4.2

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To be successful, a librarian must continuously increase their knowledge. One can achieve this through membership in specialized user groups (such as LM-NET), membership in professional organizations, reading journals, informal classes and formal classes. To be fully effective, the librarian must use a combination of all of the above. While the Towson classes have required much of my time, I have also taken county level courses to become certified in wikis and BlackBoard. I regularly read a number of journals (both library and reading specific) and am a member of multiple on-line groups. Taken together, these help me remain excited about my profession and provide me information that enhances my support to faculty and students. I find the administration of the program resources to be one of the most interesting aspects of my position. I enjoy planning my budget to support instructional priorities and I am thrilled when I locate free resources (including a new unabridged dictionary for our reference collection). As a school librarian, I have a specified budget and I must carefully manage funds. I quickly learned that available funds would not cover all needs. I prioritize based on county weeding guidelines and patron needs. I eagerly seek donations to supplement the collection and host a Scholastic Book Fair to bring in additional pleasure reading titles. I have presented our needs to our PTA and they have generously supported our reading incentive programs. I was awarded a Picturing America grant and intend to pursue others in the future. I know that I must husband my financial resources carefully and seek supplemental financial resources (either funding or in-kind) to make our library program successful. To manage spending I use a simple Excel spreadsheet (with lost book money tracked separately). We are have a limited number of volunteers. I regularly recruit and train 5th grade students to serve as library helpers (I use the Anne Arundel County page guidelines.) This core of students performs many of the library functions that my part time assistant and I cannot complete. I wrote a proposal to recruit additional adult volunteers and home to increase our volunteer pool in the future. The instructional element is critically important in the school library. In my library, I have established functional areas for reading, lessons, and computer use. The titles are arranged in zones based on the collection (with Everybody titles placed closest to the circulation station to facilitate student assistance.) This organization has not come easily. I regularly make visits to the county excess furniture warehouse seeking needed items. I also obtained excess shelving when other libraries were being renovated. Finally, each year I submit a request for needed items I could not obtain from other sources and our county Library Media Services supervisor has generously supported some of these requests. We are in an open space and I have a long-term plan of obtaining walls to enclose the library space, this is not currently within the county budget but I am investigating the purchase of panels as an acceptable solution.



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