Internship+Objective+6

"I will complete any duties in connection with the repair of or weeding of library materials."**
 * [[image:2009_Internship_043.jpg width="152" height="200" caption="Mystery Section at TWMS"]]Internship Objective 6 (FEAP 8)


 * Activities used to meet this objective:**

__Repairing of Books__

During my time at Tuskawilla Middle School, I saw only one book in actual need of repair. Mrs. Evelyn took care of this late one Friday afternoon after all students and I had left for the day. On Monday she explained what she did and why she left it for Friday afternoon. She used acrylic glue and a press to fix the binding of the damaged book, and let it dry over the weekend. She purposely waits until Friday afternoon for this task, so that the book can dry over the weekend. The process seemed fairly simple, yet adequate as I viewed the results.

Furthermore, Mrs. Evelyn explained that non-fiction books rarely needed repair; the popular fiction books that were checked out often were the ones needing some attention. She no longer sends books to a bindery. Instead she either tosses them or places them in an area in a storage room designated for an upcoming book swap.

__Weeding of Collection__

The original library was torn down several years when Tuskawilla Middle School went through a massive remodeling. Mrs. Evelyn completed a significant amount of weeding in preparation for the new library. However, she kept a sufficient number of books because she wanted to avoid having bare shelves. That made sense to me considering that the new library would consist of a "Reading Room" which housed all of the fiction as well as three other separate rooms designated for non-fiction for each middle-school grade. Therefore, I felt the reading room as well as the other library rooms would need minimal, if any weeding.

Nevertheless, I headed over to the "Mysteries" section to weed it on one of my final afternoon at TWMS. I chose this genre simply because it is my favorite. As I looked at the collection of about 350 titles, I took note that all of the shelves assigned to mysteries were nearly full. Included were these authors:
 * Peg Kehret
 * Roy McGregor
 * Lillian Jackson Braun
 * Agatha Christie
 * Caroline B. Cooney
 * Anthony Horowitz
 * Avi
 * Rosemary Wells
 * Scott O'Dell
 * Willo Davis Roberts
 * Donald Sobol
 * Anne Schraff
 * Gertrude Chandler Warner
 * Paul Zindel
 * Wendelin Van Draanen

While browsing, I noticed that the vast majority of the collection was published within the last twenty-five years. Even the books going back to the early 80's were being checked out on a regular basis. I looked for my girlhood favorite, Nancy Drew. The library contained four different Nancy Drew series, and they were checked out frequently. If I had to pull books and if monies were available immediately for replacement, I would have pulled the oldest Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books which dated back to the early 1960's.


 * Objective satisfactorily met.** This one simple act of weeding helped me to know the mystery collection a bit better. For me, weeding goes hand-in-hand with replacement issues. I found myself asking, "If I don't have funds to buy a new book, perhaps I'd better leave it on the shelf. Or maybe choose to repair it if I couldn't replace it right away." Luckily, the present collection seems to be in good order. Regarding book repair--I should have lingered on that one Friday afternoon and observed Mrs. Evelyn's repair of the book I'd mentioned.

Given the fact that there are so many resources outlining suggestions and supplies Julie may need for book repair, I think her finely tuned common sense would more than serve her whenever she discovers a volume that needs TLC. She used the suggested method of CREW (Continuous review and evaluation for weeding) to discover volumes for "retirement."
 * Mrs. Evelyn's comments regarding Mrs. Horrocks' completion and assessment of the objective:**


 * My thoughts:**

1. I need to update my knowledge of this genre. One way to do so is to explore some lists available on the web. These websites might be a good place to begin: [|100 Greatest Mystery Novels] [|Lists by categories of mysteries] [|Children's Mysteries] [|Mysteries and adventures grouped by age] 2. I imagine repairing and weeding of a school library collection occuring on a "as needed" basis. These tasks need to be performed, but they're easy to "put on a back burner" considering all of the demands made on a media specialist. 3. Mrs. Evelyn gave me a helpful hint. As books are identified as "unrepairable," create an Excel spread sheet to keep track of them. Call it a "wish list" and organize it alphabetically by the author's last name. If I do it directly into a favorite vendor's website, I also have the ability to sort the wish list in various ways and check for duplicate copies of titles I want to order.