The library is finally open! We had our school Christmas party on December 22, and officially opened the library. I started the process about ten months ago when the Seabees finally finished our bathrooms and moved their equipment out of the library room. The first big move was getting all the textbooks and teachers companions out of the room and into the classrooms and office. After that my principal and I decided that the tall metal shelves, which are a bit unstable and rusty, weren't suitable for an elementary school library, so my principal began negotiating with DOE for materials to build new shelves. In the meantime I sorted through the existing library inventory. I tossed any science books published before 1980 and any book published before 1965, except in the case of reading classics like Tom Sawyer. Then the third and fourth grade helped remove all the old encyclopedias (published circa 1960), which we saved since they have pictures that can be cut up for projects. While the sorting of what to keep and what to toss was going on, I was also inventorying all the books that came in via donation.
By the time the room was empty, it was the end of the year and DOE had not yet delivered on materials, so we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally the materials were dropped off about a month into the current school year and the school board organized a few days for community members to come and build the new shelves.
They are a huge improvement over the old ones. It was finally time to put the books on the shelves. We decided on a color coded organization system so that students will be able to help maintain the library and even the youngest can figure out where the books belong. I used a simplified version of the Library of Congress Classification System and just gave each of our categories a color. We had hoped to get stickers for the spines of the books that matched the categories, but instead I and the third grade colored pieces of scrap paper which were then cut into small strips that will be taped to the spine of the books. This process is ongoing, though the books are categorized, the taping of almost 700 books will take some time. I was also able to put together a special Pacific shelf which highlights books about the Pacific region, especially fiction.
We finally have a place to put the student computers, which are in the process of being hooked up to the internet. There are plans in the works to start a computer club with topics like typing, safe internet usage, and word processing. Aside from the books and computers, the library also contains our school's e-readers, all of which have the same books on them. They are available for the older students, and especially useful for English classes given that we don't have any reading books other than the textbooks. Now teachers can assign books from the e-readers and broaden the curriculum beyond the textbook. The final piece of the library are the shelves in the front room full of games! Many people (including the Seabees!) generously donated many different games for my students. We are so happy that these games help develop critical thinking, logic, and strategic skills. There are about 25 games available to the students with cards, board games, and some that don't fit either category. Connect Four is by far the most popular game, with Chess, Checkers, Sorry! and the Rubik's Cube following. We just added Guess Who? and Battleships to the shelf, I bet they'll both be very popular.
It has taken about ten months to fix up the interior, sort books, build new shelves, and organize everything, and the students are so excited! The PTA chairman and members of the community were on hand to witness the event and the “ribbon cutting.” The day of the opening the students spent three hours looking around, picking out books, and testing the e-readers. We took a break for lunch and most of them came right back, only leaving when their parents came to get them. We are going to kick off the new year with a reading challenge, and I am so excited to see what students choose to read.
The internet has been terrible here, which is why it has taken me so long to post this, so I’m going to try and do the photos in another post, keep an eye out!
