No More Dewey - Part 3

If you are thinking about going to the bookstore format instead of using Dewey make sure you think about it a lot before you start moving books. I think that my students will benefit from this change but it is a lot of work. I first weeded and inventoried. Then with my printed out inventory list I looked at the list to try to figure out main category headings for my sections. I thought since I lived 35 miles from my school I could cut the inventory sheets into the main categories and subcategories and then go in and just pull the books from the shelf. I found that it was a good way to start but I really needed to have my hands on each book. I have spent many hours dividing the books up and just when I think that I have a section done I figure out that it should be different. Now that I am getting close to being done I don't know what to call this section. I want to pull some of my everybody fiction in to it but not all. I am thinking that in my holiday section I would like to have the everybody fiction that deals with a holiday in that section. When I finally get this section done I will post some pictures of what the shelves look like. I think it will look better when we move into our new library in the fall of 2013 because I really don't have much space in our current library.

A Horse Named Viking

This last week I read a recently published book call A Horse Named Viking by Caroline Akervik.  The book is about the life of a horse named Viking. Viking is not your typical horse but a horse with attitude and a mind of his own.  He is a horse that can not be controlled and goes through many trainers before he finds trainers that will work with him the way he wants. The author knew her subject well and by the time I finished reading the book I had a desire to be part of the horse world that the author described. The descriptions in this book were so good that I felt like I was sitting watching the scenes as I read the book. I fell in love with the horse Viking in this story even know the horse wasn't what you would call the typical horse.  This book made me laugh and made me cry. I could not put the book down until I had finished it. I would recommend this book for your students that love stories about horses. Your students will learn a lot about horses and about the world international horse competition. This book was wonderful. I believe that this books audience will be students in grades 4-9 (and many adults).

The author of this book is from Eau Claire, Wisconsin and is a Library Media Specialist at a local elementary school. 

Book trailer

Reviews done by others:
Good Reads
Amazon

Cool Bulletin Board

Nicole Brown, my student teacher this last quarter, created this wonderful bulletin board outside the library at my middle school. The morning that it was completed the students actually ran into each other trying to read it. The students just loved it.

No More Dewey - Part 2

I have finally finished weeding the everybody nonfiction section. I then did inventory on the section and marked the missing books lost. This allowed me two times to get my hands on the books. I carried a sheet with my categories on it and kept adding as I went through.  I am now ready to start dividing up the section. As I was working my way through this section I tried to figure out how to divide the section. I debated with the biography books as to whether to put them in the sections with their subject or make a people section and divide them by their subject in the people section. I really had to think about the way my students might use the books. I decided that I was going to create the people section and divide by subject. It will be interesting to see what other categories I will have to rethink. I am excited to get this process going. I don't work during the summer but I have an aide that keeps the library open during summer school so I am hoping to have the section into piles for her to redo spine labels.

No More Dewey

This month I went to the WEMTA conference and listened to many interesting speakers talk about all kinds of things that I could do in my school as the LMS. I went to one workshop were in a side note the speaker talked a little bit about changing her library to follow the bookstore model. I had been thinking about that same thing for a while. I want to make it easier for my elementary students to find books. I want them to do more browsing instead of always picking the same thing. I am now on a mission to change my everybody fiction into the bookstore model. Here are the steps that I have taken so far.

1. I ran off a report on the use of all the books in the everybody nonfiction.
2. I highlighted every book that had 2 or less uses.
3. I am weeding the section using that report.
4. I am coming up with my categories that the section will be divided up into. I have looked at the BISAC website to help me with categories. Having the print out of the whole section I have started looking at titles to come up with the categories. 

Here are the categories that I have come up with so far.  These are still changing daily as I start pulling books off the shelf and seeing that I can create a new subcategory. I am trying to make sure that each subcategory has at least 10 book in it. If it has less than ten I put it into the general subcategory.