August 5, 2013 by plemmonsa

Setting Up a New Elementary School Library (Part 3)

It’s hard to believe that the unpacking and arrangement of our new school library began only one week ago! As of today, every box has been unpacked thanks to many hours of work from me and some dedicated volunteers. This included working on 2 furlough days and the weekend. There’s still a lot to do, but it’s nice to know that everything has been unpacked!

When people walk by, I often hear, it looks like you are all ready. I’m glad that the library looks like a library as our kids enter the building tomorrow, but there are many things left to do like:

Setup our iMac computers for video editing
Setup up our morning broadcast equipment and prepare the schedule/contracts of the new crew
Get power and data installed to the circulation island and have technology image the new circulation computers
Install a wall case which includes 2 white boards and a touchscreen for ebooks
Finish putting together 2 computer tables
Put together our lego robotics area
Update 30 ipads and make sure they are working for the new year. Install apps that have already been requested
Re-label and re-catalog over 200 books that were pulled from fiction in order to move to everybody, graphic novels, and series sections
Distribute 250+ netbooks to classroom teachers after shuffling them among the carts to make grades 3-5 one to one
Test out media center equipment and how it interacts with our new projectors before releasing it to teachers to check out
Create some type of signage to help students in locating the books they need. I may get students involved with this piece soon!
Create orientation videos that students may use to make orientation more individualized
Finish setting up the teacher book room which includes guided reading books and professional books. Also setup a self check-out/check-in area in this room
And several more things……

Today I want to highlight some of our areas of the library that I haven’t talked about yet. One is circulation. Throughout the planning of our library, I repeatedly said that I did not want a circulation desk. We don’t have a library paraprofessional at the moment, and even if we did, we don’t sit behind a desk all day. Instead, I wanted a self check-in area and a self check-out area with places for students to easily store books that were checked-in. We went through many rounds of discussions and drawings, but this is what we came up with: a circulation island.

Circulation island instead of a clunky circulation desk

As students enter the library, they will turn right, check in their books at the check-in computer, and store their books on one of two rolling carts stored underneath the circulation island. If both of these carts fill up, a third rolling cart can be pulled out to replace one of the filled cart. This third cart also stores within the island. Once students find their books, they will stop by the opposite side of the island to check-out their books as they leave. On the wall right behind the island, there will be casework with multiple opportunities for displaying student work and books. There will also be a touch screen where students can browse the ebooks in our collection. I hope that this becomes a user-friendly area for our students.

Some shelves have stools within the curves where students can sit and read or use the shelf as a counter/work space

Another item I want to feature in our library is the multiple ways that students can sit and interact with the space. The curves of the shelves provide opportunities to put stools, bean bags, or soft curved seating. With stools, students can sit and read or they can face the shelf and use it as an additional workspace. As I display books on the tops of shelves, I’ll try to leave spaces open so that students can take advantage of these workspaces without having to move all the books.

At our iMac video editing stations, students can sit on the rectangular soft seating, wobble around on a Hokki stool, or pull up a chair that can face forward or backward. It will be interesting to see which seating gets used more than the other.

iMac video editing stations

There are many more features that I look forward to sharing in the coming days and weeks, especially as students start to use them.

Seating next to hallway. Games stored in cubbies.

Soft seating fits inside the curves of the mobile shelves.

Circulation island instead of a clunky circulation desk

Table configuration with choices for seating: chairs or Hokki stools

iMac video editing stations

View from the back of the library

Graphic novels and part of nonfiction

A wave of seating faces one instructional area and the nonfiction section

Circulation island with nested reshelving cart

An extra reshelving cart parks inside the circulation island

Some shelves have stools within the curves where students can sit and read or use the shelf as a counter/work space

Nonfiction shelves

July 31, 2013 by plemmonsa

Setting Up a New Elementary School Library (Part 2)

Fiction shelves minus some popular series

Today was our second day of unpacking boxes into our new school library. After being away at a meeting yesterday, I spent some time walking the space and thinking back through Monday’s decisions. For the most part, I was still happy with what was decided. I flipped one shelf around in the fiction section and it really opened up the flow into the library better. Some new rolling tables had arrived, so I worked on putting those into the 2nd projection area where I think students will most likely use devices while paired with demonstration on the projection screen. I decided that the Lego robotics table will move from its current position near the front of the library into the back corner. The wall I chose has no outlets. This allows the wall with outlets to be used for computer tables.

New rolling flip tables

My first volunteer, Camilla Bracewell, arrived and quickly got to work unpacking fiction onto the shelIves. While she worked, I began unpacking equipment into the equipment room. The equipment room, workroom, and office are rooms that I have to do myself because I have to figure out the best place to put each thing. In the equipment room, I put our ereaders and digital cameras out on the charging shelves. There aren’t as many outlets as I would like, but for the first time I can actually lay out all of this equipment and easily plug it in to charge. All of the cords run down through the shelves to the outlets. I put the most frequently used things out in clear sight and things that are less used went in closets.

Fiction ready to shelve

It didn’t take long until our first problem of the day. The fiction books didn’t fit on the shelves. That statement has multiple meanings. Some books were too tall for the shelf so they had to be turned sideways. Other books were pulled to put in other sections of the library like graphic novel and everybody. The worst part though was that all of the shelves were full and there were still 4 boxes to unpack. First I tried to think of how to get another shelf, but then I started thinking about what could be pulled from the fiction and put somewhere else in the library. We are still missing 3 big display cases that will have multiple functions. One function is holding books, but without the cases in place it’s hard to decide what to put on them. I decided to go around and pull some of the most popular series of books from the fiction shelf so that they could go on this display. The next step would be to shuffle all of the books down the shelves to fill empty spaces. I know that the books will fit if I do this, but i decided to delay this part of setup until I know more about the cases that are coming.

Putting the 39 Clues together

Rolling maker space supplies

Next, I began unpacking all of the supplies. I love the rolling cart of drawers that I have. It tucks underneath the storage cabinets in the workroom but easily rolls out for students to use. Each thing that I put in this cart fit in with my thinking about maker spaces in the library. Each thing had to be something that students could use: paper, pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, craft scissors, tissue paper, popsicle sticks, streamers, buttons, etc. Other supplies went into drawers that will stay in the workroom. In one storage closet, I made one side supplies and decorations and the other side instructional resources.

Throughout the day, the son of my former paraprofessional began arranging all of the rooms in our teacher book room with class sets of books and guided reading books. This is a huge amount of boxes and took a long time just to get the boxes in order. We haven’t even started the process of unpacking those.

By the end of the day, a dad and daughter came and unpacked the biographies. They fit them onto 3 carts, but there was shelf space left over. I was curious if all the books could fit onto 2 carts to free up one cart. We shuffled these around and very tightly fit biographies onto 2 carts. I don’t like that it’s so packed, and I’m not sure if I will keep it like this.

Current student and alumni student helpers

Jennifer McDowell and her daughters (one Barrow student and one alumni) came and unpacked the nonfiction section up to the 700s. For now, they packed the shelves tightly, but I hope we have enough space to go back through and free up some space in each section. This was a big task for them because the hand truck had been borrowed by other teachers. They had to carry each heavy box out of the hallway and across the library to unpack it.

In the midst of all of this, a whiteboard was installed. Three different workers came to ask me where various computer equipment should be installed. We realized that one projector was not wired into the network. I questioned the height of the circulation island for our younger students. Multiple teachers came to ask questions about technology, upcoming projects, and their own shelving in their rooms. I submitted a purchase order, and who knows what else I did and don’t remember. This is exhausting, but each time someone walks in they already talk about how inviting it is. With each unpacked box and piece of furniture, we move one step closer to a new school year. It’s truly exciting.

Nonfiction shelves

Stuffed biography section

New rolling flip tables

Fiction shelves minus some popular series

Boxes lined and ready to unpack

This used to be my storage

Rolling maker space supplies

Storage closets in the workroom

Current student and alumni student helpers

Series pulled from fiction

Putting the 39 Clues together

Charging shelves

Equipment storage

Charging shelves

Fiction ready to shelve

Empty fiction section

Storage drawers

DVDs in equipment room

July 29, 2013 by plemmonsa

Setting Up a New Elementary School Library (Part 1)

I had the honor of putting the very first books on the shelves

After my last post (New Beginnings), I’ve received several requests to document the process of setting up our new library space. It is an exciting and exhausting process to walk into a big open room with endless possibilities. As I’ve said before (and keep repeating to myself), the space can and will change once students begin using it. I can only guess what might work best for students, but the beauty of the furniture and shelving that we have is that it can fairly easily change into something new if it doesn’t work the way I’ve set it up.

Over this past weekend, our SPLOST director, David Stubbs, spent many hours with a few helpers moving all of the boxes out of the library and organizing them by category. This was supposed to be done by the movers, but it wasn’t. He also made sure that all furniture that didn’t belong to the library was delivered to its proper place. This morning, I walked in to see several possible configurations of the shelves, soft seating, tables, stools, and chairs. David walked me around and talked about what he knew about each set of furniture.

Next, my first volunteers arrived. The wonderful Camilla Bracewell, Barrow grandparent, and Carole Langley, spouse of an early Barrow alum, began working on shelves. All of the carts have 3 shelves, but many of our library books are tall, so each cart needed to be switched to 2 shelves. They adjusted the “Everybody” shelves and began bringing in the “Everybody” boxes and sequencing them. I had numbered the boxes 1 of 37, 2 of 37, etc. so that we could easily put them in order. Once in order, they began packing the shelves with books until they had to leave.

While all of this was going on, Julie Moon, Barrow parent and professional organizer, helped me think through all of the spaces in the library. She took the lead on rolling around the remaining shelves to see all of the possibilities we could create for the various sections of the library. Each time furniture was moved, we thought about why it was being moved. For example, some oval rolling tables were moved away from the main instructional area because we decided that they would be great areas for students to collaborate or for teachers, mentors, or volunteers to work with students. The spaces wouldn’t really work well if they were right next to each other, so we changed it. We worked on this from about 10AM-2PM, and I think when we left at the end of the day, we felt pretty good about the placement of all of the furniture. There is a bit more furniture to come, so the arrival of those pieces might change some things. We did our best to think about these pieces as we were laying things out.

Julie continued working on the Everybody section and realized that we had packed the shelves a bit too full. She went back through the entire section and shuffled the books on the shelves so there was a bit of space on each shelf for some expansion.

Jaison Jacob, a Barrow parent, and his daughter came at the end of the day and helped switch a few more of the shelves from 3 shelves to 2 shelves. To end their time, they rolled all of the fiction boxes into the library to get ready for our next wave of unpacking on Wednesday.

Before I left, I went around and labeled each section of shelves with post-its so that volunteers can easily see where sections are.

I can’t say enough about the amazing volunteers that came today. They took over some of the strenuous work so that I could step back and think through the space and layout. I look forward to the coming days and several more wonderful volunteers popping in to support this space. I love the ownership of the space already by parents, grandparents, alumni, and friends.

One curve of the Everybody section. Soft seating fits in the curves.

Straight shelves under windows will hold Nonfiction. Soft seating breaks up the shelving and provides a great window seat.

More Nonfiction shelving

This table was later moved when we decided it was too close to the other instructional area.

We had some trouble deciding what to do with these storage cubes, so we made a wave in the fiction section for now.

The packed Everybody shelves before they were shuffled.

Fiction shelves await books.

The Everybody section

I had the honor of putting the very first books on the shelves

July 26, 2013 by plemmonsa

New Beginnings

It’s that time of year. Time to begin thinking about a new school year, new students, new families, new amazing ideas, new innovative projects, and more. However, this year brings another big “new” thing: a new library! After 2 years of planning, our new school is almost ready. Workers are busily putting on the finishing touches and boxes and furniture are arriving daily.

The process for designing the new media center has been incredible. I have been involved every step of the way. There have been multiple meetings, emails, feedback sessions, brainstorming, etc. to put together the space that students will see in just a few days. The word that we carried with us throughout the whole process was “flexible”. I wanted a space that would be as flexible as possible to allow the space to change and adapt to the kinds of learning that students were involved in. At no time has it been about the stuff. You certainly have to consider the stuff all along the way, but what students, teachers, and other learners are doing within the space is what matters most.

In our new library, you’ll find 2 projection areas. One will be more for story time, discussion, gaming, guest speakers, etc. where students will sit on the floor and the other area will have tables where students can use devices and have a work space while things are shared or demonstrated on the projection board. Our circulation area will not be a traditional desk but more of an island. Students will check in their own books, store them on carts beneath the island, and then check out their own books on their way out. There will be multiple spaces for students to sit, collaborate, read, etc. This will include tables, chairs, stools, counters, bean bags, and other soft seating. I hope that this creates a mix of quiet areas for students as well as areas for more noise, conversation, and collaboration. All of the book shelves will roll so that they can be easily moved to accommodate larger groups or learning needs. The shelves hook together with magnets. Students will have access to an interactive screen for perusing ebooks. There will be a studio where we will use iPads to record and macbooks to edit video. Even this studio is completely mobile and won’t feature the traditional video cameras and multiple wires running across the floor. I can’t wait to see how the space works and how it evolves.

For now, this is how it looks. It’s an overwhelming task to take the brainstorming and visioning and turn an empty room into those ideas. My team of volunteers will be hard at work next week and into the beginning of the school year getting everything ready. We are still waiting on some center casework to be installed as well as casework at the entrance to the library. Our space probably won’t be ready on day 1 of school, but I will count on some miraculous things happening in this amazing space later this school year!