In my last post, I mentioned maybe doing pop-up displays with a mix of themed books from all parts of our collection to increase interest in our nonfiction offerings. Here’s my first attempt, themed around figuring out middle school. It includes a mix of graphic novels, fiction, biographies, and nonfiction books on various school, relationship, & health topics.
My goal for this school year is to boost circulation in our nonfiction section. So far, I’ve rebalanced the entire collection to remove gaps, eliminate overstuffed shelves, and add more front-facing books. This week, I used WordArt to redo the nonfiction signs using thematically shaped word clouds that reflect the topics contained in each section.
Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about our fiction collection. Before leaving for the summer, I redid our fiction shelves to make them more browse-able too.
I continue to be obsessed with finding ways to make our nonfiction section feel more like the nonfiction section in a bookstore, and less like an inscrutable wall of books organized by arcane numerical wizardry. This week, how I’m planning to use the front half of the library to drive traffic to the back (where the nonfiction lives).
As I mentioned last time, my current obsession is finding ways to make our nonfiction section feel more like the nonfiction section in a bookstore, and less like an inscrutable wall of books organized by arcane numerical wizardry.
More than half of our collection is nonfiction, yet only about 14% of the books checked out in our library are from the nonfiction section. Most of those are for class assignments. And yet, this section is full of gems. Is it possible to entice students to browse our nonfiction section like they do our fiction stacks?
The teacher librarian at my school constantly talks about the importance of advocating for our school library and its services. So when I saw Kelsey Bogan (@kelseybogan) tweet about her one-page end of the year library report, I knew I wanted to create something similar for us. Here’s what I learned in the process.
Hello, friends! It’s summer and at last I’m back!
If I were you, I’d be really curious to know what it’s like to work in a public school library during Omicron. With the caveat that our district has done a lot of mitigation work during this pandemic (ventilation upgrades, mask mandates, vaccine mandates), and is located in California so eating outdoors and opening windows is possible, Omicron is still having an impact.
My job is amazing, and I love working with both middle schoolers and books, but I do have a tendency to use up all my words at work. But we have a day off today, so I thought I’d spent at least part of it telling you how things have been going at the library.
CATERPICKLES 