I can fully understand the stress that you are under as a
Special Education teacher. I really admire Special
Education teachers.

After teaching 20 years my principal asked me to take over
the library. I found being a teacher-librarian was a
demanding job with a lot of responsibilites. I did not have
any help and had to do everything myself.

Some of my responsibilies:

Handling circulation of books and other library materials
for students and staff members.

Ordering books and library materials for the library. One
of my principals came up with additional funds at the last
minute and I had to quicky prepare purchase orders so as not
to the lose the funds. I learned to have a wish list of
books. It takes a lot of research and time to prepare
purchase orders to meet the budget you are given.

Processing the books when they were sent to the school.
This was also a time consuming task.

Teaching library lessons to all grade and subject area
classes.

I also did a lot of Cooperative Learning activities in all
subject areas.

I ran a ten computer lab in the library. I was lucky
because I am very adept with computers and even taught
computer classes previously. I had to be very vigilant to
make sure students were not accessing inappopriate sites
even though we had filters on the computers.

Helping students with classwork and homework. When teachers
gave assignments or projects there used to be a rush to get
books to fulfill these tasks. Many times I was not informed
of these assignments and had to quickly get the materials.
Luckily I organized my books to make it easy to find
materials and books.

One of my duties was an early morning library program that
kept me hopping with students returning and checking out
books, helping students with their assignments, supervising
the students using the computers, assisting teachers who
needed materials for their lessons, etc.

I also had the library open during the lunch periods.

Preparing regular library bulletins to inform the staff of
new materials and resources available for their students.

I am sure that I left out a lot of other things. It does
depend on the school you are in, the grade level and other
factors.

Even though I was always busy from the time I came in and
until I left I found the days went by quickly and I enjoyed
helping the students and staff in my school.

Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites

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