Breakfast on the balcony overlooking the ocean, long walks on the beach, time to watch the gulls flock along the coast and dive into the ocean, and a chance to relax and enjoy the lack of cell phones, emails, and the stresses of everyday life. The sun was brilliant and the temperature (mid-60s) encouraged outdoor activities. 

 

Myrtle Beach was filled with revelers who welcomed the new year with shouts and fireworks displays up and down the coast. For some hardy individuals, even small children, the new year meant a swim in the Atlantic as a brisk and challenging start of 2008. I’m not that hardy (or maybe it’s foolhardy!) but I admired those brave souls who did it.

The early morning beach was full of people walking along, watching the birds, collecting shells, and just enjoying the day. By lunchtime, the crowds had dissipated as people left for home and a return to the real world. We were left to enjoy a nearly deserted beach and a hotel with plenty of empty parking spaces.

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions but with the dawn of the new year I’ve been thinking about how we can affect our customers’ perception of our library media centers and the services we provide. On a recent trip to the book store, I found Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service (4^th edition, Performance Research Associates). Although aimed at corporate and business customer service providers, this book has many suggestions and recommendations that can be used by school librarians. This statement from the introduction (with a few of my own editorial additions) gets to the heart of the matter: “What you do is important. What you do is work—hard work. Answering questions. Solving problems. Untangling…log jams. Fixing what’s broken and finding what’s lost. Soothing the irate and reassuring the timid. Matching people with whom you do business [students, teachers, administrators, parents] with just the right products [books, web sites, and other instructional materials] and services [book recommendations, collaborative planning, research assistance, material check-out], and helping them enjoy and get the most out of those purchases [books, web site, and other instructional materials].” The book is entertaining and a quick read but be careful. If you read too fast, you’re likely to miss some of the suggestions or recommendations.

  

OK, Cathy, you’ve tagged me; so here are 7 random things about me (even though I really don’t like to talk or write about me personally!).

1. I design and create counted cross-stitch projects, usually giving the completed projects away as gifts. I’ve had several designs published in national cross-stitch publications. The only problem is I have too many ideas and way too little time to complete the design and project. Guess I’ll add that to my list of things to do whenever I retire!

2. Besides doing all sorts of crafts I especially enjoy creating floral arrangements. All my holiday arrangements are original creations. When my oldest daughter married I created the altar flower arrangement. When the florist delivered the greenery, bouquets, and boutonnières, I had already placed the altar arrangement. He examined it thoroughly and then asked who I had hired to create that arrangement. When I told him I’d had done it, he offered me a job!

3. My music taste and collection is very eclectic, everything from grand opera to big band to country music, but I’ve never developed a taste for jazz.

4. I don’t like to listen to books-on-tape. Being a very visual learner I’ve never enjoyed having someone read to me. I much prefer having the book in front of me and reading it myself.

5.  I often daydream about what I’d do if I won the lottery. I’d be very generous and share with my children, church, and other organizations. There’s just one thing standing between me and that jackpot…you have to buy a ticket in order to win!

6.  My most favorite place to be is sitting facing the ocean. It doesn’t matter what time of year, blistering July sun or the frigid winter of December and January. Now that’s something else I’d do if I ever won the lottery…buy an oceanfront condo, quit my job, and become a beach bum! H-m-m-m-m, maybe I’ll just go buy a ticket before I finish this post!

7.  Reading is one of my most favorite past times. I read a lot of different genres but what I like best are crime/mystery novels. My favorite authors are Patricia Cornwell, Alex Kava, Mary Higgins Clark, Kathryn Wall (she lives at Hilton Head!), T. Lynn Ocean (she lives in Little River!), Kathy Reichs, and Janet Evanovich (her Stephanie Plum series). Incidentally, watch for my interviews with Wall and Ocean in my new video series, A Literary Tour of South Carolina, which is set to be broadcast to all South Carolina schools during the 2008-2009 school year.

Here are the rules:
- Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
- Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
- Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
- Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

     In the December issue of The Media Center Messenger, my article was about an experience my grandchildren and I had at a public library. The point of sharing that experience was not to cast aspersions on the public library branch or the library system as a whole. I shared that experience to highlight the importance of being mindful of customer service in all our libraries. Several people who read that article felt as if I were publicly attacking that library and they took exception to my article. For that I am truly sorry and deeply regret that I wrote the article in such a way that the readers misconstrued the purpose of the article. Obviously the article was not as well-written as I thought or as I had hoped.

     My grandchildren and I have visited that particular library branch and others in that library system and the children were treated with kindness, respect, and enthusiasm. Both girls love visiting the library. For the five-year old, a school field trip to the public library is one of her favorite outings.

     It was never my intention in that article to draw attention to any one library nor was it to vilify a particular library or the people who work there. In sharing that experience I sought to highlight the universal problem of lapses in customer service. We have all experienced such lapses, perhaps at the grocery store, at a doctor’s office, at a library, at a school. I have often written about the need to be mindful of the public face we present when patrons—students, teachers, parents, community members—visit our school library. How children are treated in any library situation colors their perception about libraries in general and will oftentimes affect how they view and/or use libraries when they become adults. Unfortunately, many library media specialists are working for administrators who do not understand or appreciate the importance of a school library, which, in many instances, may come from negative experiences in libraries during their growing-up years.

     At this point I can only say mea culpa, mea culpa, or in today’s vernacular, “my bad.” I have written a letter of apology to the director of the library system. I hope that this one instance will not color the many accomplishments made during the last ten years on behalf of school libraries in South Carolina or negatively affect any future initiative undertaken to advance our school libraries.

For the past year I have been working on a video project in partnership with South Carolina ETV called A Literary Tour of South Carolina, based on the South Carolina Literary Map created by the South Carolina Center for the Book. To be included in our series an author must be from South Carolina or have significant ties to South Carolina. The authors we’ve contact about our series have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic about participating. We’ll finish the interviews with this season’s authors this month and then we’ll begin the editing process. We plan to have the series ready for broadcast to South Carolina public schools for the 2008-2009 school year.

Our vision for A Literary Tour of South Carolina was to create a master teacher series for  use in the classroom as part of teaching the writing process. How wonderful will it be for students to hear about the writing process and get tips and suggestions from such authors as Dorothea Benton Frank, Sue Monk Kidd, Mary Alice Monroe, Joyce Hansen, Dorie Sanders, William Price Fox, and Jack Bass, just to mention of the few of the authors in our series? To hear these authors talk about their craft of writing is priceless and will make a terrific addition to the classroom curriculum for teaching writing.

Today we visited Rock Hill to talk with a newly published author (her book will be out March 8), Misty Massey. What a delightful time we had and what a wonderful interview she gave us. Since our series is primarily for public school students, especially those in middle and high school, I was thrilled to have Misty a part of our series. She currently works as a paraprofessional in a middle school library; her comments, advice, and suggestions were right on for our target audience. Misty certainly added a new dimension to our series which includes many veteran authors.

Special thanks to all the authors who are a part of our series. Check back for information about the companion website for A Literary Tour of South Carolina.

We began this school year with new ELA standards for all grades. The same standards apply to all grades with increasingly difficult indicators scaffolding from Kindergarten to 12th grade. Even though library media specialists were not on the committees to write these new standards, an exploration of the standards shows several direct connections between the ELA classroom and the school library media center. Standards 1 and 2 relate to reading literary and informational texts both in print and nonprint formats. Standard 6 is the research and inquiry standard and, while these standards are directed toward the classroom teachers, this standard spells out exactly what library media specialists do (or should be doing) on a daily basis.If you will envision a two-piece puzzle with one piece labeled “Teachers-Content” and the other piece labeled “Library Media Specialist-Process,” you begin to understand the importance of the collaborative process between these two groups of educators. The ELA Standard 6 is all about process. (For a brief explanation of these standards and an illustration of this two-piece puzzle, go to http://martha.alewine.googlepages.com and click on the link for the LMS Annual Start-Up Meeting link on the right-hand side of the page.) Libary media specialists should embrace these standards and use them to open a dialogue with their classroom teachers to talk about how library media specialists can help teach these new standards. Standard 6 has implications for all the content areas and not just English/Language Arts.

Part of teaching process skills (information literacy or 21st Century learning skills) is the use of a problem-solving model or a research model. I have written one for South Carolina that is directly aligned with Standard 6. This South Carolina model is called The Simple Four. Information about this new problem-solving model is available at the web site listed above. Just look for the link for the Simple Four on the right-hand side of the page.

Another new resource available for library media specialists this year is the SC School Library Core Resource Collection Lists. These core collection lists are divided by grade level (i.e., elementary, middle, and high) and by levels according to Achieving Exemplary School Libraries (i.e., emerging, proficient, and exemplary). These lists are not title-specific but address the curricular areas. Standards are also included for technology that should be available in and through the school library media center. These core collection standards are available on the web site listed above. They should be consulted as school libraries plan purchases using the funds available from the $1 million appropriated for school libraries by the SC General Assembly.