Comments for Wanderings...

Comment on Book Budgets – Hanging on to what is yours by Dana

Dana — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:11:47 +0000

Hi,
I really like this post as well. Of course, I have some questions.

We have had budget cuts in our district. Everyone lost 20% of their funding. For me, that equated to one thousand dollars. I am now down to four thousand dollars for both the library and computer budget. We have 530 students. As you can see, this isn’t much, but sadly, it’s the most in the district.

I am trying to see if your idea would work in my district. We have to close our budget on Aug 31. That means we have to spend all of our budget for the year by then. We get our new budget on Sept 1. I have to leave money in my budget for Battle of the Books titles for the Fall order. We try to get our Battle books from Scholastic Warehouse, but we never know if they will carry the titles. We can use our Book Fair dollars to spend on Battle titles Scholastic offers. The problem is that Scholastic doesn’t seem to carry the titles in a timely fashion for us. We need the titles to launch the Battle program in the fall. We need 3-6 titles of every book–20 titles in all.

My feeling is that since I left the money in the account, it was thought that I must not have needed it all. I could be wrong, but it just seemed odd. It’s probably just a coincidence since 20% of the Library Media Budget was one thousand dollars. But, if I could get your idea to work for me, I wouldn’t need to worry.

Do you see your idea working in this budget scenario? If so, I can ask further questions.

Thanks again for a great post.
Dana

Comment on Allow time to read for fun? That’s crazy talk! by Jacquie Henry

Jacquie Henry — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:47:52 +0000

How sad. No time for reading. I think kid’s learning would grow in every area if they were allowed to read what they want to in school every once in awhile. It would open the conversations and open the minds of students and teachers, and make the classroom an exciting place to be.

We are very focused at Gananda right now on our graduation rate. I know free reading initiatives would probably die ‘aborning. I hope to float the idea at a more hospitable time in the future.

Comment on Book Ordering – Henry Style – Part 3 by Jacquie Henry

Jacquie Henry — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:01:24 +0000

Thanks for the kind words Molly. I am all about using the power of technology to make life easier. I finally woke up and realized that the detailed emails I was sending out to my past and present interns might actually be useful to a wider audience. But most of all – I figured it would save me time in the future if I could sent them brief notes, along with a detailed blog post. Saving time in the long run. Computers demand a different mind-set! Keeps my young on the inside, if not on the outside

Comment on Book Ordering – Henry Style – Part 3 by Molly Clark

Molly Clark — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:23:16 +0000

Hi Jacquie,

I am so jealous of librarians starting out now who can read your blog for this awesome advice. How I wish this had been around 10 years ago when I was getting started. Your advice is so concise and easy to digest. I’m going to encourage all newbies I meet to subscribe to your blog.

How are you recovering from your system crash? I bet you’ll have some great advice once you get through that mess.

Molly Clark

Comment on Allow time to read for fun? That’s crazy talk! by Priscilla

Priscilla — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:30:48 +0000

This is an old post…but I still had to comment, even if you never know. This topic is HUGE with me. Tonight I picked up my son from swimming practice (He spent about 3 hours at the pool today with his varsity team)…I took him home. He ate dinner and spent all night doing HW. He went to bed totally exhausted. Before bed he said to me…,”I never have time to just read what I want anymore. I just want to read.”
Reading is so cool…if the kids are given time and permission to do it. I think that would be a great assignment to give kids!

Comment on Book Ordering – Henry Style – Part 2 by Priscilla

Priscilla — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:16:51 +0000

I hope you know that I was actually being facetious with my question.

Comment on Book Ordering – Henry Style – Part 2 by Jacquie Henry

Jacquie Henry — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:30:38 +0000

Hmmm. that’s an interesting question. I guess I would opt to stay open to phone calls, since there ARE vendors I’d like to hear from. Mostly they are the tried and true that I have been using for years, but it’s a good to stay open to new ideas and new resources. If a particular vendor becomes a pest, then a well-worded “cease and desist” letter should do the trick.

Comment on Book Ordering – Henry Style – Part 2 by Priscilla

Priscilla — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:56:39 +0000

So…are you allowed to put your library’s number on a “do not call” list like household numbers can be? Or is this against the rules?

Comment on Book Ordering – Henry Style – Part 2 by Jacquie Henry

Jacquie Henry — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:05:37 +0000

It’s amazing how much these kinds of calls have increased. Seems like they must be successful often enough to make it worth while.

I agree about Gale. I really feel they produce the best resources. I just showed Opposing Viewpoints to an AP student struggling with her term paper. She opened one of the first articles and said – “OMG, I’ve found more here in a few minutes than I did after hours on Google.”

Thanks for your comment.

Comment on Book Ordering – Henry Style – Part 2 by Brad

Brad — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:05:27 +0000

I tell previewing companies that it is against district policy. I got my hand slapped about 8 years ago for doing it. I have no idea if the policy has changed, but it always shuts the conversations down immediately, which is so nice . My clerk has listened to me say it so often that I have heard start screening callers with that statement. To be honest, the only vendors I talk to are from Gale. I always walk away from those conversations knowing more about how to use their (admittedly expensive) resources.