Organizational Practicalities

Let's be business-like, and practical for this last blog post... okay? After all, we are talking about an important issue such as library organization, so let's keep it real, alright?

Physical space, signs, inventory lists, and missing materials (overdue or lost). These are some of the factors that can affect the day-to-day organization of a library.

The physical space, design, and layout of the library will have an effect on who the users will be, what activities they will engage in within the library, and how much enjoyment they get out of their time spent in the library. Obviously, an open, uncluttered space will be more inviting to students and staff. Sometimes this means moving bookcases, or displays, or renovating major areas. Each library space is different, and the requirements of the space will vary depending upon the population using the facility.

Signage is really a hidden tool in the library, because it is so independent, yet dependable. Accurate and high-quality signs will help students and staff navigate the space without the assistance of the teacher-librarian. It also gives the library a finished-look when all the signage is coordinated and written in a positive tone. Signage can welcome students and staff (e.g. Reading is Fun!, or Grade 8 Fiction), or it can scare them off (e.g. QUIET ZONE!, or NO FOOD). It's up to the teacher-librarian to negotiate the appropriate wording and tone in each sign.

Creating inventory lists seem to be a meta-level of library organization. I have never completed a library inventory yet, but it appears to be time-consuming and labourious. Every book must be accounted for on the shelf and matched to its corresponding record in the OPAC. Any book that is unaccounted for after two years is declared missing and removed from the catalogue. I suppose this organizational task is important in order to keep the records in the online catalogue current, updated, and aligned with the physical resources found in the library.

Lastly, when it comes to overdue and lost books, I must admit that I have not been as persistent as I probably should be. However, I do like the idea of keeping these situations positive by rewarding patrons with good circulation records, rather than punishing those with bad records. However, at the end of the day, it isn't really fair for one student to have a (popular) book out for the entire semester. Action must be taken to locate (and re-circulate) the material.

Overall, it seems that there are a lot of matters to consider when organizing the learning resources of a school library. There are physical aspects, digital aspects, psychological aspects, sociological aspects, financial aspects, and the list could go on. Who knew that it was such a complex topic?! However, the overarching sentiment is access. For everything we do in the school library, for every organizational decision, or for every change, the reasoning should always be: to increase ACCESS.

Library Homepage: the Chicken and the Egg

First of all, is a library homepage a necessity? The answer is no.

However... if you want to connect with today's students and teachers, I'd say it's a pretty good idea to have one.

But, it's a lot of work, you say! (Yes, and no). And what if no one even notices it's there, you ask! (Well, maybe). But, here's where we come to the chicken and the egg: First, your library homepage needs to be promoted by YOU (the teacher-librarian) with teachers and students. Show them how useful it can be, and how easy it is for them to find the resources and information that they are looking for. But then, after a while, the library homepage will start to promote the LIBRARY and all the fun activities and cool resources provided by the library program. If you give a little to the homepage, it will give back manifold.

Joyce Valenza states that a library homepage is equivalent to a "second front door" into the library. I agree in that the library homepage should be an extension of the library, resonating the tone and atmosphere of the physical space, and it should also be interactive.

Upon creation of a library homepage, Valenza indicates four essential library homepage "must-haves," such as the following:

(1) Information Access and Delivery: This would entail links to the school library's OPAC, and any resources based on e-subscriptions.

(2) Teaching and Learning: Lesson plans, collaborative projects with classroom teachers, and links to websites or tutorials for students which are curriculum-based. (Moreover, I would also add examples of student work as a celebration of learning).

(3) Supporting Books and Reading: Book reviews, and updates regarding new books added to the library's collection, as well as, reading contests or book clubs.

(4) Program Administration: Library hours, a short introduction of the Teacher-Librarian, loan periods, and library calendars.

Valenza's four areas cover all the necessary bases when it comes to creating a useful and informative library homepage. It is up to each teacher-librarian to modify and to customize their library homepage to meet the needs of their school population.

Sometimes socioeconomic factors play into the relevance of a library homepage. If the student population does not have good and equitable access to technological resources, then a library homepage might not be the best use of that particular teacher-librarian's time. As with everything else, the relevancy of a library's homepage must be assessed within the school's context.

Furthermore, a library homepage with all of the pre-screened links can provide students and teachers with examples of safe online websites. Lessons can be created around assessing the quality and validity of internet websites, and no student is too young to start these life lessons.

Personally, I have just started at my school and have not had a moment to turn my attention to the school library's online presence; however, it is on my immediate to-do list. I think that it is also important for teacher-librarians to use their time wisely and not to feel that they have to re-invent the wheel at every step. Therefore, when I do start to create my library homepage, I'm planning on modeling it on my favourite school library website in the district: Hillcrest Elementary. This library website is fun, interactive, and hits all of Valenza's "must-haves."

OPAC yoga - a mixture of flexibility and power

First, let me start off by defining "OPAC" for those who are less acquainted with library terms. OPAC stands for Online Public Access Catalogue. So, what does it have to do with yoga? Well, nothing. But yoga is all about maintaining flexibility and power, and guess what (?!), those are essential components of a functional OPAC, too. A searchable catalogue needs to be flexible to meet the needs of its patrons (e.g. visual search, sounds-like spelling, auto-fill search). It also needs to be powerful on the administration side, allowing the teacher-librarian to add, edit, and delete patrons, titles, or MARC records. Like yoga, OPACs take patience and practice in order to reach mastery.

Next, I shall discuss the functionality of my school's particular OPAC, that is, Follett's Destiny Quest, in the context of another Eastern philosophy: yin and yang.

Yin - On the one hand, the "Back Office" of Destiny Quest is definitely the yin of Follett's OPAC. For starters, it is the set of applications in the "shadow," so to speak. Only the library administrator has access to these (secret) functions on Destiny Quest, such as adding or deleting patrons or resources. The layout of the "Back Office" is sequential and hierarchical; major tabs leading to sub-tabs and applications. The "Back Office" is all about being functional; there are no splashy colours, or other visual stimuli. It is simply about peaceful work, and system manipulation and management.

Yang - On the other hand, the brightly-coloured student-view of Destiny Quest would be the dynamic yang of Follett's OPAC. The homepage highlights the top 10 checked-out resources, as well as, the newly added resources. The student-view has it's functionalities too (i.e. quick search box, or advanced search options), but it is mostly about being attractive and advertising potential books for students to check out.

One complete whole - Overall, the combination of these two opposites, the yin-and-yang of Follett's Destiny Quest, makes it a highly-functional, user-friendly tool for students and teachers to use in order to find resources in the library. The ultimate goal of every teacher-librarian is to make his/her job obsolete -- what??! Let me explain: By teaching information and literacy skills to students, such as how to use an OPAC, we are continuously striving to have each student reach user-independence. Systems like Follett's Destiny Quest help us to make students more self-sufficient in their journey of life-long learning.

"All by myself... Don't want to be, All by myself anymore..."

Just like in Celine Dion's song, "All By Myself," teacher-librarians "don't want to be all by [them]selves anymore" in the library. They say it takes a village to raise a child, well similarly, it takes a team to maintain a library.

Luckily for teacher-librarians, there are a few "Jobbers" available. Jobbers are companies which buy books from multiple publishers and then prepare packages of selected books for purchase. A teacher-librarian would have the option to purchase the accompanying MARC records, and/or to have the books processed (barcodes and spine labels attached). Of course, these extra services cost extra fees, so it all comes down to a time vs. cost balance.

Generally, I don't think any teacher-librarian in his/her right mind would say "no" to a satisfactory MARC record, but whether he/she would want to prepare the book on-site in his/her own library is a matter of preference, and available time.

Personally, I enjoy the arts-and-crafts aspect of barcoding and attaching spine labels, but it is important to keep that time to a minimum so that there are plenty of opportunities to teach critical information and literacy skills in the library.

The decision to use these services (or not to use them) is completely up to the teacher-librarian, and the administration responsible for the library. The ultimate goal is to provide access (there's that word again) for students and staff to the newly acquired resources ASAP.

Here's a brief and incomplete list of a few available Jobbers:
Titlewave: Follett Library Resources
United Library Services
CanLit for Kids

Dewey Decimal Classification

Melvil Dewey was a genius... a librarian-genius, that is.

Thanks to Mr. Dewey, our modern libraries are organized, useful places which allow us to locate resources within a reasonable time frame.

Resources in the library are divided into 10 categories based upon content. The main classifications are:

000 - General Works
100 - Philosophy and Psychology
200 - Religion
300 - Social Sciences
400 - Languages
500 - Natural Sciences and Mathematics
600 - Technology (Applied Sciences)
700 - The Arts (Fine and Decorative)
800 - Literature and Rhetoric
900 - Geography

Something new that I had not know before this lesson is that fiction (Literature) could be included in the Dewey Decimal system under 813; however, it would take over that entire section. Therefore, most libraries separate the fiction from the non-fiction.

As a Teacher-Librarian, I can see the beneficial effects of students learning to use the Dewey Decimal system. The sooner students can learn the main classification sections, the sooner they will be able to search for resources and follow their interests on their own. It all comes down to access. When students know how the DDC system works, they increase their personal, unguided access to the library's resources. We, teacher-librarians, are always happy to help, of course, but the end result which we strive for is to make students self-sufficient in their personal quests for knowledge.

My favourite resource about the Dewey Decimal Classification system for students is "Do We" Really Know Dewey? It's fun, interactive, and made by students! I will definitely be using this website to teach the Dewey Decimal Classification system in my school library!

I must update this because I have found my NEW favourite resource for teaching the Dewey Decimal Classification system. It's called the "Dewey Decimal Rap." I swear this has been tried and tested this past week at my school, and the result is... kids LOVE it. Here it is:

It's not delivery, it's Delicious...

This week we were asked to register for an account with "Delicious," which is an online social bookmarking service. Just like bookmarking on a private computer, Delicious allows users to label or "tag" a website according to their own needs. Tags added to each link then become searchable for other users, allowing them to find their way to your "favourite" sites. The added benefit of Delicious is that you can access your web-bookmarks from any computer, anywhere; whereas, regular bookmarks are limited to your specific computer.

This social bookmarking tool is an exercise in collaborative subject cataloguing. Regular users (to my knowledge) are not aware of their significant impact on the organization and classification of resources on the internet, yet they play such a large role in it. The question of controlled versus uncontrolled vocabulary is the central dilemma. Alireza Noruzi's article, "Folksonomies: (Un)Controlled Vocabulary?," published in 2006, discusses the limitations of uncontrolled vocabularies in the clear classification of knowledge. By decentralizing subject cataloguing, on the one hand, we are losing accuracy and consistency in classification; yet, on the other hand, we are potentially gaining increased access to information according to simplified and popularized terms. Noruzi's article is a bit out-of-date, in my opinion, because many of the suggestions, such as recommendable tags, have already been implemented in updated versions of social bookmarking tools like Delicious. Thus, there is a verifiable effort being made to work towards creating a more consistent vocabulary for classification in social contexts.

Personally, I did not find Delicious to be that scrumptious. I entered my typical search term, squash (my favourite sport), and immediately Delicious brought back results for butternut squash soup, or roasted spaghetti squash. I looked at the "related tags" list, and everything had to do with cooking or vegetables; nothing hinted towards the sport called squash. So, I had to change my search to "squash sport," and then only 918 links showed up. From years of researching squash on the internet, I know that there are far more websites regarding squash (the sport) than that. Therefore, I have not been too impressed with this social bookmarking site; however, conversely, every tool has its advantages, disadvantages, and limitations.

Furthermore, perhaps collaborative subject cataloguing could be useful within very specific communities, such as in elementary or middle school communities. Often younger students will have different terms or phrases to describe a subject or topic than the teachers or librarians at a school. Thus, by allowing students to contribute to the classification and curation of these high-interest resources, this may result in more students locating and gaining access to these resources.

"Copy-Cat" has a whole new meaning

Last week I learned all about making and reading MARC records, only to find out this week that such a thing as "copy cataloguing" exists... And thank goodness!

Copy cataloguing is exactly what the name implies: copying a catalogue entry from another source. This process is deemed acceptable because it saves time and energy in creating a record where one already exists in another location.

There are multiple sources from which to copy catalogue entries. On the one hand, some sources are free, but require more effort on your part to obtain and copy. MARC records can be viewed in the Library of Congress catalogue, or AMICUS (Canadian National Catalogue). Additionally, often CIP (Cataloguing in Publication) data is printed on the verso of the resource. (Although, as a result of the fact that the CIP is created before the final product is completed and published, the accuracy of this information is sometimes questionable). On the other hand, some sources cost money, but they provide services, such as delivering specific catalogue records (including MARC format) into your library catalogue. An example of one such source is: Worldcat.

Ultimately, when copy cataloguing, one must consider that just because a record already exists, it does not mean that it is a complete and superior catalogue entry; it just merely exists. Thus, the quality, depth, and accuracy of a catalogue entry must be assessed when "copying" the data from an existing record. Overall, I think that it would be considered "best practice" to enhance each copied record to meet the specific needs of your patrons and the library.

MARC-o.... polo!

MARC records are like the wizard of Oz: they seem scary and intimidating and impenetrable, but, in fact, they are a simple little humbug puttering about behind the scenes employing oodles of routine procedures and rules. Lesson 6, regarding reading and writing MARC records, helped me to "see behind the curtain," so to speak.

It strikes me that reading/deciphering MARC records, and writing MARC records are two completely different skills. One only has to have a general sense of how MARC records work in order to interpret the data found on a MARC record. To write a MARC record though, therein lies the difficult task. Some questions that arise are: What information must/needs to be included? Why are there multiple fields for similar types of information? Do all of these fields need to be utilized? After working through and creating a MARC record on my own, I realized that what gets included (or excluded) from the record is very dependent on the subjectivity of the cataloguer. Yes, MARC records are coded catalogue entries created for the purpose of allowing computers to read the data, but human beings are the ones inputing the data, and thus, subjectivity and variance can never be dispelled.

Most of my hesitation and fear about MARC records revolved around wanting to get the record "correct;" however, through these exercises I've realized that there is no one right way of making a MARC record. A more complete MARC record could possibly result in a greater number of access points for patrons (students and teachers), but it does not mean that a more "basic" version of a MARC record is incorrect; it's just not as useful as a more complete record would be.

Furthermore, first-time cataloguers and teacher-librarians need to remember that we are allowed, no wait, encouraged to use the many manuals and documents supporting the creation of MARC records. There is nothing wrong with looking up field names, or subfield headings. Memorization is not the name of the game when it comes to MARC records; it's thorough formulaic description. So, go ahead and use the manual. Be my guest!

Additional Note:

In order to make this resource more beneficial, I am inclined to include a MARC record "cheat sheet" for the basic field tags. (This is in no way a complete list of all possible MARC record field tags; it is simply a list of the ones which I find are used regularly and consistently). Here is my selection:

010 - LCCN
020 - ISBN
040 - Cataloguing source
041 - Language code
050 - LC call number
082 - Dewey classification
099 - Local call number
100 - Author main entry
110 - Corporate main entry
245 - Title (and statement of responsibility)
250 - Edition
260 - Publication information
300 - Physical description
490 - Series statement
500 - General note
504 - Bibliographic note
505 - Contents note
520 - Summary
521 - Target audience
538 - System details
586 - Awards
650 - Subject - topical term
651 - Subject - geographic term
658 - Curriculum objective
700 - Personal name added entry
830 - Series title added entry
856 - URL
901 - Local barcode
903 - Local price

ISBD (or as a layman might say, "the deets")

ISBD? "Deets?" What are you talking about, you might be thinking right now. So, okay, okay, let me define some terms and make some clarifications:

ISBD stands for International Standard Bibliographic Description (just what you thought, right?...). As for "deets," well, that's just internet speak for "details." I'm trying my best here to make Descriptive Cataloguing as cool and hip as possible. Working yet?

So, here's what I gleaned from this week's required reading: ISBD establishes areas, which must be included (... or, at least, is highly recommended) in a catalogue listing for an item. These 8 common sense areas are as follows:

Area 1 - Title and statement of responsibility (a.k.a. a fancy way of saying, "who wrote or created it")
Area 2 - Edition
Area 3 - Material specific details (only really used for maps, sheet music, or electronic resources)
Area 4 - Publication or distribution
Area 5 - Physical description (how many pages/discs, size of the book in cm, any colour illustrations)
Area 6 - Series (title of series, that is, if item is part of a series)
Area 7 - Notes (any other piece of information about the resource, which you think is important, but does not fit into one of the established "areas.")
Area 8 - ISBN - International Standard Book Number (the long 10 or 13 digit number)

When a new book or resource comes into the library, a cataloguer will record these pieces of data about the resource in the catalogue, which form access points for patrons (in my case, students or teachers). Access points are most often the title, author, keyword, or subject words. Although, an access point can be any piece of unique datum that would likely lead the searcher to their desired resource.

Intner and Weihs in their chapter, "Description," from Standard cataloguing for school and public libraries, seem to have a tone in their writing that cataloguing is very difficult. Even though their book was published in 2001, it feels a bit outdated. All of their examples involve card catalogues, which, correct me if I am wrong, have gone the way of the dinosaur. As I see it, cataloguing at its core is very simple: record the data from the title page, verso, back cover, label, or whatever, you name it. If it is information describing or defining the item, record it in the catalogue. Chances are someone will (or may) use that piece of information to locate the resource.

As part of our class activity and discussion this week, a number of my classmates were noticing that many current online catalogues did not follow the prescribed order for areas laid out by ISBD. Rather than starting with area 1 and continuing through to area 8, modern online catalogues are taking liberties with the structure of their content. It should be noted that all the information for each area are (generally) present, it's just the order of presentation that is inconsistent. In addition, part of the ISBD framework is a standardized system of punctuation. My argument is that, perhaps, now that cataloguing has jumped from the limited space of a physical card to the limitless space in an online catalogue, the need to match the prescribed punctuation, and therefore, rigid order of areas, is unnecessary. Most online catalogues define the type of content with a heading, and thereby, making this complex series of ISBD punctuation redundant.

Now, having read David Conners' article, "A Ghost in the Catalog: The Gradual Obsolescence of the Main Entry," regarding the history of cataloguing, and specifically issues surrounding the concept of main entry, it seems true to me that, at one point in time, making decisions about what to record (as a main entry or "access point") was a big deal. But now, according to Conners, with theses digital and online catalogue systems and MARC records, which do not distinguish levels of "importance" within the data, a cataloguer no longer needs to be hierarchically selective. In fact, I would argue that cataloguers ought to aim at prolificacy.

And with that, I'll say, "see you next time." Stay tuned for an upcoming blog on MARC records. Ooooh, exciting!

Organization: control and consistency resulting in access

Whilst reading other classmates’ posts this week, I see that the general topic is organization of spaces around themselves (i.e. school library, classroom, and home). “Organization,” as a concept, is intriguing in that it doesn’t always produce the same result. Two rooms can be classified as “organized,” yet operate under two completely different sets of standards.

One small interesting phenomenon that I have noticed as a TOC is that most classrooms are organized in a fairly similar fashion; however, certainly not ALL classrooms as there are ALWAYS those rare disorganized classrooms. It amazes me that I can enter into a classroom and within 10 minutes just “know” where the teacher would have put certain objects. Part of this set of “organization rules” is common sense (e.g. pencils, pens, and paper clips are found in the centre drawer of the teacher’s desk), but part of this set also, I would argue, has to do with the “educational needs” of a classroom environment (e.g. art supply paper and paint is often found in a cabinet near the sink, teacher’s manuals are found on the bookcase near the teacher’s desk, a class schedule is often taped up near the classroom door or on the front whiteboard, and the list continues…). 

Now, I am confident that there is no manual out there that requires individual teachers to organize their classrooms in accordance to a particular set of standards, thus it leads me to believe that there is an implicit set of “organizational rules” governing the concept of access to educational tools in the classroom.

Furthermore, I think that it is this same implicit quality in organization for "educational needs," which makes accessing catalogues in school libraries standardized, logical, and therefore, possible.

"Google it"

Over the past week, I have been working my way through the course readings on "metadata" and "search engines." I found myself reading, and re-reading the documents in order to make some sense of the topic. Well, my brain felt overloaded with information, and at the beginning, I could not put all the pieces of the puzzle together. However, now that I have looked at the different types of search engines and seen the varying results they deliver, I feel that I am starting to understand how the various internet search engines work and the significance of these differences.

One eye-opening experience for me was to learn that Google is but one type of search engine out there to assist in navigation of the world wide web. I have Google as the homepage on my computer, so for me, every internet experience is influenced by Google. I feel moronic stating this, but I did not actually know that there was another way to access information on the web other than through the "portal" of Google. Now, I see Google as the "tool" that it is, a highly sophisticated and complex tool, but a tool nonetheless.

In order to really understand how Google worked, I watched a video on youtube called "How does google search work?" and I found it to be very informative. Like many other search engines, Google sends out "spiders" to "crawl" the web, and then using a complicated set of algorithms, it creates a index of the results. PageRank is a tool that Google uses to determine the relevancy of websites (or usefulness to the user) and then places those websites higher on the index. Relevancy is determined by many factors, one such factor is: a high number of other sites linking to the original website.

Before this lesson, I had never considered the different "brands" of search engines, and the fact that they would each have a different slant on searching and indexing information from the internet. When I tried a test search on Google and Yahoo.ca, I got two completely different lists of results (other than Wikipedia, which was at the top for both of them). I found that Google offered a lot more variety of mediums to access the information (e.g. images, youtube video links, and then reputable websites (in my opinion)). Whereas Yahoo.ca had a series of "Sponsored websites" (i.e. advertisements), followed by a strange melange of websites. But, perhaps, I am a bit biased to Google and its result format because of my extensive and exclusive use of it for so long. Nevertheless, I can see the potential benefit of using multiple search engines when researching information. As a teacher-librarian, I think it is of the utmost importance to teach not only the "how to's" when it comes to searching (or researching) on the web, but also to answer the "why" questions as well.

I have not yet mentioned my findings about the Open Directory. This is partially because I have been fascinated by the information I have learned about search engines, and partially because it feels like a completely different entity. The Open Directory runs upon a completely different philosophy and system. "Net-citizens" review websites and promote their inclusion on the directory. All websites are pre-categorized and accessed via a series of hierarchical lists. On the one hand, when one already knows a little bit about a subject, I can see the use of this system. On the other hand, when one does not know the first thing about the topic they are looking for, it can be a challenging process to locate the right information. However, as a result of the peer-reviewing processes, it seems that the quality and appropriateness of the included websites are high, and thus making these websites more likely to be useful in an educational context. But, like many of my classmates (as I have read on the class discussions pages), I found the Open Directory to be a bit challenging to navigate, and a bit "old-school" on the visual side. I think a majority of this stems from the fact that we are used to a search engine doing the work for us; we have been trained into search complacency.

Overall, I feel that I have learned a lot this week about the internet, search engines, and information retrieval science, and their relevancies regarding information literacy skills. As a teacher-librarian, the better I understand how these processes and systems work, the better I will be able to help and to guide students in their research, and to promote the cultivation of their own information literacy skills.

Give me an "A!" Give me a "C!" Give me a "C-E-S-S!" And what does that spell?! ACCESS!!

On par with every illustrious superhero, I think the following motto applies to teacher-librarians as well: "with great power comes great responsibility."

From what I've learned this week, it appears that absolutely EVERY decision that a teacher-librarian makes in the school library will have a ripple effect on student access to information and resources. Both what we do and what we don't do similarly carry the same amount of impact; therefore, it is extremely important for teacher-librarians to be aware of the influence they hold over student access and consequently, student learning.

While intellectual access (i.e. is this book appropriate for this age group?), and physical access (i.e. is the library open after school or at lunch?) have always been major factors in affecting student access to resources, we are currently entering into an uncharted territory where digital access (i.e. do students know how to log in to subscribed databases on remote home computers?) has become a critical concern.

Now, digital media and the Internet are "hot topics" when it comes to education and school libraries. The big question of how to navigate these uncharted waters is continuously pondered and re-pondered. So many factors are involved: maintaining adequate equipment and gadgets, safeguards and limitations on Internet searches, equal time and access to digital tools (computers, iPads, etc.), and the list goes on...

I do think that the future of school libraries will be largely comprised of digital collections (if not have a complete monopoly). Our generation of teacher-librarians are on the wave of transition; the seas will be the roughest for us as we grapple with establishing digital access philosophies and "best practices." Don't get me wrong, I am a LOVER of physical books and I think there will always be a place for them in some respect. But, rather than resist the technologies of a new emerging generation, we must embrace the good, mitigate the bad, and have fun in the process.

On the positive side: Learning and the Pursuit of Knowledge are still at the core, it's just the outer shell that is changing.

In closing, I have written an acrostic poem, which I will use to remind myself of my commitment to ACCESS:

Accountable for
Connecting
Children to
Exemplary resources.
Seven days a week, all
School year long.

Dewey and I have a few things in common: An Introduction of sorts

Dear blog readers,

Welcome to my journey of becoming a teacher-librarian. My name is Dorothea, and I am a Teacher-On-Call in Victoria, BC. I have always loved books, and knowledge, and I am truly a learner at heart. Right now, I am completing the final year of my Master of Arts in Children's Literature at UBC. Then, I plan to tackle the Teacher-Librarianship Diploma! To me, the position of teacher-librarian is ideal because it combines two of my favourite things: books and education!

First of all, let me get a few things off my chest: before completing the readings last week, I did not know that the "Dewey Decimal System" was named after a man named Melvil Dewey. And what a unique man he was! After reading Sarah Prescott's article, "Melvil Dewey, the father of modern librarianship, was one strange guy. But his classification system is still used in most of the world," I was fascinated about the intensity of his dedication and entrepreneurship with regards to library organization.

Just like Melvil Dewey, I am a lover of words. Prescott reports that Dewey's "most essential book" was an unabridged dictionary, and that he consulted said book on a daily basis. Well, same here. Except mine is a 3-inch thick copy of "The New Penguin English Dictionary," which I was given to me on one of my previous birthdays. Best birthday present yet (and I'm not even joking!).

Not that knowing or not knowing of the man behind the system is necessary, but I think that now having a little bit of an understanding about who Melvil Dewey is will help me to understand and to teach the Dewey Decimal System in a school library.

Furthermore, another characteristic that I share with Dewey (or "Dui" as he would have preferred!) is that I love analyzing, classifying, and organizing. I am new to Teacher-Librarianship so I have much to learn with regards to the actual practical procedures when it comes to library organization. I'm positive that this course (LIBE 465) will answer all my questions and ask me in return even more than I had originally wondered.

Let the learning begin!