WI 2017-18 - INFO I699-001: Independent Study: Nebinger School :Day 21: 2/12/2018

Today was a good day:

1. The scanner worked.
2. I had access to the Public School website
3. I had access to the Follett Destiny website.

So today I was able to start Phase 2: Cataloging. I started with the Early Reader Fiction section. At this point I am just verifying the books that already have barcodes and spine labels. So far, those with authors A-K all appear on the Nebinger Follett Destiny inventory.

I did find some books in this section that are misshelved, specifically there were a handful of Early Paperback books that had been shelved in this section. Also, I found a few books that are not part of the Nebinger collection: no barcode, no spine label and they do not appear on the Nebinger Follett Destiny inventory. I have put those books aside for adding to the collection at a later date.

I also heard back from Kathy, the former Nebinger librarian. She has very kindly offered to give me some insight into the way things were set up originally. This will be very helpful in creating a plan for the future.

Early Fiction: A-K

WI 2017-18 - INFO I699-001: Independent Study: Nebinger School :Day 20: 2/9/2018

Today was an exercise in frustration.

Debbie S., the Nebinger Friends liaison, delivered the scanner and printer to Nebinger today.

Bruce K. the Nebinger Friends technical guru, stopped by and connected the scanner.

I missed Bruce by minutes. The PC was already logged out when I got there.

I have the Follett Destiny passwords, but not the Philadelphia Public School passwords. I tried using the one from Wednesday's training, but it did not work. I tried multiple times, upper case, lower case. no luck. So I went back to using my phone. As luck would have it, my phone had no connectivity either. So I shelf read the remainder of the Juvenile Fiction section D-S, but I could not check reading levels.

Another question I have is the matter of books that are labeled Reading level 2.1 - 2.7. technically Early Fiction is Pre-K - 2nd grade, so it encompasses Easy Chapter books up to Grade 2, but does that include 2.+? I will check in with my advisor and find out.

Another unanswered question was frustrating because I saw that two series in particular, Harry Potter and the Percy Jackson series, are housed in both Juvenile and Teen/YA. I would like to know if that was a deliberate choice on the part of the previous librarian or the school administration, or are they just mis-shelved.

I was able to identify some Early Fiction  that was mis-shelved in the Juvenile Fiction section, because some have the reading level printed on the book, and some spine labels from the previous librarian have reading levels as part of the spine lable. So I pulled those out for re-shelving.

I also ran short of book ends, so thing are shelf-read, but it looks a bit disheveled. I need to take a bit of time and re-space the JF books to allow for space at the end of each shelf, but without bookends they won't stand up straight, and will tend to fall over.

Hopefully the Philadelphia Public School password issue will be ironed out next week, so that scanning and cataloging can begin. With 6000 titles in the collection, and half the term over, time is of the essence.

Juvenile Fiction:

WI 2017-18 - INFO I699-001: Independent Study: Nebinger School :Day 19: 2/7/2018

Today was the Follett Destiny Training Webinar at Nebinger Library. Representatives from Nebinger Friends and HSA attended. It was ably facilitated by Ann B., the Follett Destiny trainer. She covered many aspects of the program, including but not limited to; cataloging, circulation, patrons, and reports. We met from 9 AM - 12:30 PM, with one brief break and the time flew by.

I will not be in tomorrow. All Philadelphia schools are closed due to the SuperBowl Parade.

WI 2017-18 - INFO I699-001: Independent Study: Nebinger School :Day 18: 2/6/2018

Today I continued shelf-reading and sorting the Juvenile non-fiction. Today I got through T-Z. I found more Early Fiction, Easy Chapter and Teen/YA books mixed in, so I pulled those out and returned them to the appropriate sections.

I would have liked to make more progress, but each title has to be checked for reading level and I am looking up each title on my cell phone because there is no access to the public school wireless yet.

JF T-Z

Tomorrow is the Follett Destiny webinar training with the Friends of Nebinger.

WI 2017-18 - INFO I699-001: Independent Study: Nebinger School :Day 17: 2/2/2018

Today my colleague Amey H. and I continued working on shelf-reading the Juvenile Fiction section. We had access to the internet, so we compared the titles to Worldcat, the NY Public Library and my local library holdings, to make sure that the books were in the appropriate fiction section:Early, Juvenile or Teen. Amey worked with the A's and B's. She found the Lloyd Alexander titles in the Juvenile section and sorted them alphabetically.  I worked in the W-Z section. I was suprised to find some picture books that are correctly cataloged as being Juvenile Fiction.

We were able to free up more space for the Juvenile Fiction section and we discovered more Teen Fiction titles, which will get organized next week.

Also, the Nebinger Friends have scheduled the Follett Destiny webinar training for the cataloging/circulation program. That will be on Wednesday of next week, at Nebinger.

The lowest shelf is all of the Teen titles discovered today

The A-B section of Juvenile Fiction 

WI 2017-18 - INFO I699-001: Independent Study: Nebinger School :Day 16: 2/1/2018

Today I started shelf-reading the Juvenile Fiction section.

The section  is arranged alphabetically by author. I am finding that books have been misshelved over the years. Within the Juvenile Fiction section I found some Early Chapter books (The Zack Files, for example), as well as some Teen Fiction (The Inkspell series, for example). This is actually good news for two reasons:

1.Ultimately it will result in more shelf space in a section that had packed bookshelves with no space for growing the collection, and

2. The Teen Collection, which was extremely sparse, is growing on its own, just by relocating titles to their correct section.

Today I got as far as the G's, tomorrow, I will continue in this section.

P.S. Last night there was an Open House for prospective students and their parents. There were  some books taken from the shelves and strewn around in a few places, non-fiction as well as fiction. It looks like people are finding the books and enjoying them. Success!

Juvenile Fiction: A-G

WI 2017-18 - INFO I699-001: Independent Study: Nebinger School :Day 15: 1/31/2018

Today I completed the shelf reading and furniture re-arranging for the non-fiction side of the library.

All the titles from the "surprise cache" in the Teen/YA section are now worked into the existing non-fiction section. The surprise cache consisted of 5 shelves of 398.2 (fairy tales and folklore) then 4 shelves of various additional non-fiction from 400s - 900s. The original total range of 7 bookcases in the Teen/YA section also included 3 bookcases that held various classroom reading sets. This was covered in yesterday's posting. 

Here are the pictures of the final completed sbookshelves in  the non-fiction section. It is comprised of the 900s - 999.

Debbie S. ,the Nebinger Library liaison, stopped by. She was setting up for a meeting with prospective parents later tonight. I showed her the changes to all of the sections of the library and she was pleased. 

I suggested to Debbie that, if there is sufficient funding, it would be great to purchase additional shelving for the Teen/YA section to make it into a u-shaped section of bookshelves, to house the anticipated growth of the Teen/YA collection. Debbie asked if i would be making a list of recommended books for that portion of the collection. She also asked if i was aware of any gaps in the collection. I told her I would have a clearer sense of this after I complete the cataloging portion of the project. I said  would make those suggestions part of my final recommendations. 

She said that the Follett Destiny webinar training is scheduled to take place early next week. She also hopes one scanner will be available by next week. The existing scanner has been pronounced unfixable by Bruce K. He tried, even going so far as to reach out to the scanner company, but even they could not help make it useable. She has also heard from Abby, the Home and School liaison, that her husband is happy to install shelving into the two closets available to house the classroom reading sets. 

As I was leaving I saw Nadine, the principal, and she says the ticket has been submitted to create a Nebinger volunteer log-in for the computers. She is hopeful that it will be activated by the day of the training webinar.

Tomorrow I plan to start shelf-reading the middle grades ( 3-5) fiction section. There are 9 bookshelves, 8 of them are fairly full, so it may not get completed in on day.