Hi! Any friend of LCA's is a friend of mine. ;) Let's see if I can be any help, shall we? Well, I haven't actually started working For Real yet, but I can tell you about my practicum experiences and school and stuff. And if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. :)
I don't know how much you know about library school, but here's a quick rundown: it's a 2 year program, though if you want to really cram it in you can do it in a year and a half. Personally, for sanity's sake, I recommend taking the full 2 years. :) The first year for me was largely general library stuff - studying things like reference work, management, ethics, research skills, collection development, etc. I was also required to take a general class on education and I had one elective. The second year I finished up those general requirements and in the first semester began preparing for the practicum - which is something SLMS students do in their last semester in my program, it's essentially student teaching. You spend 5 weeks at an elementary school and 5 weeks at a middle or high school, working with a mentor and doing library work and supervised teaching. This is, of course, specific to my program, so your mileage may vary. :)
In the elementary school, here's how things generally worked: there were a few classes a day, sometimes as many as 5 or 6, other days just a couple. The librarian works with each grade level, teaching library and information skills, sharing books with the students, and supporting the classroom teacher's curriculum by helping with class projects and providing materials and stuff like that. Kids check out books when they're there as well, so you're doing circulation duty as well - checking in, checking out, doing overdues, collecting fines when necessary, etc. Meanwhile, the LMS (library media specialist) is often also a go-to person for technology stuff, so you'll probably be providing support to teachers with how-do-I-make-this-print sorts of questions too. :) The LMS at my school was very involved in the school community and attended a lot of after/during school meetings and events, and that was fun, if time-consuming.
The pros? You're very involved, you get to know all the kids, and you get to do fun stuff like read books and dress up in silly outfits. ;) You teach kids about taking care of books, enjoying books, and all that good stuff - but you're also teaching information literacy and responsible, effective use of technology, and research. You work with everyone in the school, and that means you're often seen as essential and supportive by the teachers, which means that when it comes down to it, you have their support (as long as you play your cards right). There's really lots of pros, and I'm sure once I've done the job for a while I'll have a lot more to say about that.
Cons: It's a school job, and public school jobs aren't the most secure or best-paying ones in the world. Librarians, as essential as they really are to the school, are often considered unncessary when it comes down to budget cuts and all those sorts of grim realities. However, a good SLMS program will teach you how to support your job and make your indespensibility known, and hopefully you'll always be in a good position to defend your job and gain support from the school community. Also, as the librarian, you're often asked to do everything for everyone, because your role is partially to support the staff in terms of curriculum and stuff. Obviously, you want to be asked to help, and you should be involved with teachers whenever you can be, but time management is sometimes difficult, especially with certain kinds of scheduling and numbers of classes and stuff. I think in general, your major issues will amount to time and money. Again, I'll probably have more to say about this after I've actually been in charge of a library for a while. :)
Let me know if I can help you any more, and if you want my email it's sarah at corknut dot org. I'm currently in the process of getting ready to move (for the new job! :)) so I may be a bit slow to respond, but I will respond, I promise!
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 09:29 pm (UTC)I don't know how much you know about library school, but here's a quick rundown: it's a 2 year program, though if you want to really cram it in you can do it in a year and a half. Personally, for sanity's sake, I recommend taking the full 2 years. :) The first year for me was largely general library stuff - studying things like reference work, management, ethics, research skills, collection development, etc. I was also required to take a general class on education and I had one elective. The second year I finished up those general requirements and in the first semester began preparing for the practicum - which is something SLMS students do in their last semester in my program, it's essentially student teaching. You spend 5 weeks at an elementary school and 5 weeks at a middle or high school, working with a mentor and doing library work and supervised teaching. This is, of course, specific to my program, so your mileage may vary. :)
In the elementary school, here's how things generally worked: there were a few classes a day, sometimes as many as 5 or 6, other days just a couple. The librarian works with each grade level, teaching library and information skills, sharing books with the students, and supporting the classroom teacher's curriculum by helping with class projects and providing materials and stuff like that. Kids check out books when they're there as well, so you're doing circulation duty as well - checking in, checking out, doing overdues, collecting fines when necessary, etc. Meanwhile, the LMS (library media specialist) is often also a go-to person for technology stuff, so you'll probably be providing support to teachers with how-do-I-make-this-print sorts of questions too. :) The LMS at my school was very involved in the school community and attended a lot of after/during school meetings and events, and that was fun, if time-consuming.
The pros? You're very involved, you get to know all the kids, and you get to do fun stuff like read books and dress up in silly outfits. ;) You teach kids about taking care of books, enjoying books, and all that good stuff - but you're also teaching information literacy and responsible, effective use of technology, and research. You work with everyone in the school, and that means you're often seen as essential and supportive by the teachers, which means that when it comes down to it, you have their support (as long as you play your cards right). There's really lots of pros, and I'm sure once I've done the job for a while I'll have a lot more to say about that.
Cons: It's a school job, and public school jobs aren't the most secure or best-paying ones in the world. Librarians, as essential as they really are to the school, are often considered unncessary when it comes down to budget cuts and all those sorts of grim realities. However, a good SLMS program will teach you how to support your job and make your indespensibility known, and hopefully you'll always be in a good position to defend your job and gain support from the school community. Also, as the librarian, you're often asked to do everything for everyone, because your role is partially to support the staff in terms of curriculum and stuff. Obviously, you want to be asked to help, and you should be involved with teachers whenever you can be, but time management is sometimes difficult, especially with certain kinds of scheduling and numbers of classes and stuff. I think in general, your major issues will amount to time and money. Again, I'll probably have more to say about this after I've actually been in charge of a library for a while. :)
Let me know if I can help you any more, and if you want my email it's sarah at corknut dot org. I'm currently in the process of getting ready to move (for the new job! :)) so I may be a bit slow to respond, but I will respond, I promise!
Yay for budding librarians, also. :)