Hello, I'm a Newly-Minted Elementary School Librarian!
As my "old" blog was a repository of all things kindergarten for many years, I anticipate this one evolving into much of the same for my new job as a library media specialist. This is my inaugural post as a "liberry lady," and I continue to welcome comments, suggestions, encouragement and humor from readers.
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Hello there! Pardon the puffs of dust that are appearing as I shake this blog awake after a three-ish year hiatus, but it's time for me to begin making the transition from Kindergarten's 3 R's to my new reflection and sharing site, From LMNOP to LMS.
I've been hired as my school's newest librarian!
You should have seen the happy dance I did when I was offered the job. If you'd been in my remote learning kindergarten classroom (properly masked, of course) or had been watching me via Zoom through my laptop and my extra camera, you would have. I practically performed a Riverdance jig.
After a quarter of a century as solely a kindergarten whisperer, I now get all of my building's students, staff, and families as learners, readers, leaders, and collaborators. And I get to read to every student in the school. And I get to teach and support students as they explore and grow their intellectual freedom from learning how and why to research topics to determining their own interests and questions and following wherever their curiosity leads them. And I get to straighten books after pulling them from the back of their shelves to the front edges because I'm "old school" like that. And I get to suggest books and resources, and of course, I'll be loving it when students make reading recommendations to me because goodness knows after twenty-five years of living in the land of picture books, I'm behind on awesome fictional series and the coolest non-fiction sources for anyone over the age of six.
I get to put everything in order and regularly return items to their spots. That part of the job definitely resonates with me. I've enjoyed the organization of libraries ever since I was a student, let loose to read what I wanted, and also as a library aide during my summers and occasional semesters during college. All can be right in the world when there's a reliable system in place.
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Week 1 of summer vacation was spent sorting through, organizing and cleaning the library's professional bookroom and office.
It took ten hours to pull everything out of shelves and file cabinets in what will eventually be the space used as a book prep/hospital room (and office, of sorts). I saved 3/4 of one file cabinet drawer of content to look over to familiarize myself with library operations, but all of the rest was tossed.
Twenty hours were spent:
Gutting shelves of periodicals from 2003-2012 because honey, none of them have been used in the thirteen years I've taught in the building. It's time to update subscriptions to a useful balance of both digital and paper magazines for students and staff.
Pulling book sets out of hard-to-reach cabinetry and relocating them to shelving that is in plain sight within the professional book room. I still have to put them all in alphabetical order.
Tossing eleventy-billion boxes of plastic tablecloths saved from prior book fairs.
Unpacking my own professional (mostly storybook) library and selecting which books are precious keepers to me. After clearing out almost two decades' worth of periodicals, I was able to store a bay's worth of my own personal collection on-site. All of the rest of my books have been offered to our custodial staff for their children and grandchildren. Any books that remain will go onto a cart as quick-grab books for younger students to use during library time until I've taught them how to use their shelf markers.
Unpacking, sorting, and storing my bulletin board and monthly craft resources in order from August to May. I still need a file cabinet that fits legal hanging files added to my office space, but until then, they're stored in crates.
Meanwhile, Week 2 of summer vacation was spent rethinking the flow of my new teaching space. My classes will provide teachers their prep times, and it is unlikely that I will have an aide until parent volunteers are allowed back into the building post-COVID, so efficiency is key.
First up, I stripped all of the chapter books and most E/Picture/Storybooks from their shelves, cleaned all of the bays, removed every shelf and shelf pin, and recalculated how much space would be needed to keep all of the picturebooks along two walls. Then I reset all of the shelving and moved the books, choosing one further adjustment that as a veteran kindergarten teacher I KNOW will benefit students but as a new librarian made me question whether or not I'd be barred from ever being invited into the Cool Library Media Specialists' Club (certainly one exists, right?): I ran the books in ABC order along the top, then middle, then bottom rows, left to right along both lengths of walls rather than top to bottom/left to right by individual bays. Young children must learn how to track, and their bodies need to move, so singing the Alphabet Song while traversing longer stretches of books returning from the furthest right point to the furthest left spanning a floor, will better help them to internalize the skill. All shelves have room to grow, and an empty shelf has been left at the end past Z as well.
Next, I moved three sets of free-standing book cabinets that originally stored juvenile biography and picture books. These cabinets haven't been moved since my arrival to the school in 2008 (I'm guessing from an undated library map that I discovered buried in the office files that their position might have been the library's original design), so the now-visible carpet dents are impressive. I configured them into a U shape, with the juvenile chapter books neatly housed in their entirety on the outer edge of the U, with the juvenile biographies and juvenile graphic novels resting on the inner edge. There is a LOT of unused space, so as the chapter book collection grows, it can easily wrap around the outer edge to the inner, with the biographies easily shifting to the right. No worries, these (as all other books in the library are to be) resources were traditionally shelved.
Before:
To keep my youngest library patrons within semi-easy reach and to prevent them (and me) from wandering too far from the instructional area and circulation desk, I emptied three more free-standing cabinets that were housing fiction for older readers in the hopes that juvenile non-fiction would fit nicely next to the U and storybook walls. These cabinets are longer than the first three that I moved on my own, so I had no problem baking thank-you cookies for the tech team staff who happened to be in the building on the day I needed all three units moved ten inches to the left. Hooray for the tech team helping in a non-tech-related situation! They received oatmeal-raisin-spice and oatmeal-M&M-chocolate chip cookies. Juvenile non-fiction only needed (both sides of) one and a half of these longer cabinets, so a quick call to a former library assistant/current colleague/past Super Star mom was made so I could figure out what other items could be shifted to the area.
See how long these mamma-jammas are? D-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y required appreciation cookies!
A-L-L of fiction past the letter E, regular biographies, regular non-fiction, graphic novels, and reference books still need to be moved to their new homes, which will take longer as cabinetry at the back of the library have been used to store our district's physical therapist's equipment for the past year. I've been shifting shelf after shelf of books using carts and the tops of all available cabinetry, but instead of moving books two times, all of the shufflings have required at least twice the amount of relocations. At least I can say I'm getting a good workout each day, pulling and pushing carts, grabbing and repositioning books, and tightening each row with bookends.
I also managed to accidentally figure out a wall decor refresh that combines an outdated painted mural and a large framed portrait of our school's namesake, which frees up the visual space for some updates that I hope will grab everyones' interest and make the place look more inviting once I'm able to add the finishing touches. How was it an accident? I took everything off of the walls and stored it on a single cabinet that happens to be in front of the mural. Ta-da! Magic! I have no problem with happy accidents, no sirree.
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Did I mention that as I've stripped each bay and repositioned shelves that I've been cleaning every single one? Oh yes- my hands have required multiple washings every hour. EVERY. HOUR. And the library smells very clean after my extra containers of Clorox Wipes have been put to good use. Once I'm finished, the custodial team will only need to move the regular furniture to clean the carpets and the windows.
Though a Herculean task, literally putting my hands on every single item in this collection has been the perfect way to familiarize myself with what we have. If I can get the rest of the collection relocated next week (ten hours for four days) I will only need a few days to get the rest of the library zhuzhed and ready for the upcoming school year. I've got so much that I'll need to learn about scheduling, grade-level lessons/projects, and Destiny that I want the library itself to be ready so I can effectively use my time with my new LMS colleagues before I get to welcome everyone back to the collection that had to hibernate for far too long. This initial investment of time and the opportunity to think a little bit out of the box have been invaluable.
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Whew. That, in a very large nutshell, is how I've started on this new adventure, so feel free to check in on me here anytime.
Wish me luck, and of course, share with me a must-read title or series, friends.
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