Library Life in the Middle

my current library work-reading hyperfocus

Hello supporters! This is one of those quick “pop in” newsletters in which I share something I just couldn’t wait to tell you ~ and it’s almost AWARDS TIME!!! Settle in and enjoy!

I imagine that it’s easy for readers of this newsletter to forget that I spend my days in a middle school library, immersed in tweens and teens and public education. I really don’t write about this area of my life a lot, and that is by careful design.

I live in my library from 7:15 - 3:15 every day, absolutely immersed in all of the tasks and demands in a school like mine. I am solo in my library and am running all day long. I teach library classes, run open check-out and tech help all day, collaborate with teachers and other librarians, deal with behavior issues, manage and curate my collection, check-in books, shelve books, over and over and over. I am in the thick of curriculum planning for AI in the classroom and assisting with the roll-out of our district’s implementation of MagicSchool and just did a week of lessons about the custom book rec chatbot I designed for my library. I plot and plan on how to increase both student and adult reading engagement in my building, assist with problem-solving about scheduling and curriculum in all areas, and of course, witness and attempt to adapt to the roller coaster emotions of tweens and teens all. day. long.

This position is all-consuming and I LOVE it.

When I leave school, if I don’t have a meeting, I often switch hats over to my library consulting role for another district, or virtual meetings for the state-national library association liaison position I hold, or perhaps to the statewide digital library advisory committee I am on right now. Maybe gulp down a book I am reviewing for a major library journal.

I AM a librarian, I LIVE libraries, but in this newsletter space, I often want to be everything else. Does that make sense?

I used to write extensively about librarianship, write kid lit book reviews on my old blog and social media, and try to be “prominent” in the field online. I grew so very weary of that, and it bled toward weariness about the job itself. That, my friends, is why I rarely write about the library. I can be a librarian, and also be an avid reader who reads just for the pleasure of it all.

But with ALL OF THAT, I still have some professional goals and achievements that combine my love of reading and writing ~ one of those is what I just had to tell you about today!

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