Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Worked in library media center for 1 hour

o Today, Ms. Stamm and I went over the process for ordering periodicals. Basically, Tremper’s vendor is Ebsco and that the order is done in March. The ordering is specific for the school, but done on a district basis and Tremper can ask for additional titles or for some of those titles to be deleted.

o For Tremper, Ms. Stamm said that about $3,000 of the $41,000 budget is allocated to periodicals, but that the number of titles ordered is about 1/3 of what it used to be because many of the educational periodicals are now accessed online. As a result, a majority ordered are weekly/monthly titles that are for casual reading and are of high interest. In addition, Ms. Stamm explained that sometimes donations are made and these can be accepted as long as they fit with the philosophy of the school and are an appropriate age level.

o Today, Ms. Stamm also went over the process of preparing student records through our automated system, Destiny. Basically, the librarian has access through this along with other things. This task is considered managing patrons, but as Ms. Stamm explained, every day this will be updated as students come and go because the system works with our general student record system, Zangle. So, the only time at Tremper that the librarian would prepare student records is to do so temporarily until things are updated the next day. The librarian does have the ability to manage student accounts and add pictures, ect. In addition, the librarian will have to manually enter any long term sub or parents who request access.

o Finally, today Ms Stamm also showed me how the library prepares circulation reports including how to send out overdue notices and create a shelf list for materials that need to be weeded. Overall, this information was interesting and I was glad to see that this program is fairly easy to operate using the Destiny program.