Librarians have it easy. I want your job. All you have to do is sit around and read books all day. It’s not like you really have to do anything in here…

It’s the stigma of the school librarian — that it’s the cushy job and that librarians really don’t do much. I think maybe the stigma is magnified in elementary schools, so correct me if I’m wrong. I know I work my butt off, I’m constantly trying to improve, I’m always willing to do what it takes. I push myself, stress myself out, make myself sick, try to do too much. I try so hard to detach myself from the stigma and prove my worth. I know all of the things I do, how hard I work, how far I go above and beyond. I’m good at what I do, like really freakin’ good. Because it’s my life and it’s what makes me happy. But every now and then (okay, more often than I’d like to admit) someone throws a little comment my way and it deflates me like a balloon.

You mean we aren’t having library ancillary this week? (We’re having the Book Fair, so no.)

Forget the fact that I nearly killed myself last week trying to get everyone’s library books traded in anticipation of Book Fair.

I just feel like it’s never enough. I try so hard to do my job, do it well, and make the teachers’ lives easier. Maybe I’m just being whiney and needy. I know I need to learn to just brush it off and get over it. But I’m not there yet and just needed to vent.

If you’ve overcome this type of frustration and have seen the light, please share your wisdom with me…

So I wanted to write this beautiful, elaborate post about Banned Books Week (which is this week, YAY!), talk about #SpeakLoudly, share about the challenged books I’ve been reading, and RAVE about StorySnoops and the awesome interview they did of your favorite Mighty Little Librarian. Life has been getting in the way, though, and I’ve been busy with the duties of a bridesmaid all weekend. Look for the post described above later this week. In the meantime, go read my incredibly fabulous interview with the Snoops!

Banned book week is coming up…Holla!

I love to read banned books to see what all the fuss is about. Then I get worked up, because I know that 99 times out of 100, the person trying to ban the book did not read it in its entirety. I read about this challenge and really want to participate. Grad school is kicking my butt once again, but I’ve decided that this is something I really want to do, even if I can’t commit to reading very many books.

Head on over to Steph Su Reads to find out more about the Ban This! Challenge. I’m committing to read 3 banned/challenged books. I found a really great list of banned/challenged book by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. I’m lovin’ this list because it tells about the challenge or banning related to each book on the list. So I found a few books that sound intriguing and plan to pick them up at the public library this morning. Also, I recently read and wrote about Forever and The Golden Compass here. Those are both books that have gotten some people all riled up.

And of course, I can’t have a post about banned books without throwing in a shameless self-promotion about my upcoming interview with the UH-MAZING Story Snoops. I’ve been raving about this fabulous site, and apparently they love me back because they wanted to interview me for a blog series they’re doing for banned book week. They’re also featuring Judy Blume and Meg Cabot. So yeah, saying that I’m PUMPED is the understatement of the millennium. You’ll hear about this again (and again and again), you can bet on that!

So what’s your favorite banned/challenged book? I really want to know 🙂  If I haven’t read it, I’ll have to put it on my list!

So Monday was the first day that I was able to get back into the library! I haven’t been able to go in the building since the last day of school. The new roof, new AC and new ceiling/lighting are in and fabulous. Here’s what I walked into at about 12:30 on Monday:

I let myself hyperventilate for a few minutes. Then my mom arrived and started cracking the whip. Honestly, I would be pretty much useless without my mom. She had a crew of our friends come in to help and we were able to get so much accomplished on that first day. All of the library books were outside in the hall:

My AMAZING Scholastic Book Fairs rep hooked me up and let me borrow some cases for moving out and storing books over the summer. This really was a life-saver. I cannot imagine how things would have gone if we hadn’t been able to use these cases. We got down to business and got everything unloaded from the cases in about 4 or 5 hours! By the time we left the library at about 6:30, this was the way things looked:

Pretty amazing, right?? We got everything else moved back in yesterday. Everything is put away except for the STUFF with problems that I have to deal with in one way or another. And I haven’t touched my desk yet. I’m very happy with what’s been accomplished and it wouldn’t have happened without my amazing volunteers!

I think we might actually be ready for the start of school next Wednesday…wow!

My hubby and I just got home (about 10 minutes ago) from a trip to North Carolina to visit his sister and her family. I got to love on my beautiful nieces and enjoy the amazing scenery of NC.

I couldn’t resist sharing a picture of myself with these two little cuties!

So the beautiful 4 year old is very inquisitive and quite brilliant (I’m completely unbiased, of course). She saw me snapping some pictures with my iPhone and she wanted to give it a shot. She caught on immediately and proceeded to take about 100 pictures. Then she wanted to know what else the phone could do, so I showed her how to navigate it and showed her how to find the few games I have. She was completely hooked and played on it until the battery ran down. That night, I sent out a tweet asking for game suggestions for kids. I got some great responses (how did I function before my PLN and Twitter??) and downloaded several. Being the fun aunt, I was able to spoil her and let her have lots of Fruit Ninja game time. And I was completely and utterly amazed at the speed with which she picked up on mastering iPhone use. The love that she quickly formed for the iPhone really got me thinking…

I completely believe in finding a healthy balance with technology and your life. Do I actually put this into practice? Not really. Technology is one of my passions and I let it have more than its fair share of my waking hours. However, I (usually) know when to stop, unplug, and spend time with loved ones and doing non-techie things that I love. All in all, it’s my responsibility as an adult to be a good steward of my time and manage my technology usage accordingly. I’m not a parent, so at this point in my life I have influence with my students and their tech usage but I am not wholly responsible for a child. Just a few days ago on the plane ride to NC, I was behind parents who brought their two children on a flight with no form of entertainment. My immediate thought was, “If I have a child, we will have an iPad for times such as this.” It’s so much fun to see what kids can do with technology, so how could giving them an iPad NOT be a good thing? After seeing how absorbed my niece became with the iPhone, though, I’m having to think about this in a different way.

First, how do we help our own kids (or help other parents help their own kids) learn to be balanced in the amount of tech time they have? We all know kids who are obsessed with/addicted to video games, the internet, texting, etc. Everything else in life becomes secondary. Obviously, allotting certain amounts of time for tech use and time for non-tech activities is a must. But how do you get them to see the importance of unplugging and enjoying other activities?

Second, how do we as educators teach technology within a context of balance? Is it one of our responsibilities? Is it something we can/should realistically incorporate into our lessons and activities?

This is something that I really haven’t given much thought to before, but I can see it becoming a major issue as time goes on and technology imbeds itself into our lives even more. So what are your thoughts on this? Please share!

AND tomorrow I should be able to get back into my library after nearly 3 months of renovations. If you have any shelf elves or magic library dust, please overnight that to me — I’ll need all the help I can get with a week to move back into the library before school starts!

I’m working on a project for this school year that I’m so excited about. This is one of the first steps in trying to get my district to open up some resources that are currently blocked. I’m looking for a second grade and a third grade teacher to partner with one of my teachers for the year. These teachers will have their students post about class activities and things they are learning on a blog several times a week. They will be able to read the blog of their partner class to make comparisons and connections. The classes will also have a Skype session once a month so the two classes can have a video conference discussion.

My school is located in Louisiana, and I’d like to find partner classes in northern US states or Canada. If you are interested or know someone who would be please contact me by leaving a comment with your info or emailing me at librariantiff at gmail dot com.

My first post on my new site! How exciting is this?! So I figure it’s going to take some time for me to get settled in over here. I’m trying to figure out things on my own with as little help from my web designing professional of a husband as possible. It’s going to be a work in progress for a while!

In case you’re wondering where the name “Mighty Little Librarian” came from, here’s the scoop. I’ve been wanting to “brand” myself like the cool librarians are doing. My plan was to be The Lively Librarian, but that domain in all possible forms is taken. So I went back to the drawing board. I posted on Facebook for some assistance from the people who know me best. My best friend from college, who I talk to several times a week as we share about our separate school happenings, has been calling me Mighty Mouse for quite some time. She knows how I am — when I get something in my head, I’m fighting for it and I can be fierce! I don’t look intimidating (when asked for a word to describe me for my blog, my friend’s husband said “skinny”), but I can hold my own.  There was a general Facebook consensus that “Mighty Little Librarian” was a fitting name, so I went with it!

I’m off to play around with making this little spot on the web my cozy new home. I love WordPress, by the way. It’s not nearly as intimidating as I thought. Plus I found some great videos on YouTube to help me get started. How did people figure out how to do anything before the Internet and YouTube?

I’ve imported my old posts from my old Library Ramblings site. I’m going to go through and re-organize my old posts soon, but I think things are looking pretty good so far!

My assistant principal rocks. He’s pushing our school to move forward technology wise, which I love. And he sends me great articles to read! He sent me an article today about the ways that libraries have to change to keep up with our world: Things That Keep Us Up at Night.

I read articles like this one, and get excited and anxious all at once. I’m excited about helping to move my school to a place where our students are learning what they need in an incredibly relevant way. Finding the path to get there is what freaks me out. There’s so much out there, so much that I want to do, so many ideas and programs that I want to incorporate. I get all pumped up with these ideas, then reality sets in because all I have time to do is shelve books and see my fixed schedule classes. For me, the hard part isn’t the fear of the uncertain future. It’s the frustration that I can’t just get there right now. I know that the reality is that it will take an infinite number of small steps (and some leaps thrown in at some point, I’m sure) to get there. And we’ll never actually “get there” because the envelope is always being pushed farther at a rate faster than we can keep up with. Phew, that’s all my brain can handle of that for today!

And as a side note – I’ve signed up for the Take One! program to help prepare myself for working toward my National Board Certification. I think that working toward earning my Certification is really going to push me professionally. I’m very excited (and a little scared, too).