1. So AloneFlying Solo! Coping strategies for the sole charge librarian.
The issues and challenges and
joys of being all alone in the
library
with added coping strategies

2. Who should be a school librarian?

3. At the Otago SLANZA AGM in June I asked,
what are the thrills and the challenges of
being a solo school librarian?
A little survey

4. You run the entire library
Variety in work
Pick and choose how to spend your day
Set the tone for your own workplace
The relationships with students
Working with younger students is a joy
Interaction with great learners
Spending the $$
Choosing and buying the resources
The thrills

5. Time to spend the $$
No lunch or tea breaks
Hard to liaise with staff
Lack of support from SMT
No non-contact
Interruptions
Damages (stuff gets broken)
Budget - lack thereof
Poor pay
Constant mess
Students lack of library skills
Naughty kids
The Challenges

6. I often get comments from new staff at our
school that they are surprised that I am with
their classes.
They say that usually in schools the staff are
in the office.
Or shelving!
What do the staff see?

8. We need some coping strategies I believe!

9. Please
Stop doing work that nobody values
Stop doing tasks just because you've always
done them
Make your work service focussed - be the
librarian your users need
I'm about to upset the purists

10. Claim back your time

11. AND GET YOUR SANITY
BACK!

12. Because the only way we are going to get
done what needs to be done is to prioritise.
Lets talk priorities

13. If you have little budget to spend - then you
have heaps of time to learn new skills.
If you have dropping usage of your library
then you are less busy so can develop new
programmes
If you don't have lots of teacher contact -
then you have lots of time to go and get
some!
Getting real

14. WORK WITH
TEACHERS
NOT FOR TEACHERS

15. Why would you do any of these:
Cataloguing magazines
Covering magazines
Individual subs to magazines
Covering non-fiction which will not be used
frequently
Pulling all the books to the front of the shelf
Putting dots all over the books
Having layers of restrictions
Covering adult fiction/crime
Things I think you can stop doing

16. Information files - ditch them now!
Clipping newspapers of any kind
Bookmarks in your browser - move on
people
Mending badly damaged books
Double handling of anything
Endless filing of paper - use google docs and
you'll always find your docs/masters/anything
Recording accession numbers
But wait there's more

17. Examine the whys
of what you do!

18. If you can't actually see students using something you
do then stop doing it.
If your students are ahead of you in ICT then ask them
about it and learn new tricks now
Stop putting pressure on yourself to keep up pointless
admin.
Commit to learning to use one new tool a month
Advice

19. What would they miss if you left for three
months?
Lets write these down
Starting point

20. What wouldn't they miss if you left for three
months?
Lets write these down
(remember they don't care if you don't do this
stuff)
Another starting point

21. Then do the other stuff.
Nobody knows all this secret library business
And they don't really want to know
Therefore stop doing it.
Do the stuff the people need first

23. Get involved
Be connected at school
Make powerful friends
Don't whine for no reason
Talk about what you do
Talk about why you do what you do
Get students talking
Show off your stuff in assemblies and
syndicate meetings
Above all get out of your office and look
busy.
Advocate for yourself as well as
your library

24. And mess up your
workspaces a bit

25. Diigo! Never have to search through a billion
bookmarks again.
Timesaving tool of awesome!

26. Best tool ever for choosing books
Best tool ever for gauging opinion on books
Best tool ever for connecting with other
readers
Best tool ever for recommending books
Best tool ever for family reading
Best tool ever
Just best tool ever if you are a reader.
IMNSHO!
Goodreads

27. I love these (and 100 more)
So many blogs of awesome but
The adventures of library girl@jenniferlagarde
WT

29. Slanza has made you a bundle of
good stuff

31. https://conversationprism.com/
diigo.com
http://librarylostfound.com/2013/07/02/i-dont-have-time/
www.slanza.org.nz
https://www.facebook.com/POLSites
www.librarygirl.net
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2013/7/4/school-
libraries-a-student-right.html
http://www.ala.
org/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/knowledgequest/archive/v40no2
http://lonewolflibrarian.wordpress.com/
http://extracurly.wordpress.com/
Resources and attributions not in
the main body of this presentation