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Patron Self Sufficiency
Maura Rhodes, Teacher Librarian | Fairview High School
I began the journey to create student self sufficiency as an elementary librarian. It was necessity that led me to put self checkout in place. I was teaching 33 classes a week with over 650 students per week and no support staff. I initially looked at self checkout to help with crowd control and to help “me” be more available to the students to help with book selection, work with teachers, time to teach, etc. The students took ownership of their book checkout, circulation exploded, and my sanity was preserved. Now, did all those students read every single book they checked out, I don’t know, but I do know that I personally don’t read every single book that I checkout from the library. What mattered was students were checking out in a timely manner and they weren’t giving up or getting frustrated because I was dealing with other patrons.
everything was centered around the circulation desk
At Fairview High School’s library everything was centered around the circulation desk or the Command Center as I refer to it. If a student needed anything, most of the time they had to ask. The desk was cluttered with everything under the sun. Pens, paper, 3 hole punch, markers, coloring pencils, 2 or 3 staplers, scissors attached by a chain, electric stapler, pencil sharpener, bookmarks, paperclips, toys, the magnetic desensitizer, a computer for book checkout/in, a drop hole for book return and two other computers one for the para and another for students to use that needed to print quickly. Plus a printer and fax machine. Behind the circulation desk was a “free stuff” corner with more supplies, binders, paper, notebooks, etc.
I was overwhelmed with stuff...
...it drove me crazy and I slowly tried to peel away the layers and remove things and pare down to the essentials. This summer I contemplated this even more after the loss of one full time and one halftime support staff positions. I knew in order to help things flow I would need to make the library more self-sufficient and the space more user friendly. I started by clearing out non-essential stuff. I used three old laptop carts and removed the doors and cubicles to make them into an area where all the askable things could go. For example, pens, pencils, notebooks, paper, rulers, markers, pencil sharpeners, etc. All these items now live in these three carts and I call it the “supply area.” I have had to retrain the students of where this stuff now lives. The circulation desk is a mammoth size 25’ X I wanted to cut one whole end off, but was told I couldn’t, due to the power that runs under the floor embedded in the concrete. I opted to remove just 2 feet off of one end and this has made a big difference in the flow of the space. I also removed a metal file cabinet and other items that were cluttering up the circulation desk.
3 easy steps to checkout
The demagnetizer was removed and self checkout was set up for student's to use with a directional stand and poster explaining the 3 easy steps to check out a book.
This is the first year with many of these changes in place. I hope to add more features and always look to improve my processes to make learning and using the library space as simple as possible.
