Objective+4

=Objective 4: =  = __Reorganizing Fiction Picture Book Section __ = //Currently there are numerous basic picture books mixed in with the chapter books. I will be responsible for pulling, retagging the books, recataloging and putting the books into the proper new sections. FEAP 8, 12//



With Neptune Elem. being a mere two years old, Teresa was still trying to set things up and make changes to suit her style within the media center. When the school initially started up, employees from District Offices did a lot of the leg work, including coding the books, placing stickers and stamping the books, and even doing a lot of the jacket covers on them. One of the tasks that Teresa had wanted to do was to be able to place "brackets" behind the fiction chapter books so that they would not get pushed to the back part of the shelves. Many of the chapter books would often get "lost" behind the other books as the students reshelved and didn't pay attention to what they were pushing to the back. Yet a major probelm was that for some reason, many of the upper level reading picture books were coded as F (fiction) and not as E (easy). This caused a problem with installing the brackets because picture books are normally much larger (both in width and height) in size. Since they were alphabatized, they were scattered among the chapter books making it virtually impossible to put a stopper behind the much smaller chapter books.

The solution? To physically go through each shelf and to pull out the shorter in length picture books that were abnormally oversized within the chapter books. So I began to take the books off of the shelves. Once the books were pulled, I had to go to the Destiny catalog software program and change the call number on each book from an F to an E. She also asked me to verify the prices on each book as for many of the costs were not entered into the database and this way when a book was lost and/ or damaged, the price would be listed. I also had to be creative and on the spine of the book, carefully change the F to an E and recover it with a clear sticker to protect it. Once the books were updated in the system and on the spines, I then had to refile them into their new home in the E section. It was during this early reshelving that I found out the worst part about being a Media Specialist, especially in an elementary school. The books are kept on the lowest shelves as possible and in order to reshelve them, the bending down process was a neccessity. I realized that my back was very much out of shape and the pain after a few days was not very pleasant. I learned that stools with wheels would become my favorite friend and a definate neccessity in order to maintain my health! Plus, by the end of my intership, my back was stronger than ever (even in using the stool).

This was a tedious task as for there were over 150 books that I pulled, recoded, and then reshelved in their new locations. I tried to keep them in alphabetical order to that it would be easier to reshelve them, but it became difficult several times when I stopped to do another task and lost where I had left off. By the time I got to the end of changing the books, I became pretty good with the multi-tasking and keeping track of where I left off. I had to go back near the end of my internship and do another go through of the books as for those picture books that were checked out had now come back and were reshelved.