Before I became an elementary school resource room aide in my first official year in the Clark County School District, and then finally an elementary school library aide this year, I was a substitute library aide, among other jobs with the "substitute" tag within the school district.
One of the highlights of that year was running the library at Rowe Elementary in Las Vegas because the school didn't have room in the budget for a librarian that year. The week before I took over for the regular library aide, who was going to Hawaii on a yoga retreat, I shadowed her for a day (a lot of moving parts in that job). I liked her, I was impressed with how she stayed organized what with all there was to do in a given day, but it didn't seem like she was truly invested in the job. It was just a job. The yoga mattered more. And that was fine. But I've loved libraries and have been haunting them since I was two years old. I wanted to do more.
Now, for this particular position, I didn't have the skill when I went to shadow her for that one day. I saw the difficulties in the job, and adjusted as necessary when it was my turn and by midweek, I had the hang of it, including checking in books and checking out books in a swift amount of time as each class to come to the library was there. But it gelled a month later when I filled in for her for two more days.
During that time, the students were having what's called CRT testing, and it interrupts the time set out for electives. So many teachers, knowing of my willingness to do whatever I could for them during that one week, called me, asking if they could take their students to the library, despite it not being their time for it. I readily agreed, and took in eight classes nearly in a row, one in, one out, one in, and so on. The impression I got with how delighted the teachers were for their students to have this unscheduled time is that the usual library aide didn't invest herself in the literary health of the school as much as I did. Sure she had the same amount of skill as I was using during those days, but less skill in at least being interested enough in the job to see that the students are able to get the books they want. (Since that time, the school put in a librarian, who remains to this day.)
Also as a substitute library aide, I worked with librarians who had skills I could only dream of. There was the librarian at Paradise Elementary, located on the campus of the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), who had such zeal for being part of the community and talked about her experiences in bringing people from the community, such as soccer players, into the library to talk to the kids. She had that library set up so well, so roomy, with revolving racks for paperbacks, and a section for comic books next to the end of the fiction section. To her, it mattered that kids were reading, and that there should be enough options for them to explore whatever they'd like.
Then there was the librarian at Dean Petersen Elementary who I had an immediate rapport with, who was firm, but easygoing with the kids. And the librarian at Sunrise Acres Elementary, who retired at the end of last school year, who was exasperated with some of the classes sometimes, but never took it out on the kids. She told them to be quieter or whatever was necessary, but never got visibly angry at them. I admire that.
As a new elementary school library aide, I draw from all of them because they had more skills than me in what they did every day, and it's a different experience doing it every day. I love it, mind you, but working with them, I was reminded that you have to be prepared for anything every day. Today, for example, I rearranged the cart on which there are books for the kindergartners and first graders, with white and yellow stickers, as part of the Accelerated Reader program. My librarian, whose retirement I look forward to, didn't notice for four months that I had the books arranged so that it was nonfiction first, by Dewey Decimal number, and then the picture books, arranged in alphabetical order by author's last name, as it is on the labels on the side, for each shelf. Dewey Decimal to "Z" on each shelf of that cart. Never mind that she didn't tell me how she wanted them arranged in the first place.
So this morning, I rearranged the entire cart to wrap around from one end to the other on the other side, from nonfiction first to "Y" in picture books. If she doesn't like it this second time, she can rearrange it herself. I want to finally concentrate on alphabetizing the picture books properly, which are a mess in some sections, such as all the Cynthia Rylant books utterly disorganized, and discombobulated authors in the "S" section.
Tomorrow morning, I have to cut more bookmarks for the students, who get them after they check out books, choosing one if they checked out one book, two if they checked out two, and three if they checked out three. I made more than enough when I first did the January and winter-themed ones, so all I have to do is use the cutter, and possibly make more of the winter-themed coloring ones with the machine we have that's able to make copies on construction paper.
In these things, I remember those librarians I respect. I seek to emulate them in their organization, their ability to juggle these different tasks seemingly with ease. I have their passion, but I also remember the ways in which they expressed their passion for librarians, the students they helped, the books they discussed, the activities they had for the students to do that were firmly in the realm of the library, designed to give them more of the library. I don't want to be a librarian (I want to write more books and keep on going with my book reviews), but I want to do as well as these librarians have. I'm not intimidated by what they have achieved. I'm proud to have worked with them and to have learned from them.