I was showing a fellow librarian around “my” new library today and we were chatting and discussing various aspects of middle school librarianship. We got to the nonfiction section and both sighed. I started that mine probably needed some significant weeding and that I’d made a start. I pointed out a few particularly nice books in the collection (Annick Press still does nonfiction well, the … Continue reading Are nonfiction books still relevant?
Well, the response to my last post was quite surprising. So I’ll continue with a few posts on very easy things to change the look and feel of your guide. First off though, please do consider joining the Springshare lounge – help is literally there for the asking, and no question is too basic. You join a group based on your usage. Secondly in response … Continue reading Libguides: a couple of easy things (1)
aka I think I’d better think it out again … Over the summer I completely rethought our school library libguides, and I’ve received quite a few positive comments and questions as to how I made the guides. Unfortunately there is not quick and easy answer, as the process resembles more closely this TED talk on building a toaster from scratch than a few lessons on … Continue reading How I built a libguide
New year, new chances, old problems. The perennial one of scheduling library time. I kind of started commenting on people’s posts and questions on FaceBook and then decided it merited a blog post on its own. There is also a whole discussion on libraries and librarians going at the IBO level where priorities, recognition, roles, responsibilities etc. are also being hashed out. But coming from … Continue reading Scheduling – priorities and dissonance
I’ve been meaning to write this for the longest time – after the library renovation / redesign what is working and what isn’t. For the history have a look under make-over or library design posts and categories. I was prompted to write this really due to three main questions that have been floating around the Facebook librarian groups that I’m a member of. The questions of … Continue reading Storage, seating and signage
One of the advantages of being on a tight budget with constraints, as I’ve written about before, is that it forces one into being thrifty and eco-conscious. I just wanted to say a few words here about ways in which we managed to employ the 4R’s in our library renovation. Library shelving is very very expensive. And there is a reason for this – it … Continue reading Reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose
Planning for a library expansion and renovation involves considerable time, thought and work on the “hardware” of the physical building. Including last week’s work of packing up the books and getting them put into storage. I’d blogged a little about how just prior to that we’d done a lot of weeding, and sorting out patron data on our system, as somehow the physical sorting out … Continue reading Firmware (& Software)
When I tell people we’re getting to renovate and extend our library their first reaction is “wow, that’s amazing, you’re so lucky!”. And yes, prima facie it is so. But right now it’s feeling rather overwhelming. And ironically most of that is not so much to do with the change as the amount of preparation that needs to be done. Speaking of change – you … Continue reading Make-over update
One of the librarians on a FB group I’m in asked me if I had a check-list for our library redesign. Which made me realise that no, I didn’t. I’ve more or less had a running checklist in my mind all year, and particularly since I did INF536 – Designing Spaces for Learning (you can see more posts under category INF536). But I think it’s probably … Continue reading Library redesign – checklist
As librarians we often make it our life and vacation’s mission to visit other libraries and drool over what they have (or haven’t got), how they’re organised things, what their displays look like – how the signage works out etc etc. and then we come home and try and adapt our current situation to optimise our own assets and spaces into something even more user … Continue reading Library redesign – current issues
