Spreadsheets and Databases
Spreadsheets and databases serve many useful purposes in the classroom from an administrative perspective as well as an instructional tool. Classroom teachers are not the only ones on a school campus that can utilize the efficient spreadsheet and database programs to their benefit. This web page focuses on how a school library media specialist, club sponsor, and/or athletic coach can also use these tools to help run their programs.
Searching for Library Books
Screenshot of the FolletShelf eBook database search page.
Librarians rely heavily on the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) database to find books in the library and fulfill requests. Since school libraries typically have 1-3 staff members, it is a challenge to meet all the requests if there are several students in the library at the same time. It is a priority to teach students to be independent users of the school library so that they are able to be self-sufficient at a public or university library. Certified teacher-librarians often instruct classes on how to use the OPAC. Teacher-librarians can also teach how to conduct Boolean searches using keywords. Students can transfer the skills learned from conducting book searches from the OPAC database to an Internet search engine.
In addition to the hard copies of books that exist in school libraries, a school may also have eBooks available to students. Students can search for the eBooks using the OPAC as well. The screenshot represents the FollettShelf home screen where students can begin searching for eBooks.
In addition to the hard copies of books that exist in school libraries, a school may also have eBooks available to students. Students can search for the eBooks using the OPAC as well. The screenshot represents the FollettShelf home screen where students can begin searching for eBooks.
Attendance for Athletic and Club Activities
School districts may have a software package that allows teachers to take and report attendance quickly. However, they may not always provide additional classes if a teacher is a club sponsor or a coach on campus. Spreadsheets can assist easily with maintaining records of student attendance for a club or sport that has an attendance policy for participation.
Maintaining Budgets for Media Center, Clubs, or Sport Teams
Spreadsheets are an efficient way for teachers who take on the task of maintaining budgets for the library, school club, or sport. Accountability is vital when it comes to the monies that all of these school organizations bring in through fundraising activities. If the club or sport has a student treasurer, then the student can help maintain the budget records in a spreadsheet.
Creating Interactive Book Lists
Librarians are often asked the time old question “Do you know any good books?”. Book choice and preference is such a personal decision that it becomes a challenge to satisfy everyone needs off the top of the head. Spreadsheets are an easy to way to create an interactive book finder. The spreadsheet can create links to authors’ websites, book reviews and book trailers. The extent depends on the particular library needs, but the spreadsheets can be created according to genre, most popular, award winners, or high interest for reluctant readers, to name a few. Students can also create their own interactive spreadsheets to help other students find books they are interested. Since students tend to know what other students like, they become invaluable references for book selections. The spreadsheet can be created in a cloud such as Google Drive and shared through a group.
Lesson Plan: How many books do students check out every month?
Students are in the library each week to look for a new book to read. Usually, the students will take an AR quiz to measure how well they comprehend their readings. Since they are in the media center each week, a statistical lesson will help them understand how the space is utilized by the entire student population. In addition to learning about the statistics of library usage, students will also become more familiar with all of the sections in the library, even the ones rarely visited by students. They will gain an understanding of how the library is organized, which will guide them in their weekly book selection process. Once the students are familiar with the Dewey Decimal Classification, and they can relate as to why certain books are in a particular section, they will draw inferences using the spreadsheet data to determine why students check out, or not, books from a particular section. They will also be asked to determine why there may be number spikes or decreases in book circulations from month to month.
Goals
Data
Monthly collection reports printed from the library software will provide the data for the spreadsheets and analysis. The statistics collected from the report provide number of book checkouts per section of the library. The report shows which sections are the most popular in the library and are meant to guide the librarian in future book selection as well as provide evidence that the students and teachers are using the library resources.
Additional Materials
In order for the students to identify the non-fiction sections of the Dewey Decimal System, it is important to provide visual aids. Dewey posters or actual books from the library collection can help the students learn the different categories of the Dewey Decimal System. Once they are familiar with the different categories, they will be able to analyze the spreadsheet data to determine why the numbers in circulation go up or down.
Goals
- Gain an understanding of the different sections of the library and the Dewey Decimal System.
- Analyze why certain sections have more/less checkouts than other sections.
- Determine why there might be significant changes in numbers from month to month.
- Encourage students to explore and check out books in the sections that do not have high numbers of checkouts.
Data
Monthly collection reports printed from the library software will provide the data for the spreadsheets and analysis. The statistics collected from the report provide number of book checkouts per section of the library. The report shows which sections are the most popular in the library and are meant to guide the librarian in future book selection as well as provide evidence that the students and teachers are using the library resources.
Additional Materials
In order for the students to identify the non-fiction sections of the Dewey Decimal System, it is important to provide visual aids. Dewey posters or actual books from the library collection can help the students learn the different categories of the Dewey Decimal System. Once they are familiar with the different categories, they will be able to analyze the spreadsheet data to determine why the numbers in circulation go up or down.