Rapid Response

Wednesday, after working on a semi-physically demanding project in the library I went home and took a nap. Then woke up to... well, we all know what was going on Wednesday afternoon. Scenes that reminded me of my vague memories of Chicago '68, with the fear that the Rodney King riots spread (I was in…

Finally, something normal

Last week I looked at this week’s forecast and saw snow was predicted. Fine... but it’s a week away. Over the next few days amounts of snow and arrival days kept changing: 5” Wednesday and 8” Thursday? no... 12” Wednesday and 3” Thursday? no... Tuesday it seemed to settle on 1-2” Wednesday night and 10+”…

Getting a little giddy

In March, just after we closed due to COVID, the library's focus was on supporting our history classes doing research (around 600 students, all researching away... just a little crazy, right?). So we added EBSCO's Academic and High School ebooks collection, entering 3500+ MARC records into our catalog while encouraging students to search the whole…

The past five years in 21 slides

Ok, maybe not everything that's happened in the past five years, but this is a short distillation of the Really Big Project we've been working on in the library. One of the other librarians and I presented this today at the NELA 2020 conference. There's so much more I could say about the nitty-gritty but…

Go!

A short while ago I posted Ready? Set? and so now, clearly, it's time for "go"! "Go" started yesterday, the first day of classes (remote) for the Upper School. Our Middle and Lower Schools are still doing some orientation work, but those students are on campus, getting used to the new spaces and pathways and…

Ready? Set?

We're not quite at "go" yet - classes officially start on the 14th, but the faculty is now in meetings and new students are orienting, so the start is creeping ever closer. It feels both just like yesterday I was working on last year's stuff... oh wait, it was! Seriously, it's been the oddest summer.…

So now we know… sort of…

Last week we finally heard from our Head of School what the start of the year would look like. Because Milton is such a complicated school, with three divisions, two of which are day only and one of which is day/boarding, decisions needed to be made by division rather than school-wide. Result? Our Lower and…

Are you doing the work?

Sorry - I'm gonna rant here. It's been building for some time and this week was just, well, the last straw. Granted, I've been cranky because things at work haven't really stopped since just after Winter Break. Spring Break was filled with anxious colleagues setting up classes for a remote return, then... you know the…

Little Changes Exhaust Me

It's early July and I should be on a vacation of sorts. At Hackley, I was administration and worked all summer, taking four day weekends. At PCS and Porter's I chose to either go in occasionally to pick up mail or to work on a project. Both were my choice, and my time was just…

A COVID-19 WFH rant

The past week has been filled with meetings and emails about opening school safely, and what will happen in our libraries. One peer school has moved stacks, added tables and chairs and is preparing for students who have "frees" to be assigned to the library. Others are figuring out how to have students browse virtually…