English 102 Deers -the post where I return to my insatiable inclinations toward exclamation points and CAPS!

I suppose it's that time of the semester. You know that, Hurry-up-Thanksgiving-and-get-here-already-time. Which will soon be followed by that Hurry-Up-End-Of-The-Semester-Time. Which is invariably followed by that, Do-You-Think-The-One-Inch-Of-Snow-That-Is-Predicted-For-Tomorrow-Could-Actually-Turn-Into-Two-Feet-and-Close-The-School-Time. But until all those times come true, all I dream about is laying in bed and reading graphic novels. I am not ashamed or frightened to admit that I am burned out. TIRED!

But, I have to cop to this one useful thing that I did while teaching a couple of English 102 sessions this week.  I tricked the students into finding books in the catalog and then locating them in the stacks! Hee hee! It was awesome. I talked to them about the catalog and books versus articles, blah blah blah, and then asked them to find some books in the catalog on their topics and showed them a couple of tricks. 2 seconds later they were all staring at me bored. I asked if they'd found books they could use in their papers. Bored nods. 

Photo by Jim Champion

I directed, "Great! Go get them!"  Followed by an enthusiastic sweeping gesture that was accompanied with a lunge. The total deers in headlights looks were priceless! Of course they had not ACTUALLY found books, they were only humoring me so that I could move on with the class. (How sweet.) Once they realized I was serious and they really had 7 minutes to find a book on the shelf there was frantic typing and hand raising and questions and pointing and eventual leaving of the classroom. [Exasperated sighs and stomping.]

I went up to the stacks and quickly walked through, seeing if anyone needed help. Most of the students were helping each other and I went back to the classroom. I thought that something magical may have occurred when the students started trickling back with hard rectangular objects in their hands, but when I overheard a young woman tell her friend, that she, "Really found the right book!" I knew the magic that occurred in that classroom was of Disney proportions. But, it gets better. I locked the classroom and was on my way back to my desk when I noticed A LINE, an actual cue queue, (as they say in the U.K. or pool halls if you fall victim to homonyms, like me), of those same students at our circulation desk, incredibly and actually CHECKING OUT THE BOOKS! I was floored. After all, class was over, they had facebooks to check and naps to take, but instead of all that, they were actually checking out the books they had found. That made my week. Oh, and, our circulation numbers.

Here is a picture of a cue queue in a library with a Brit. Check out Bowling Green's Library SleeveFacing Blog where this pic is from. Hot new trend alert!