This week at the library; or, Getting ready for April

Monday Thanks to Daylight Savings and a rainy, rainy day, we had a pretty slow morning and I was able to get through a lot of collection development and other misc. things. Then I tackled the begging letters for summer reading prizes (the only thing I hate more than doing this is the follow-up calls. Sometimes my director has to give me chocolate afterwards) and April publicity, of which there is going to be a lot due to the many things going on. Didn't get everything done, but a large chunk of it.

Tuesday Hot. I love our huge windows in the children's area, but they do heat up the place like a sauna. Why did I wear my hair down? And, of course, I left my extra pins at home. Had a lengthy discussion with Miss Pattie about various issues we're dealing with in storytime. Met with a woman who is one of the volunteers running the library at the special education school - we spent a couple hours putting together a list of graphic novels for teens, discussing review sources, recommended publishers, etc. and then talking about working with special needs children in the library. Only got a little more done on April publicity.

Wednesday Only about 30 people for storytime, I'm guessing a lot of people were out enjoying the sunshine (or on spring break - I get a lot of people from neighboring towns at my storytime and everyone has a different spring break). Then I had our monthly visit from the primary class at the special needs school. They had to leave sooner than usual, so we only had 15 minutes. We...

• sang Elizabeth Mitchell's Sunny Day
• read Press Here by Herve Tullet (huge hit, as always)
• read The Easter Bunny's Assistant by Jan Thomas (not sure they quite got it, but they liked saying "stinky!"
• read I'm a shark by Bob Shea (they didn't really get this one and it was a little too wild for them)
• read Listen to my trumpet by Mo Willems (one kid was upset by the noise, but the others loved making trumpet sounds!

Then I did Messy Art Club. We made flip books, which I adapted from Abby the Librarian. We had a pretty normal group - about 30 - but it was a quick craft and most people only stayed for a little while, so we were done by about 4:45. Which was good, because a large number of sparkles had ended up on the floor. By the time I gave up trying to clean them up (sweeping, vacuuming, and picking them up one by one by hand were all employed) wrote up some notes and left, it was about 5:45. Loooong day. Apparently I'm not the only person who was hot - found someone's cut off jean legs in the children's area.

Thursday The pile on the desk was tackled, amongst other things. Overheard in the lobby "I'm NOT short, I'm fun-size!" Kept me giggling all night.


Friday Met with our adult services librarian to discuss the desk schedule. We are implementing a new information desk. I think we came up with something that everyone will be happy with. Realized that our manga collections are insanely out of control and put together a complex excel spreadsheet to control them. I ruthlessly implemented by new manga policy - we are only collecting THE FIRST FIVE VOLUMES of any series. I'll make an exception if it finishes at 6 or is really, really popular, but this is what I ended up with:

• 12 series we're currently adding to, or that I'll get sometime this year
• Bride's story (just ordered vol. 3)
• Cirque du freak (I think it might be finished at vol. 12, which I just ordered?)
• Dawn of the Arcana (We have vol. 1 and I will get 2-5)
• Fushigi Yugi, the mysterious play (this is a mess. I accidentally ordered the wrong omnibus, then somebody lost some but they did pay for it...I am trying to get numbers 1-5 and then we will also have 13-15 in the omnibus)
• Kamichama Karin Chu (promised a patron I'd get these - I will get all 6. We have 1 right now)
• Maximum Ride (was 5 the last? I have up to 5)
• Psyren (just ordered vol. 1, will order 2-5 later)
• Rosario+Vampire Season II (put the upcoming volumes in the appropriate order lists)
• Shugo Chara! (have 1, will get 2-5
• Tokyo Mew Mew (have the first two omnibuses, will get one more omnibus)
• Twin Spica (ordered 1, will get 2-5)
• Wallflower (I somehow missed that this was an endless series. I bought vol. 1, will get 2-5)
• 7 series with gaps, but I will fill them in as the budget allows
• Dragon Ball (have 1-9, will try to finish this as it has bursts of popularity and parents get annoyed that we don't have them all)
• Fairy Tale (bought the first 2, plan to get 3-5)
• Inu Yasha (we have 4-6, 9-11, 13-16 and 22. I am just going to try to get 1-3)
• Monkey High (someone stole vol. 1, otherwise we'd have all 8)
• Oh my goddess! (we have 1, 5-10, and 12. I want to get 2-4)
• Sailor Moon (I bought 1-2 and I want to get 3-5)
• Star Wars Legacy (somebody took some! so now I have 1, 3-5, 7-8, and 10
• New series I'm thinking about (will not collect more than the first five!)
• blue exorcist
• devil and her love song
• early and the fairy
• natsume's book of friends
• negima!
• puella magi madoka magica
• sakura hime
• saturn apartments
• shugo chara chan
• And everything else we have, which I am not doing anything else with, although donations are always welcome...
• aria 1-6 
• black cat 1-6 
• bleach 1-5, 10-11, 25 
• boys over flowers 30-33 
• crescent moon 6 
• dragon hunter 1-5 
• dragon eye 1-8 
• fruits basket 1-12, 15, 17-21 
• fullmetal alchemist 1-19 
• high school debut 5 
• kiss for my prince 1-2 
• love.com 1-10 
• Mamotte! Lollipop 1-7 
• Millennium Snow 1-2 
• Naruto 12 
• Nightschool 1-4 
• One 1-3 
• Panic X Panic 1-2 
• Papillion 1-6 
• Peach Girl, Sae's Story 1-3 
• Rebound 15 
• Redmoon 1-4 
• Rosario+Vampire 1-10 
• Runaways 1-10 
• St. Dragon Girl 1-8 
• Story of Saiunkoku 1-5 
• Tokyo Mew Mew a la mode 1 
• Toto! 1-5 
• Vampire Knight 1-13 
• Vampire Game 1 
• Yu-gi-oh 7