March 2, 2016

 I forgot to mention that at my volunteer meeting yesterday at the library that the lady asked me if I was looking to stay in the area once I got my degree. She asked this because in the near future there will apparently be three openings in adult services. I'm leaning more toward reference, and in an academic library, not public, but I've got to start somewhere. She said they like to hire from within and being a volunteer would probably help my chances. Something to think about.

Today was picture day and I got there with plenty of time to spare this morning for the staff picture. I can't say that about everyone however. We got all lined up, took three pictures, and then someone else walked in. We took two more pictures and another person walked in. I think it happened three or four times but we eventually got the picture taken. Hope I didn't blink.

After my first two classes in the lab I went up to the third floor to set up their iPads for the state assessment. That turned into a big thing and I wasn't able to finish. The first two carts belong to the school but the one on the third floor belongs to Boys & Girls Club. This means it wasn't involved in the update when they put the software on all of the iPads. I thought I could do it by using the laptop in the cart but not so much. First I couldn't log into the laptop because I didn't have the password. The teacher whose room the cart is in had a bunch of different usernames and passwords but none of those worked. I eventually just signed in as a guest, which seemed to work, although getting onto the Wi-Fi was tricky. After some time I got it to connect and was able to sign into iTunes using one of the usernames and passwords I was given. Then I had to authenticate in order to get around the firewall so I could download the testing software. But it turns out the download process involved going to website that the parental controls were blocking and I had to provide an admin username and password to allow. I tried all the usernames and passwords the teacher had, and all the combinations of them, but nothing worked. I went down to talk to the librarian to see if she had one I hadn't tried yet so we went to the principal and she ended up emailing the girl who is now in charge of Boys & Girls Club at our school. Haven't heard back yet so we'll see. I may be able to manually install it on each iPad but that would be a pain and probably unnecessary. I think we'll be good with two carts ready to go.

This afternoon the second grade Khan group was not having a good day. I sent two of the boys back early because they were going back and forth with each other the whole time. It boiled over when one of them complained to me that the other one had called him dumb. The other boy clarified that the first boy had actually called him dumb and that he responded by saying that boy sucked. He pretty much announced this to the whole lab and it was met with oohs from the third grade class in the lab at the time. So I pulled the plug and sent them both back to the room.

This left one boy up front and two girls in the back row. Several minutes later the girls in the back row started giggling and messing around, not even pretending to look at their computers. I went back once and told them to stop and work on math. I hadn't been back in my seat for more than thirty seconds when they were back at it again. I looked over at the boy in the front row who was actually behaving and thanked him for actually doing his work and then I sent the girls back to the room. I had actually just finished writing an email to the teacher explaining why the first two boys were sent back so I added a line for why I had sent the girls back. She responded later saying that the first two boys would be writing apology letters and that she was going to have a talk with all of them, reiterating that going to the lab to work on Khan was a privilege. In the future if I have to send them back to the room they won't be able to come back for the rest of the week. We'll see how long the threat remains present in their minds.

When I wasn't engaged in other activities, I worked on editing baby pictures. I finally finished the one I've been working on for days now and was able to start another one. I nearly finished it and should be able to make more progress tomorrow. I've got several digital pictures so I might switch over to those just to take a break and gain a sense of accomplishment from actually finishing something.

After work I went to Chipotle and got a Powerball ticket before heading home. Tonight my sister's husband's mom joined us for dinner because she is in town for a few days. Dinner started late and I had to duck out early for a class meeting, so we didn't have a lot of interaction but she seemed like a nice lady.

The class meeting was a bit of a fail, to use the professor's own words. She wanted to show us some apps on her iPad but couldn't get the connection working so the meeting mostly consisted of people asking her about her London trip, which she recently returned from. I learned some interesting things about public libraries in England. They were apparently voted to be considered a right of the people but at the moment they are undergoing the budgetary issues all libraries are experiencing, which is cutting into the quality of the service and the collections. She said one library the students visited was in a state of disrepair and they were considering getting rid of all the staff due to lack of funds. So it would be a library without any librarians. That sounds like a horrible idea. The professor also said that you aren't allowed to donate money to the public libraries over there. The one library that they went to that was really nice was only like that because it was entirely funded by a grant or private fund. Most of the public libraries are reliant on funds from the government and can't take private donations, even though the government isn't able to support their current needs. Seems a bit ridiculous.

After the meeting I made a little progress on my group assignment for the week. I'm going to email the librarian I interviewed earlier in the semester and ask her a few questions. She might not be able to get back to me in time but it is mainly for my own curiosity. I want to know if kids are actually using image databases that libraries subscribe to or if they are relying mostly on Google and images found freely on the internet. I'm also interested to know if libraries actively seek out subscriptions to individual image databases or if they only have them because they are part of a package. I would like to be able to find this information online but it searching for information about image databases is kind of difficult. At least for me at the moment because I don't know exactly what I am searching for.

I also have my paper about databases due this weekend (or maybe on Monday) for my technology class. Again, it is kind of hard looking for information about databases in general because you get a bunch of information on specific databases. I'll get it figured out. That's a goal anyway.

Now I'm going to go to be because it is after eleven o'clock, I've got a headache, and I'm tired. All perfectly good reasons to stop typing and go to bed.