don't have a cabinet.  A window? Somewhere?

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btw, the current issue of Dolly magazine has an extra mag with it - a Twilight special 'fanpire magazine' devoted entirely to Twilightery (and drooling over the film's stars).  The kids are enjoying that too (our Dolly magazines get literally read to pieces anyway).

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Cheers

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Ruth

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PS I was of course astonished to find that my picnic accoutrements are so like those of Edward and Bella, as per one of the pictures there - I just will not stir from the house without a zebra skin rug, Persian carpet and assorted lavish cushions.  I mean, would you??????  !!!!! 

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Libraries, information and the future (starting now?)

Helene Blowers links to a recent CNN article on the future of libraries.

While thanks to the King's High School's excellent library blog
I watched this YouTube video, Information R/evolution.



maybe an option for a quick think-moment at a staff meeting?

YouTube URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM

Cheers

Ruth

Last book in Garth Nix series/ latest Cherub/Ranger's Apprentice 9

The other day a student asked when the last book would be out in the Garth Nix series that begins with Mister Monday.  According to my brilliant local bookshop, February 2010.  So the kidlets will have to hold their breath for a wee while longer.
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Interesting to see that the latest book in the Cherub series (by Robert Muchamore) has been issued in hardback first.  OK for libraries, in terms of durability (if they've made it that far in the series, the readers aren't going to be put off by a hardback) but disappointing in terms of limiting its availability/affordability to kids.  
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Another book on my reservations/prepublication list is the ninth book in the Ranger's Apprentice series - bunch of keen readers waiting for that one, called Halt's Peril.  Out in early November, much to their delight.
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Cheers
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Ruth