A Day in the Life of a Librarian

Enforcing copyright

Is anyone as confused with the copyright laws as I am? Regardless, we still are put in the position of being the Copyright Cop! In graduate school, a copyright attorney came to our class and scared the "Ba-gee-bees" out of us concerning copyright infringement and consequences to a Library Media Specialist that doesn't watch the staff at the school. Thus, finding this article on Enforcing Copyright was interesting to me. It was a bit more in depth than we need, but good in content. Its authors are attorneys! Check it out.

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=18&hid=2&sid=af422bcd-15f7-4959-9787-c29effd009d2%40sessionmgr9

Photo credits are listed below: http://www.portlandpolicemuseum.com/museum001001.jpg

History Day lends itself to great lessons

Our Social Studies department is going crazy getting students ready for History Day.

• One of the new formats this year is creating a web page. Ivar Nelson from the Technology Dept. has been great setting up administrative access to several of our students to create their own webpages. It was fun going into Urban Planet and refreshing my skills.

http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/mn_history_day.asp

• Many students were in awe at MNLINK and the ability to locate materials in print from all over the state. The LCD projector assisted in showing the group a key word and how easily they can get their hands on information. This helped push the fact that they all need a public library card. The databases are a boon to History Day, as well.

https://www.mnlinkgateway.org/zportal/zengine?VDXaction=ZSearchSimple

Oh, wiki, here I come!

Since I had to miss the session you had on Wiki's, I felt inept when you were all discussing it. I am a "hands-on" learner, so I went to a video that instructed me at my level. It made me laugh and gave me a comfort level to get in and try it. Check it out. It's called "Wikis in Plain English."

http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

Policing Facebook and MySpace

Being the Media Specialist, I was crowned the computer "cop" concerning inapropriate use. This is a job I DO NOT want. I am open to ideas of how to find a middle of the road and not be the cop or the lenient pushover. Our students are ahead of us adults on proxy servers to get into the sites. We filter and then fourteen new ones spring up in its place. Being an older person, I don't get into the compulsion to do the social networking 24/7 or giving out personal information. My parents told me not to talk to strangers. Let's discuss the article concerning how schools are handling students posting items the district deems are a violation. http://wcco.com/local/facebook.drinking.pictures.2.640000.html

Update on the Library renovation project

Oh, I am so excited! We've had many meetings with the architect in charge of the Library renovation project for this summer. May 5 the Media Center will close until fall. All the Library collection materials, furniture, and computers need to be boxed up and housed elsewhere for the summer. How fabulous that a company will come in and do it all for us! The computer labs will be air-conditioned, which is a strange oddity at Central. When the temperature hits 90, we have a joke that we breathe "Central air," making the kids all groan. I do have major trepidation thinking of how to check in all the textbooks in June. The laptop and a scanner will do the trick, but where to put them remains a problem.

Collaboration with the Media Specialist

Two of our wonderful special education teachers came into the Media Center and wanted ideas of what to do for a meaningful project for the students in their classes. They wanted a foundation of tangible sources before they dove into databases. I shared various project outcomes that were unique and didn't resemble a term paper. We decided they were going to come up with a brochure on a renowned African American person, from a prescribed list so they wouldn't all grab the same name. The students had the first lesson on reference sources that contained information, how to fill out a form to cite their sources, and how to take "fast and dirty" notes on what is presented. We mapped out the brochure like a storyboard, to show them main ideas to organize each area. The next lesson will be a demonstration of the databases that are appropriate and how to gather images from google. The students also saw how to save information and send it to their spps school email account, using their username and password. When you present a lesson, buy-in from the students comes in the form of what they are interested in learning. It was cool to see them move incloser to the LCD projector so they could see what was happening!