After taking a break from study, I am apprehensively keen for the start of ETL505 – Describing and Analysing Education Resources.

Have you ever seen the illustration of a jar filled with ping-pong balls? You say, “yes it’s full!” but then marbles are poured in and you see there is more room in all those gaps between the ping pong balls. You then think it is full until the sand is poured into those even smaller gaps. You are sure no more can possibly be put in that jar and then it is filled with water. Well, I say that I am “apprehensively” keen because taking this class is like the water filling up the last of those gaps in my life.

Still, I am keen! I am now in my second year as head of our school’s library and this is the biggest gap in my knowledge of running our library. Our library technician does all the processing, analysing, and describing of our resources because this is the way I “inherited” the library, but also because I don’t know how!  I use SCIS sometimes to help me find books relevant to a topic a teacher might want but I can see that it does much more. I understand the basics of the Dewey Decimal system and I occasionally have conversations with the library technician about the best place to put a book when it falls under multiple categories. The basis for my answer is always “Where will it get used the most?” I am looking forward to this class hopefully, filling in the gaps in my knowledge, challenging me to think deeper and opening my eyes to possible future developments.