The Lion is Back at Her Post

Hello everyone.

It was great to see a bunch of you at the Diocese meeting last Friday 11/13. oooooooo Friday the 13th and once again nothing of any weirdness happened. How Orange County.

I am back at the helm and am sorry I have neglected the blog for so long. I am hoping that some of you will jump in and add items to the blog. It is our blog - not mine. We are a collective brain and everyone has much to share.

The beginning of school this year has been a whirlwind. I have gotten through all my orientations and spent the entirety of my library budget for this term. As we speak, a fire seems to be brewing east of San Juan Capistrano back near Ortega Hwy. I hope that they get that under control quickly as the Santa Anas are in full and dry force today.

I went with all new EBSCO databases this year and so far, we just really like the products. I have cataloging to do now that all my print orders have arrived. I so love getting new materials on the shelf. I went a little non-fiction nuts this year focusing on required literature, but adding mostly non-fiction titles to the collection.

I want to mention the draft Model Library Standards which are under discussion by the California Department of Education. Now that the focus groups are over, the standards will be voted upon in March 2010. That will be such a major benefit to all California school librarians and libraries and we are all very excited about the new standards.

To view the standards, please visit:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/lb

On another note, CUE is looking for Library media educators who are interested in getting involved with their SIG. A phone conference will be held on Monday, November 23, 4:30-5:30pm, as a virtual town hall. Here is more information about that from Mike Lawrence, Executive Director of CUE:

Hello Library Media Educators SIG members!CUE will be holding a virtual "Town Hall" meeting on Monday November 23, from 4:30-5:30pm for Library Media Educators SIG members and regional leaders to generate interest in Library Media Educators SIG. We hope that this meeting will generate enthusiasm for the SIG and its activities. The meeting will be held via phone conference, and all attendees of these meetings will be entered into an opportunity drawing to WIN a CUE Gear bag including a CUE mug, hat, pin and luggage tag!

CALL AGENDA:
Mission and purposes of Library Media Educators SIG
SIG Benefits
Activities of CUE SIGs
New ideas anyone?
Potential leaders
Next Steps
CUE-SN Town Hall Meeting
Monday November 23, from 4:30-5:30pm
Call in #: 888.387.8686code: 1072305
Please RSVP to attend: http://tinyurl.com/cueth09

I hope that many of you will join us on the phone for this town hall discussion. I will be there no matter what. And that is the beginning of our Thanksgiving Break, no less.

Things I am working on for JSerra at present: my Technology Handbook. This book will include all things technological and provide the framework for faculty professional development workshops I will begin teaching in January. Thanks to my healthy PLN, I have learned so much about technology integration and want to share it with our faculty.

Curriculum committee meetings are my focus this year and being able to have a voice in information literacy instruction and integration into classroom curriculum here at JSerra.

I also still have some work to do on the library webpage. JSerra went to a new website this year and a lot of my former content got mudged together in a miscellaneous polyglot of information, so I am working with the designers to move things around. I have access to edit the code on a few of my webpages, so I can add video and other things in order to break up the massive amounts of stuff.

That is all I have to say about that - for now. Best wishes to all my librarian colleagues from the Lions Den.

Jeanne S.
JSerra Catholic High School