The Nightmare Before Winter Break (Warning: Negativity Below)

Ok, since I promised to be honest, I am just going to put it all out there and say I AM OVERWHELMED, FREAKED-OUT and STRESSED!  I know this will pass and I keep telling myself to breathe in and breathe out but I feel like this:

 

 

Why you may ask?  Let me count the ways...

1) Despite spending a large chunk of time prepping the nonfiction section by physically stacking the books on the shelves, in their new homes, this task was not finished until 3:45pm on Monday.  Why is this a problem?  No other prep (like cutting out signage) was completed.

2) Even with crews of 7 and 8 people working for 3 hour stretches over 2 evenings, the shelves are still not ready for student check-out because they are either a) on the shelf but not organized or b) not standing on the shelves just laid there. (I will post pictures tomorrow and this will be clear.) 

3) I have a TON of books that need to be weeded (due to age and such) and a very present looming deadline to have this done so that my collection is accurately reflected for uploading for funding of new materials.  This is tedious and time consuming.  It involves either removing the back page and sending to the library office or doing it myself.  I started removing back pages to send to the library office and sticking them in a box.  My custodian (whom I dearly love!) emptied the box in her typical awesome efficient way of making the library look fabulous!  She assumed it was trash.  Now I need to pull those books out of the boxes and get them on a cart so I can delete them by hand.  Holy Setback Batman!

4) The Area Superintendent is coming for a scheduled school visit and I don't want to make myself, my principal or the library office look bad by having a library in disarray. I have a scheduled library meeting this afternoon so I am out of the building but I will be back to work afterwards to get it "company ready".

5) And...the holiday books aren't out yet and the library displays are not up for December and...

6) My refrigerator is dying so we had to go shopping last night, after a very long day, to buy a new one. CA-CHING! (Although my husband did appreciate the fact that I did not do my typical back and forth trying to decide which one to choose.  Fatigue can be a plus!)
7) I am looking ahead at trying to think about a plan for entering the location into Destiny for the Nonfiction and Fiction books and the deadline for submitting the Common Ground proposal.

Ok, so the whining is over for now.  I promise to get back to my more positive self by next post (whenever that may be!).

58 and Counting!

The time crunch is looming so I spent my planning today condensing the student suggested categories into one cohesive list.  I took their categories (some of which were really interesting) and my rough list and combined those.

Tonight I sat down and typed the list and we are at 58 categories (so far)!  I've emailed the list to Fran, Kelly and Chimere to get feedback.  I know there will be more additions but I have looked at it so much that I can't see it any longer.  I'll share the list later when we have finalized it.

2 weeks until the crew comes to transform the Nonfiction.  YIKES!

It's Election Day!

Did you get your sticker today?  Did you vote?  I did!  It's such an important right that we have and, even if my candidate isn't the winning one, I feel like I had input and I made a difference.  I think my students are going to need to feel like they had a say in this reorganization of our library.  I need to make sure that THEIR voice is heard and appreciated.  After all, this is their library too! 

Yesterday the emails were flying as I realized that I only had 11 days to get my space prepped and ready for the shift to genrefication in the fiction section of the library.  I am blessed to have autonomy in this process, to have my decisions supported and to have resources made available to me. I am also blessed to have suggestions, questions and the opportunity to "defend" my choices and flesh out my thinking.

The Fiction Categories have been chosen!  They are:

Action/Adventure
Humorous Fiction
Historical Fiction
Mystery
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Sports Fiction
Just Like Me
Graphic Novels

Chimere and I had discussions about the combination of Science Fiction (one of her favorite genres) and Fantasy.  The two are closely related and my rationale, for combining them, is that having these books all together in one place will expose readers to both genres and an expanded set of books that fall in the categories. 

Fran mentioned a category "Just Like Me" and originally I thought, "what?!" but the more I think about it, the more I like it.  I like the approachability of "Just Like Me" versus Realistic Fiction.  I perceive this category being contemporary Realistic Fiction. 

I've printed reports from Titlewave showing my Collection Statistics and aged titles in my Fiction section.  I've also begun to curate Resource Lists in Destiny, using MARC record fields, to have a starting point for classifying the books in the Fiction section.

Reports, reports and more reports!



If you look at the photos of my library, you will see that many popular fiction titles are already housed in the Series section or in baskets for quick and easy access.  I am considering moving some of these back into the new "genrefied" fiction sections to expose students to other similar titles.  I am still thinking on this although I need to speed up my thinking as this big shift is occurring in just 10 days!

As all this is occurring, at the beginning of this post I mentioned having the students give input into categories for the nonfiction section.  Since this is a shortened week, due to a half day Professional Development on Monday and closed for Election Day today, I am going to have the 3rd through 5th grade classes for the rest of this week break into groups and create lists of categories they would like to see in the nonfiction section.  By introducing the concept of genrefication and sharing the process of transformation for out library in the upcoming months, I hope to ease any anxiety some may have about where their "favorite" book is now residing in the library. :-)  Don't worry, the Titanic book will still be there!

My plan is to break the classes into 5 groups and allow them to generate categories they would use, in their kid friendly language, and that they think others might be interested in using. Then I want to look at the categories that consistently appear across classes and grade levels and compare them to the categories floating around in my head and on the many pieces of paper that I write notes upon.  (I admit it!  I am a Post-It Junkie!  The more the merrier and the more colorful and quirky the better.)

Getting this input from students is something for the PLUS side of doing a mid-year shift.