Resources and Financial Management

We had one day of school this week. The roads in our district have been pretty rough. Our school district is the largest in area compared to other districts in our county or surrounding counties.

On Monday, I helped my librarian to make a final decision on sending four books back to the vendor. After viewing these books carefully, we didn't think they would get much use and they cost $25 a piece. (AASL 4.1) The hardest part about this decision was determining whether or not the $100 was worth the hassle of packaging, mailing, and dealing with the purchase order. I convinced my librarian that we could really use the money for four or more other books from the same company and made the call to our board office to determine how to handle the purchase order. (AASL 4.2) We will have a credit with the company that I will use when the credit gets issued. We asked the treasurer's assistant to keep the P.O. open so we could reorder soon. I felt good about this decision because I really don't think those books would have gotten any looks from our students based on the types of books they normally use for research. Also it wasn't that much of the hassle. The hardest part was the two of us coming to a decision about the matter.

My librarian has been allowing me to follow the purchase order process closely when we have placed two book orders. It is good for me to see the way she keeps her p.o.s organized and how she makes notes as to what has been received and what has been "okd to pay". (AASL 4.2) I make copies of everything, include the proper secretary since we have two different schools, and send originals to the board office. I think I will make more use of spreadsheets when I become a librarian. I am comfortable with Excel and think this will help me follow my budget and allocated amounts for certain expenses. I really appreciate the time my librarian has given to explain these procedures and how her budget and requisitions work. There are a lot of things that you need to be careful of. If you overspend on a purchase order, you end up paying yourself. And if you have a book fair, you have to put in a requistion for that at the beginning of the year or whenever the deadline is. (AASL 4.2)

These are the kind of details that most people don't even consider when thinking about the position of a teacher librarian. The people who don't give it a lot of thought just believe that the books are there, none are added, none are taken away; and all you do is check them out, check them in, and put them away. Sounds pretty easy to me. But in reality the job is so much more. I tried to explain why I am going to school for this position to a student last week and I couldn't even think of all the jobs a librarian does; meaning that I told her a few and thought of the rest later. She was impressed with the few that I told her which mainly involved collection development and staying abreast of changes that affect teaching in the library.

So................during my snow days at home, I worked on a lesson for teaching Freshman how to evaluate websites. I believe I am teaching it in three days. I will go into detail when I actually have finished teaching the lesson.