Today's Member of the Week is Philomina Roberts. Philomina works at Cactus Valley Elementary in Silt, CO. She has been a school librarian for 1 year.
We asked Philomina some questions about her experience as a school librarian and we would like to share them with you.
What's your favorite thing about your job as a school librarian?
I love read aloud time with the students. I try to keep them interested by using different voices for each character in a story. Even my 4th graders still enjoy being read to!
Name one children's book that you couldn't live without in your library.
So many great books! I enjoyed reading "Library Lion" by Michelle Knudsen the most so far.
Tell us why you decided to join the Elementary Librarian Community. What's your favorite thing about it?
As this is my first year as a librarian, I needed some guidance in what I should be focusing on with lesson plans. I found this website, and I've been very happy with it so far. I really like how the lesson plans include Common Core Standards and AASL Standards, because I can share these plans with my principal and show that these lessons are well suited to corroborate the curriculum that our teachers use.
What's the biggest challenge you're currently facing when it comes to your school library?
If you could give one piece of advice to a brand new school librarian (or someone considering becoming a school librarian), what would it be?
Talk to your fellow librarians in your school district, or even the librarians at the local public libraries. Ask lots of questions and find out what works and what doesn't work for them, so that you can have an idea of what may or may not work for you and your students in your library. And don't be afraid to try something new! If it doesn't work, you can always go back to the way it was before.
Ordering books has been a challenge. I find I'm having a hard time making sure that there is a balance for the number of books I'm ordering by grade level. Weeding has also been a challenge, because we have quite a few books that are 30+ years old in our library. Some are still in good shape, but they're informationally outdated. While others have been "well loved," and need to be replaced. And then there are the few that no one has checked out for several years that just need to be let go.