Are you a School Librarian, needing solutions for perplexing problems? You’ll find those here at the Looking Backward blog.

I wish I’d had a source like this when I began as a Middle School Librarian! I’ve been blogging since 2005, first with BrP Bytes on Blogger, then in 2015 with Looking Backward on Edublogs. I like to help people find answers (probably why I became a teacher & a school librarian) and I hope you find some through this blog.

I want to help you see the big picture…how it all fits together…to more easily manage your school library. A voracious reader of education bloggers and books related to teaching, school libraries, and technology, I strive to share information that is relevant to the current educational climate. From my acquired knowledge and experience, I hope to build a legacy of quality school library guidance and resources.

I offer Library Lessons customized for the middle school library. When I returned to education after 15 years as stay-at-home-mom, I taught science for 9 years in an alternative high school for at-risk students. Personalized, self-paced lessons were our mainstay, and I learned quickly how to integrate other subject curricula into my own. This unique perspective helps me to build lessons and units for library visits from any and all subject areas.

I fell in love with technology while taking a FORTRAN course in college (long long ago, in a galaxy…no, wait, just long, long ago). After building 2 working computers for a fellow alternative school teacher from a few defunct ones, I earned the title “Tech Queen.” In 1995 I ventured onto the (originally text-only) WWW to create Web pages, becoming our district’s Web Trainer and presented at a Texas Library Association conference. My middle school was built at the turn of the millennium as a high-tech exemplar for the time, so we were a great match, and many of my lessons include educational technology components.

After 26 years in education, I retired due to health issues, otherwise I’d still be there. Retirement does give me the time to create authentic, easy-to-use materials for you! My middle school librarian lessons and management tools are available through No Sweat Library, my TeachersPayTeachers store. An alternate online activity is a Pinterest curation service, Pin4Teachers, which allows me to contribute to educators worldwide as I share my passion for organization and education.

Other interests include home improvements—from painting & wallpapering, to plumbing & electric, to landscaping & gardening, to repairs & construction. (My hubby gifted me a radial arm saw!) The one thing I hate is housework, so I still have a cleaning lady every other week!

“barupa” has been my online moniker since 1991, when I created an email address using the first 2 letters of my first, middle, and married names: Barbara Ruth Paciotti. I later added my state of Texas’ PO abbreviation so you can also find me as barupatx. My students and colleagues just call me “Ms. P“—although I love one teacher’s comment: “Goddess of All That Is Known.”

I usually sign off on things as…
BrP
(Not indigestion, just my initials)
blogging from the Dallas TX Metroplex, USA
You can email me at barupa@nosweatlibrary.org.

(I love working with the kids that make most folks cringe—alternative schoolers, middle schoolers, and toddlers 2-4… clearly a woman in need of therapy!)

I am also a Visual Content Marketing Specialist, focused on helping teachers with blogs and/or TeachersPayTeachers stores to increase their online presence. I can:

• create branded pins for Pinterest with optimized keywords and pin descriptions
• schedule pins through Tailwind
• curate other online sources into posts or pins
• create Pinterest boards with branded board covers
• analyze basic analytics to develop your marketing strategy
• assist with blog: copy writing and editing posts, clean up older entries, troubleshoot display errors.

If you’re interested in my Content Marketing Service, email me at barupa@nosweatlibrary.org for information and pricing.