Today was my last observation with Barbara and unfortunately, it was another very uneventful one (unless you count the little birthday party we had for the library assistant which was wonderful!). Because it was another slow day, we had the chance to talk about the needs of the library. As the Head librarian for the school, she has requested that an additional assistant be hired for the elementary library.

Currently there is one elementary  librarian who teaches 18 different classes on a 6 day rotation. As Barbara is new at the school, she brings a fresh eye to the way things work and has realized while the school has grown from 2 sections of each grade to 3 sections of each, they have not increased staffing for the library. They did increase for all the other specialists, just not the library. She believes that if there was a second assistant to assist in the behind the scenes things like processing books and helping with miscellaneous reference questions from students and parents, the elementary librarian will be able to focus more on the teaching piece.

I find this interesting, because of lot of what takes up her time, or should take up time is her teaching and/or preparing for teaching. This means that many of the reference questions in the library are answered by the assistants. If nothing else, seeing them work in the Elementary has given me a great appreciation for the assistants (not that I didn't appreciate them before).

Through my observations with Barbara and the other time I have spent in the elementary school, I have realized that reference in a school library can be very different then a public/academic library. Although reference librarians do have some of these responsibilities in the public/academic library, their job title/responsibilities are reference. Therefore in school libraries a huge piece of reference does fall on the assistance, so that school librarians, especially elementary, can focus on teaching.

Going back to my time with Barbara, it is a little different for her. She does have a LOT of other work to do besides reference, but she is able to do much of it while being available to people. She is always at the circulation desk and will drop just about anything she is doing, so that she can help a student, parent or staff member.  I think this is part of the appeal of being a school librarian; that you are always busy with something.

Last week when I met with Barbara to observe there were several interesting interactions. Both related to readers advisory, which is the topic for discussion in this weeks class. It's also something I'm very excited about and the thing I look forward to most.

The first interaction was with a TA who stopped by to return a book. As she was returning it, she mentioned to Barbara that she had really enjoyed the book and said if there were any more like it should would love to know. Barbara then walked over to the shelves with her and asked what she liked about the book. She mentioned she liked the setting of Pakistan. They found another book that the TA was interested in which she checked out. As she was leaving, the TA mentioned "I don't like reading that much, but I want to read more. If you have any others you recommend, please let me know." Barbara mentioned she would look for a few more books and they could talk more when the she returned the book she just checked out.

The interaction was great, and all though she didn't use a readers advisory tool, she did a great interview. The thing I noticed most about it was that it walked the line between professional and personal. They had a genuine conversation about books and things the liked but the things Barbara did and said seemed to draw out more useful information from this self proclaimed reluctant reader without overtaking the conversation with what she (Barbara) liked to read. I'm glad I was able to witness such a great readers advisory interaction.

The second situation came when one of the avid readers came to return a "The House of Scorpion". The student walked up and said, I finished the House of Scorpion" and Barbara asked, "What did you think? Did it make you think about cloning?" They continued this conversation a bit more talking about what the book was about and Barbara continued to gently try to get her to analyze the book a bit more. Soon the student moved on to the new book she had just picked out. Again, this was a great interaction to watch as Barbara was able to continue to build rapor with her students.

Earlier this week I sat with Barbara again to observe. It was a slow week with only a few "can I use the scanner" and "where is the bathroom" questions as far as reference questions went.

I did however, get to observe one interesting thing. New magazines had just come in and the assistant was processing them to put on the shelf. She came over and gave Barbara two magazines, which she thought shouldn't go on the shelf. As a young librarian I think about the censorship piece a lot and wonder how it will play out in real life.

One of the magazines had a headline like "Tips for great Sex". The other magazine was ESPN's "Body Issue" which features Serena Williams obviously nude on the cover as well as 8 or 9 other pictures inside that were nude or nearly nude and many more scantily clad athletes. All where "tastefully" done, however they were not appropriate for the school library.

So although in my mind I feel like librarians should fight against all forms of censorship, I could see the need to set these two aside. It was a great experience to see even if the reference questions were not pouring in.