Battle of the Books, Children's Services

8:00 am -2:00pm
6 hours
Total hours to date: 75.5

Today, I had the opportunity to observe and help judge the Burke County Battle of the Books competition for middle schools, sponsored by the NC School Library Media Association. Alicia, the BCPL Young Adult Program Coordinator, had been asked to judge, so I was able to tag along. It was so nice to see this competition in action. We met first with other judges, moderators, and the coordinator to go over the rules and procedures for the competition. There were 5 middle schools involved, with 2 rounds of 4 to 6 games each. At the end, scores would be tallied from all the games and a winner would be determined.

Battle of the Books is similar to a quiz bowl, with teams of 6 students representing each school. These students have prepared for the competition by reading from a list of 27 books, and they are allowed to confer before the designated person gives their answer. It was apparent that some teams were very well prepared and others were not as prepared. Each team was coached by their school's media coordinator. Students were asked a question beginning with, "In which book, . . ." and they had to give the correct book for 2 points and the author for an additional point. I had the chance to touch base with Linda, a retired media coordinator from the school where I had worked who served as the moderator for our room. She shared some of the strategies she had used when she coached her BoB team. I think it was a good opportunity for the public library to coordinate with the schools on this competition so that the public library can help support these students in future preparations. The winning team was the team from the school where I did my school library internship. I was glad for them because I know they worked very hard and it was a surprising win for them.

Later in the day, I had the opportunity to work in Children's Services, cutting out lots of little figures that will be used in the Summer Reading Program. While I was cutting out these figures, I had the chance to speak with Ashleigh, who is one of the Children's Programmers. She explained the structure of the staff in the Children's department of the library. There was formerly an assistant director who was in charge of the Children's Room and served as an administrator over that area, but staffing changes due to cuts or staff taking positions elsewhere put them in a position without a head administrator directly over their department. So the Library Director decided to restructure the leadership, and now there are three personnel in charge of different areas of the Children's services and programming. Most administrative duties are split between the two people with the most experience, Chesley and Ashleigh, and Halee and Ashleigh take care of programming. They all help each other out and also help out with circulation, which is mainly run by Kimberly. It really seems to work well for them. It is an example of how management has streamlined staff and duties in order to conserve money and retain existing staff.