SOS for New LMS Stony Evans, Hot Springs High First Year LMS 14 Year Educator & Rachel Shankles, Lakeside High 20 year LMS 39 Year Educator

Rachel’s Do list for New LMS Take one or two professional journals and read them and tear out pages Join Professional Organizations like AAIM, AASL, ArkLibAssoc and attend as many conferences as they will let you including HSTI in June Visit other libraries Post to the AAIM list when you need help Find some good wikis and websites to use

Stony’s To Do List Find some Patience – Getting Started seems daunting but remember to set long term goals and be patient – you can not slay the library dragon in one year Find out who holds the purse strings in your school - Money and Purse-strings go together Engage the staff - with email announcements, let them have input, provide some inservice, and allow them to evaluate the LMC at end of year Engage students - Open those doors and show them the New Books & New Look, do programming, have contests and events Use student workers for help and input

More Things to Do Advertise what you do in the paper Make a short newsletter of your monthly activities for staff and send it to the ‘powers that be” in the central office Write grants or raise money to decorate and have contests The first thing you need is a digital camera – keep photos of all your activities and bulletin boards and displays all year to put into a PhotoStory to use in your evaluation conference Find out about free programming ideas Check out Rachel’s wiki just for librarians with all sorts of event, contest, decorating, and framework ideas—and PPts to teach students and faculty HTTP://AAIMLIBRARYWIKI.wikispaces.com

Don’t Overlook how much you will depend on the janitor Overlook using parents as volunteers Forget WalMart as a donor – write one or two donation letters per year for like $60 each Forget to invite the Superintendent to your events Never do duty outside the library or close it while you go to duty – against the law Go without lunch b/c you try to keep library open; eat early or late or have a rotating duty person for library Never stress out over overdues since you really do want the books to circulate – but get the asst. principal to back up your pleas

Things Stony has learned: Mentors are wonderful Find a few by visiting other local libraries See if you can form an area library consortium of some kind that will meet and exchange ideas Bounce your ideas off of someone else and get input from other school librarians on how to manage what you have come up with Check out our WeDewey Wiki at Http://wedewey.wikispaces.com/

Things that worked well: Music in the library during Black History Month (March is Music in the Schools Month also) Inviting the Superintendent to read aloud during Black History Month and then she bought new flooring after seeing the condition of the carpet Offering to teach Internet research techniques to classes (credibility & collaboration) Newspaper article/ picture submissions

The best thing I tried: Multimedia presentations to the entire school during lunch (new books, top ten books, and book- movie trailers) Asking for input from students and teachers

Rachel’s best advice to you: Get active in AAIM and meet librarians you can email and call to ask questions Email me anytime and I will point you in the right direction Stony’s best advice to you: Be patient and realize it cannot happen all in one year. Create a 3-5 year plan. Create a “support” network of those you can call on for advice/ AAIM listserv Email me anytime and I will share what I know with you ( or point you to those that do)

Contact Info Rachel Shankles Lakeside High School, 2871 Malvern Ave., Hot Springs, AR 71901 PH 501-262-1530 Email Rachel_Shankles@LS1.dsc.k12.ar.us or Shankles@cablelynx.com Stony Evans Hot Springs High School, 701 Emory St., Hot Springs, AR 71913 PH 501-624-5286 evanss@hssd.net or evanss@catc.net