National Library Week

Believe it or not this week is National Library Week. Librarians across the country are being showered with praise, thanks and gifts (we are quite fond of chocolate here in the LMC). And while we had every opportunity to purchase posters advertising National Library Week, or promote it through web and daily announcements, Ms. Orest and I are just too darn busy to stop and celebrate. She's preparing for presentations next week, students had AIMS testing this week and of course it took me several days of deep concentration to come up with today's blog post topic.

See what I mean?

I have a strong suspicion that very few school libraries are celebrating.  Like us, they have too much going on. That isn't to say public libraries coast through the day, but in general adult patrons are more independent. The idea behind National Library Week isn't merely to show appreciation for  dedicated staff (though I can certainly get behind that!) but to also highlight all the services libraries provide to patrons.

In short, the public needs to know what we do all day.

Homework Help- Finding students research books or websites. Print and formatting assistance for English papers (those are very long days for us as everyone waits until the last minute to print their paper here at school). Technology and Library education presentations- how to use the library and our equipment.

Hostess with the Mostest!- Classes come into the LMC almost every day, some times multiple ones from different departments on the same day. Occasionally we double book due to high demand.  Classes will use laptops for a variety of tasks (the foreign language classes conjugate verbs on a special website). Sometimes the LMC is so popular we have to send people away.

Hand holding- Not literally, but everyday there is a crisis of some kind- document won't print, file won't open, BFF stopped speaking to someone. The LMC is an area of respite for many students. They study, they hang out with friends, they play on the Wii (not during class time) and they share their lives with us. We get updates on sports, college acceptance, prom status and much more.

Hand it over- Books that is. Finding books the kids need still, even in the digital age, occupies a nice chunk of time here in the LMC.

An official National Library Week celebration would have been nice, but we do get ample thanks and appreciation every day from students and staff.

But not much chocolate.