Small Shifts| Big Results
Maura Rhodes, Fairview HS Teacher Librarian & Team
With the bond for my school being a few more years away, I wanted to do some updates to the library space that didn’t cost a lot of money. Last year we finished installing some bamboo countertops and added more electrical outlets for phone and laptop charging. Some of the updates this summer included painting the entrance doors, transforming the librarian office into a collaboration room with large screen monitor and genrefying the fiction section.
Tapping My PLN
The painting and furniture moving for the first two projects was minor compared to tackling the genre project. I thought doing it over the summer would be an ideal time, since most of the books were returned. I have been to workshops, discussions and panels in my former state by two ground shaking librarians, Library Girl @Jennifer Legarde and Jennifer Northrup@candidlibrarian. Tiffany Whitehead’s blog was also inspirational in her work with genrefying. I asked for advice from some of the high school librarians in BVSD and talked in depth to Beatrice at Monarch, as well as looking at her web site the monarch method. I knew, I didn't want to tackle the whole collection (non-fiction and fiction) at once, so I settled with what I thought would be good for Fairview.
Goals
The reasons for changing the fiction have been many fold, but my number one goal reason was to empower the students to find what they wanted more easily. My goal was to increase self-sufficiency for the students, without so many steps. Can you tell me where the mystery books are? Do you have any books like Hunger Games?
Results
I'm getting a lot of positive feedback from teachers and students. Students aren't wandering aimlessly around the books, but instead are finding what they want. It has been amazing to watch the students in the space and see them browsing the sections. The collaboration room is being used, slowly as students realize they can use it. A student that wanted to Skype with a professor and needed a quiet space and the newly created collaboration room was perfect for her. I haven't had any negative comments.
Resources
The actual process helped me get to know my library collection. Check out
Maura’s How-To Guide to Genrefying Your Fiction Collection. It includes a link to the process and resources I used to inform my work in this effort. Of course, if you search Pinterest or just Google the keywords genrefying school library, you will get a plethora of information.
Finally, checkout the slideshow I put together to promote the changes I made in the library to members of my learning community.
Maura, thanks so much for these detailed instructions! I have been wanting to do this with our fiction wall (we've already genrified or collectionified - such as "Early Readers" several book types which has seriously streamlined book-finding and shelving). We have about 3000 fiction titles. Any guesstimate as to how many hours that might take? Thanks again, - Colleen (Comm. Montessori)
ReplyDeleteHi Colleen, it will always take longer to do this work during the school year with classes and students using the space. I did this work over the summer and it took me 3 weeks with about 5000 books. Of course, I ended up weeding some of them too.I did have two volunteers that work two days with me. I would estimate about a month to do if you only have an hour here or there. A parent volunteer would be a great person to help move the process along. I know some librarians have even used the students to put the books into genres by stacking them on a table and using sticky notes to tag them. I hope that helps, Maura.
ReplyDeleteYou, Beatrice and Becky have proved to be tremendous resources for this process. Thank you!
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