7:45 AM–Arrive at school and have breakfast; helped a colleague order breakfast at a shop next door.

8:00-8:30 AM–Checked in books that were returned while I was at the aquarium for 2 days; Checked email and got ready for the day.

8:30-8:45 AM–Secondary Department meeting in the Library with staff and students.

9:00 AM–Made arrangements for taxi service to airport for trip for Chinese New Year vacation.

9:30 AM–Second grade class checks out books for break.

9:45 AM–Helped install poster in lobby advertising Author visit.

9:45-10:45 AM–Cataloged nonfiction books (900′s). During this time I also spoke to a potential new parent who was touring the school

10:45-11:45 AM–Worked on materials for the Library related to our potential accreditation.

11:45 AM-12:10 PM–Cataloged more nonfiction books (900′s).

12:10-1:10 PM–Lunch!

1:10-1:30 PM–Rounded up Secondary Department students who were supposed to leave because they had half a day.

1:30-3:00 PM–Cataloged more books!

3:00-4:00 PM Supervised kids waiting for transportation.

4:00 PM–Left school! 9 day break for Chinese New Year! Thailand here I come!

Today I will be returning from an overnight field trip with the 7-12th grade classes from the taking the National Museum of of Marine Biology and Aquarium.

Today and tomorrow my posts will be pre-written and automatically posted.

Today I will be taking the High Speed Rail with the Secondary Department to an overnight field trip to the National Museum of of Marine Biology and Aquarium.

7:45 AM–Arrive at work and have my breakfast; Get ready for my day.

8:10-9:00 AM–Finished cataloging some non-fiction books that were on my desk while proctoring a calculus test for a student.

9:00 AM–Talked to a teacher about a book that a student damaged and needed to pay for.

9:10-10:00 AM–Worked on cleaning off my desk and organizing things into my new file cabinet.

10:00 AM–A parent volunteer arrives and I task her (and her friend) to shelve books; The end up shifting some of the Picture Books because I am running out of room.

10:30 AM–Have discipline issues in the Library with a study hall student.

11:00 -11:40 AM–Had the First Grade class to the Library; Read “The Big Wide-Mouthed Frog.”

12:10-1:10 PM-Lunch

1:10-1:50 PM–Had Grade 3 for weekly Library time; Read to them “Dial-A-Croc”.

2:00-2:40 PM–Grade 4 weekly Library visit; Read to them from “Give Peas a Chance” a collection of short stories from Morris Gleitzman.

3:00-4:00 PM–The Elementary students awaiting pickup wait in the library.

7:45 AM– I arrive at work and turn on the lights to the Library and put the new edition of the “Student Post” (the China Times weekly supplement) in our magazine rack. I then sit down to eat my breakfast and turn on my computer.

7:50 AM–My computer tells me it has to reboot to install an update to my virus program. So I save my draft of this blog and do that.

7:55 AM–I finish breakfast and my computer reboots. I then print the sign-in sheets for the daily independent study classes and the after school elementary library time.

8:00 AM–I check in books that were returned after the Library closed on Friday.

8:03 AM–I check my calender and see that I have 3 class visits today: Grades 2 and 5 and the Kindergarten. I know Grade 5 will do silent independent reading after choosing books, but I need to pick a picture book to read to the Kindergarten Class and something for Grade 2.

8:05 AM–Talk to the teachers about projects for the Author visit.

8:32 to 9:50 AM–Work on book display about Australia.

9:50 AM–Email vendor about book order I placed for the Author visit.

9:56 AM–Rescheduled Library visit from Friday to tomorrow to accommodate a teachers Chinese New Year activity.

9:58 AM–Strong armed the 3 students in the Library to become a fan of the Library Facebook page.

10:00-11 AM–Cataloged new nonfiction books into the collection.

11:00-11:40 AM–Weekly visit from Grade 2. Read them “The Big Wide-Mouthed Frog” by Ana Martin Larranaga.

11:50 AM-12:10 PM– Weekly class visit from the 5th graders. I helped students find books from the “Who was” series (non-fiction biographical books)

12:10-12:30 PM– Lunch!

12:30-12:40 PM–Located the Australian flag to hang in the lobby both for the Author visit, but also because we have students from Australia.

12:40-2:00 PM–Cataloged and added more nonfiction to the collection.

2:00-2:12 PM– Discussed payment of invoice for a book order with Elementary and Secondary Principals.

2:12-2:45 PM–Cataloged and added more nonfiction to the collection.

2:45 PM-Emailed a colleague who is an archivist to ask about some discoloration and spots on our books. I am trying to determine if it’s just part of the natural aging process and release of wood-fiber or a mold (we are hoping for the former).

2:50-3:00 PM–Cataloged and added more nonfiction to the collection.

3:00 PM–Primary Department ends day; Students who are awaiting pickup wait in the Library until the office calls for them; Continue to Catalog items.

3:20-3:45 PM –Discussed AP course registration and WASC Candidacy accreditation issues.

3:45 PM– Continue cataloging items.

4:00 PM– Last of the Primary schools students leave the Library.

4:30 PM–Edit and approve bookmark and poster design for the Author visit.

5:00 PM–Close down for the day and go home!

Last night I decided to make a facebook page for my school Library, partly because I was bored and partly because I thought “why not.” So as my first status update for the page, I posted something about our Author visit and tagged the author in it.

Imagine my surprise when I logged in this morning and saw this:

It’s amazing to see what can happen with social media!

So while I was on it, I added a “Like this” code to our Follett Destiny catalog. We’ll see how many kids like the Library Facebook page from that.

This is one of the reasons I love being a Librarian at an International School:

A box of books I ordered from Australia is wending its way to Taiwan, via Singapore, China and the Philippines.

I ordered books from Australia because in less than a month famed children’s author Morris Gleitzman will be visiting our school. He will be in Taiwan for the Taipei International Book Expo. As part of his visit, the Australia Commerce and Industry Office (the de facto Embassy here in Taiwan) has arranged for him to visit our school, speak to the kids and sign his books.

We are very excited and honored to have such an esteemed author take time out of his busy schedule to visit our school. We are also very appreciative of the Australia Commerce and Industry Office for making it possible.

Dear Readers!

I have not gone into hiding, just been busy with the end of semester and Christmas break.

In the coming weeks I’ll be posting about an author visit we have happening, the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong I’ll be attending as well as the Library Day in the Life project I’ll be participating in. So stay tuned for exciting posts!

“Where are your books about Emily Elizabeth”
Do you mean the Clifford books?
Yeah! That’s it.

“I want a book my friend had. It had a picture of a rat on it.”
Do you mean this book? [as I hold up a copy of Geronimo Silton].
Wow. How did you know that?

I love my job.

Librarians are concerned with copyright because we seek to protect not only the rights of others, but our right to freely allow others to borrow materials. There has been much discussion about eBooks and Digital Rights Management (DRM) but in discussing these new copyright issues, we often forget that there are still an issues with analog media and copyright.

International School Librarian face a unique challenge because many of us are in countries where copyright is not understood, or if understood is simply winked at.

Among some of the scenarios faced:

—A Principal might argue its “cheaper” to buy one workbook and copy it section, by section as the students need it rather than pay the extra expense (mostly shipping) to have a workbook for each student. [When in fact when you factor in the cost of toner and maintenance on the photocopy machine it could be more expensive to follow this path].
—A drama teacher might not want to navigate the hoops of acquiring international performance rights for a play, and puts it on with photocopied scripts and without a license.
—A computer teacher wants to upgrade to the new version of an operating system, but its prohibitively expensive, so bootlegged copies are purchased.
—A English teacher wants to show a film in class, but it is not available in the country.  Shipping would take too long, so it is downloaded from the internet to be shown in class.

While these scenarios are not unique to International Schools, I think some of the factors that lead to it are unique.

Budgets come into play quite a bit when dealing with the “why” of copyright violations.  Another factor is in fact ignorance.  Many people don’t understand the complexities of copyright and how “fair use” comes into play.  As Librarians we are positioned and have the training to explain copyright and how to play by the rules (as it were).  Often it is hard to understand why copyright needs to be followed.  Many of the major universities in Asian countries have students who purchase books from bookstores off campus.  Yet they are photocopied and cheaply bound in cardstock for the students to use.  While it is not policy to encourage this practice, many of my friends who have studied in Asia report they are told by the Professor on the first day where to get the books from off campus because they are cheaper.  This practice not only violated copyright but is an affront to their colleagues in other institutions who thereby do not make money from the practice of bootleg textbooks.

We can be the voice to explain the how and why of copyright to the faculty, staff and students.  We can explain its importance and what we can do to respect it.  When teaching students about citations and searching, you can also talk about copyright and how plagiarism is stealing, and so is violating copyright.  You can remind your teachers about public-domain resources they can use instead of illegal avenues.  You can explain fair use and provide helpful links to checklists and simple explanations.  There are a myriad of ways we can help our client base understand and respect copyright.  We have to ensure that we ourselves are following copyright laws so we can speak from a position of authority and clarity when we need to.

Perhaps the biggest reason we must be vigilant about copyright in a school setting is this:  We cannot expect our students to fully understand academic honesty and respect for intellectual property when they are being taught from materials that were obtained in violation of copyright; To do so is hypocritical.