Progress!

The great thing about being away on vacation is that sometimes (at least when you have great staff) you come back and amazing things have been achieved.  Here are some pictures from the library yesterday. Books are in a logical order, most shelves are labeled, the NLB books have arrived and been checked and scanned into Delicious Monster.   AND ... big bonus ... the ladies from kindergarten and the head were around to have a good look at the "store" room and "cupboards" where all sorts of stuff was being stored in not related to the library and BINGO - they've agreed to move them upstairs to the kindergarten area.  As that was one of my "nice to have" items on my transformation plan it feels even better.

Also, we met up with the IT / Systems guy to have a look at the catalogue.  That's a hmmm.  They've got a sort of home made database that they've managed to populate with the library book list from about a year ago.  The potential fields they have are:
* Book ID (automatically generated)
* ISBN
* Title
* Category
* Loan type
* Loan status
* Location
* Ownership

Of which only the Book ID and Title is filled in!  Eek!  After being used to working with Follett Dynasty and another systems as a user, it's rather lean.  I then have to take a step back and ask myself what is really really needed and why.  Our task is going to be to scan all the books in that can be scanned in (seems only English at this point), and then do some kind of export to excel and field match and discard the ones that are missing and add the ones that are new.  Joy.  And tell them what additional fields we'd like to see - like "author" may come in handy.

Ms. Katie forwarded me an email from LibraryWorld who is offering a month's free trail for their online system. It's certainly not terribly expensive, but of course it's more than an in-house home made system.  I tried to export the 2000 odd books we'd scanned into Delicious and immediately ran into the age old library barrier of MARC.  It only reads MARC ... so I contacted them, sure they could convert - for $300 - now that ain't gonna happen I can tell you now.  Second problem I ran into is that it didn't recognise the ISBN of our Chinese or Korean Books and third was I couldn't find a logical spot to distinguish between NLB and own books.    May I make a comment as a "not yet quite librarian" - really you need to make things simpler and more intuitive and exchangeable.  I know I know I know about MARC and spent a whole semester getting intimately acquainted with him and his mates Z39.50 etc.  But to tell me in your manual there is no get around having to pay you to convert my data, when it's a simple database matching exercise ...  nope.  If contact software can covert from one to another with ease this isn't all that much more difficult - especially since all you really really need is the ISBN number to get going.

Anyway, let's keep positive, and here are some very pretty pictures!

NLB boxes - 3 of those our old books!

Ordering our PYP books

Primary books getting in shape

2ndary books all sorted by call number

Shelves moved passage either side

NLB books on shelf

Hardcovers on display

Moving the deck chairs - well at least the shelves

Old VCR boxes as flexible shelf labeling

A huge amount of progress has been made by Ms. Sheryl who has managed to get rid of the boxes cluttering up the floors and to start sorting those books which have any type of DDC number on the spine into DDC number order.  But there still are piles and piles of orphan textbooks that no-one appears to particularly want to use.  We've been lugging them from shelf to shelf it seems each time trying to find a logical space while we sort out the rest of the library, when actually the only logical place for them is ANYWHERE but the library.... which is why I titled this moving the deck chairs...

Yay an empty wall

In order to make the library shelves a bit more accessible physically we decided to move the magazine shelves out. Another factor was that due to the humidity, anything displayed on them started to have curling corners.  Since we wanted it done sooner rather than later, we just rolled up our sleeves and played moving ladies ourselves.  As you can see from the photo it's looking good - albeit empty. These are the shelves where the NLB books which arrive next Thursday (whoopee) will be located so they don't get all mixed up with our own collection.

Shelves ready and waiting for NLB delivery

We managed to finish sorting and shelving the 000-300 DDC sections using the old VCR covers kindly donated by Ms. Katie.  It's looking like a real library - at least on those six shelves!  Did I mention that the library is really quite dusty and everything has to be cleaned and wiped down as we go?

Progress:100-300 in Chinese sorted and shelved

delicious Monster 3.0 as a temporary solution

 The biggest issue right now is the arrival of the NLB books next week and we still haven't managed to locate the old catalogue, nor the cataloguing system, nor does it look like anything will be in place on time.  That called for a quick meeting with the HOS to talk about a plan B.   Which had to be quick and easy and cheap.  I brought along my laptop with my home system - yes ironically at this point, my home books and CDs and DVDs are better catalogued than the schools.  I've been using Delicious Monster 2.0 and quickly upgrade to 3.0 in order to show the potential for doing something, that would be better than handwritten lists and checking.  At $25 it was somewhat a no-brainer, but it had to happen and be confirmed. I also broached the question of cleaning ... (captive audience) and got permission to exchange some of the duplicate Korean and Chinese books with Ms. Katie for some of her surplus donated books that were needed, particularly in the primary section.  At this rate of shelf and book and box of book moving I'm going to be able to cancel my subscription to the gym!

Hurry up and wait

Lots and lots of Korean books

Today I get to the library to meet a rather frustrated Ms. Sheryl.  There has been progress, but she's rather frustrated at the pace.  The boxes of old books that we want to swop in the Book Cross scheme still haven't been claimed and it looks like the process will take longer than first thought - so an intermediate storage space has been found for them, but not a strong person who's able and willing and has time to move them.  I can see those boxes really annoy her.  Luckily I only have to see them once a week, and hopefully they'll be gone before my next visit.

Oh No! The boxes are still here ...

The first shelf has a huge collection of Korean books.  She's asked the Korean students what they are and why and it seems they're mainly Korean fiction from a time that some students were studying Korean.  I snap a picture and send to Ms. Katie with the question of whether her IB Korean students / teachers would be interested.  Yes they would.  Another "swop" opportunity. So we need to clear it with the HOS and Korean community to see what is needed and what can be missed.  In the mean time, the books are relocated to a less prominent position.


 Ms. Sheryl asks if I'd mind reading to a P2 class who's about to come in.  Oops, how am I going to find a book that's appropriate?  What unit were they doing again?  It's "who we are"and the teacher is talking about feelings and emotions in the classroom.  I have a quick look through the picture books - luckily Ms. Sheryl has sorted them between Nursery to P2 and P3-6, so I can hit the right shelves.  No catalogue means no quick look up, and no shelf labeling or organisation means taking the books out a pile at a time and manually looking through them.  I find a nice little book about Anger and another about a boy who can't sit still in class and put them aside.  Then I go back to my library exploration tour and find a pile of PYP books hidden in the back.   Sort those out to put them on the front (ex-Korean) shelf.   But in walk the kids - oops there goes my sorting and lots of little hands grope the piles with "can I have this one, what's this ..." the teacher quickly gets into action and announces that they're going to get a story and I start with the "can't sit still one" which works a treat for getting them seated and listening.  The Angry book gets lots of (solicited) information about tiresome younger and older siblings and how they manage feeling mad.  

Yippie! Some of the teachers want some of the text books

Then they're let loose to borrow some books, which they then have to write down on a borrowing list.  Yup, we're very manual for the time being.

As soon as they leave, I comb through all the junior books for early readers and reading schemes and find a mish-mash of Oxford Reading Tree, "I can read" PYP readers, ladybird books and anything and everything else.  I put these aside for the next request.  But the shelf I've just emptied is filthy, there have been some issues with the cleaners - another of Ms. Sheryl's frustrations that needs to be sorted out.  She gets me a bowl of water and a cloth and soap and I set about wiping down the shelf.  Little by little we'll get the place spick and span and then the maintenance won't be so hard.

Meanwhile Ms. Sheryl does a little bit of networking around the classrooms to find some candidates for some of the many text-books clogging up the shelves.  In a few weeks we'll have 2000 books arriving that are relevant and needed, so there is not much space for all those text books.  She finds takers for the Science and English textbooks and workbooks.  Luckily - that saves about 2 or 3 shelves.  

I attack the magazine rack - not a good option in this climate.  The books and magazines on display are looking rather sad with curled up corners.  Some of the magazines have been there since 2004 - I find a box for items to be binned and in they go.  The books get reshelved and the rack is slowly cleared.  It will probably be put outside the library for some "lifestyle" items.

Then we get a nice surprise - someone comes to collect the 'claimed' text books, they're off the floor now, and we get a delivery of old VCR boxes that Ms. Katie used to use for her moveable bookshelf labeling!  Ms. Sheryl gets to work making labels.  We decide at this point the DDC is a remote dream, and we'll start by labeling the primary section by unit of enquiry.  The secondary can get the DDC.  

They're everywhere, they're everywhere!  Just as I want to leave, I find another 6 shelves full of Korean books - Ms. Sheryl agrees that it would be a good idea to weed the collection and replace it with books that are in shorter supply at the school.  We have a new mission!  

      

Just before I leave I find even more Korean books

 The teacher approaches me for some easy phonic based reading books in English for a new Chinese student who is learning to read in English - oh dear, we have to do the sort through piles thing again to find something.

Presentation of the plan

Today was the day to present the plan!  But first we spent some time going around the school meeting teachers and heads of department and finding out the scheduling of the various units of enquiry, which units were to be studied and what the information needs would be.  Our first concrete action was going to be getting a selection of books from the NLB through their DEAR scheme.

The DEAR scheme is a bulk lending programme, whereby:

"The NLB welcomes schools and learning centres, social, welfare, and community organisations which are embarking on the promotion of reading initiatives to borrow books in bulk for their members' use. This service, called DEAR@Schools and DEAR@Community, is provided free of charge and subjected for renewal on a yearly basis.

All DEAR@Schools and DEAR@Community members are entitled to borrow up to a maximum of 2,000 books for a loan period of 84 days (12 weeks)."

For a school on a limited budget and limited resources (physical and staffing) this is a great way to get resources up and running in a short time frame. 

Then the meeting with the Head of School (HOS) to see if we had support for our ambitious plans!   Luckily we did, however, not everything could be achieved at once, so we needed to work step-by-step.

The first priority was ordering the books the teachers needed for delivery as soon as possible.  We'd arranged a slot with the NLB to do that tomorrow.  Then while we are waiting for the book delivery we have to work hard to make sure we have the physical space and the logistics in place for receiving, storing, disbursing, returning and sending the books back to the NLB.

Library make-over plan

My visit had me so excited, that instead of doing my coursework, I decided to make a little power-point presentation of what could be done.  I can't take credit for all of this, as a lot of people had already been involved in the project.  With things the school head and former school librarian had already arranged (book-cross and DEAR borrowing) and ideas from Ms. Sheryl and Ms. Katie.  I've copied and pasted it below - but obviously the plan is a work in progress and subject to change - I'll be interested to see what the final product will be.

New library adventures!

Books for secondary - old books stacked in boxes on floor

In order to get some work experience I've agreed to volunteer a day a week at a bilingual international school here in Singapore.  The school has around 500 pupils, 250 each in primary and secondary and teaches in English and Chinese.

The library situation is a little dire, which is why I was asked to help out.  I was quite intimidated at first as I have a little bit of theoretical knowledge based on the courses I've done (and passed so far), and a little bit of practical knowledge based on volunteering at the library at my kids school - and managing my own over stuffed bookshelves at home, and a little bit of experiencing knowledge based on visiting libraries all my life and the intensive library tour from my course which is documented earlier.

Junior school section. Non-fiction in shelves on stairs

I made it quite clear that I was no guru - but luckily I'm being very capably mentored by Ms. Katie, the uber-wonderful librarian at my kid's school.  And I'm also very lucky to have Ms. Sheryl, who is the new school de-facto librarian at the school, despite the fact that she has had not training or experience in the librarian field - but makes up for that with enthusiasm and a "can do" attitude.

Due to the paucity of the library's collection, it was decided to consolidate the books from junior and senior school in an old squash court and to work from there.  The first visit revealed that the junior books had been placed on the stairs, and the secondary on the court.  The collection consisted mainly of Chinese books and textbooks.  There was no discernable order to the collection, the catalogue was "lost" and there were classes of eager young students coming in looking for books, and teachers needing resources for their units of enquiry.

textbooks and teacher resources

"wall" of books, no labeling, lots of text books

"stuff" to be sorted on floor

Nice study area, newly renovated

study area with tables and chairs