More Experience at the Middle/High School

    Today I spent some more time working in the middle/high school media center.  After school, I went over there and did some things for the media specialist.  She has a lot of equipment in two storage rooms, and she has not had time to check all of it to see what works and what doesn't.  This afternoon I checked all of the overhead projectors, an old opaque projector, and a t.v. in one storage room.  Three projectors need to be repaired or discarded.  Everything else seemed to work fine.  After checking this equipment, I worked on straightening the reference materials and some of the non-fiction shelves.  As I worked with the biographies, I came across names of people who are not familiar to me.  I also noticed the books that focus on more mature topics such as dating.  I found some books that are written in Spanish, and this made me realize that I have not seen any books written in Spanish in our elementary media center.  We have many students who speak Spanish as their primary language, so this is something that I want to address when I select books to order this year. 
   I engaged in two new activities today in my job as media specialist.  First, I finalized the art order for our school.  The art materials (construction paper, glitter, paint, etc.) at our school are located in the workroom of the media center, and the media specialist has been the person responsible for ordering art supplies each year.  A short time ago, I inventoried the current art supplies and pulled copies of the art orders for the past three years.  Today I filled out the order forms and turned them in to the school secretary for processing.   Later in the day, I met with a man who runs a book warehouse in a nearby town.  He was in the area and stopped by to see if the local schools were interested in holding a book fair.  He explained how his book fairs work, and I am thinking of having one in early February.  There has not been a book fair at our school in a few years, so I think it will generate a great deal of excitement among the students and parents.  This man assured me that he has books that sell for $1 or less so that more kids will be able to buy items.  I plan to spend tomorrow shadowing a media specialist who used this company for a book fair last school year.  I want to ask about her experience with this company before I approach my principal with the idea.

Hours spent in the Atkinson County Middle/High School Media Center:  1.5