Guest Blogger - Stacy Barry

As promised in a previous post, here are the thoughts from one of the Lighthouse School librarians that came to visit.

Greetings all from Libraryland! My name is Stacy Barry and I am the LMS at Rodger’s Forge E.S. I have been in the library at RFES for 3 years and loving every minute of it. This year has been a year of a lot of change, as we are 1 of the 10 BCPS Lighthouse Schools. The changes have been so exciting and the way that my library looks and feels is completely different from the last 2 years – from furniture, management, technology integration, and the circulation of materials (just to name a few!). Well with all this change, great things have come and I am looking for more ways to improve the library experience for all the RFES students. With that in mind, the opportunity came around for me to visit Sandy Bixby’s library. I felt so lucky to have the opportunity to talk with her about the organization of her collection! From the very beginning, I felt the urge to run over and start browsing books. The student friendly signs, interactive props, and “undeweyed” shelves made it so easy for me to find books in different genres. I immediately started searching for fairy tales and pets, topics I had just finished talking about with the kindergartners that day! I loved the idea of students being able to find books based on interest – with biographies, science, social studies, and literature all being merged in to “genred” areas. I thought about the excitement the kids would feel looking through ocean books, unexpectedly stumbling upon distinguished ocean explorer biographies to share with families. I couldn’t help but see how circulation statistics could only go up and students could find so many books that they never knew existed! Additionally, with each moment there, I felt increasingly excited about the possibility of shelving books so much faster too –whew! I left the visit feeling a sense of awe for the amount of work that was put in to create such a student-centered collection. I also left asking myself – where and when can I start!?!? I may have to get a cup of coffee before I answer those questions just yet, but once the caffeine hits – let the fun begin! Thanks Sandy for an AMAZING experience!