Almost finished with construction!

It is hard to imagine, but we are almost finished with our library overhaul! Sweat, tears, and love have been put into making this library more comfortable, inviting, user-friendly, and handicap accessible. While there is some tweaking with signage and some decluttering to do around the circulation desk, I think this looks so much better!

Some of the things we changed:
1. We went through a genrefication process.  

I asked students what genres we should include, started narrowing down our choices, ordered materials, and got to work.  This was the longest process.  The easiest way for us, since we could not shut the media center down, was to mark and catalog as we went (while keeping fiction alphabetically while we did this).  When books were marked, we calculated how many in each genre we had, decided where to place books based on space, and then moved all the books into their genres.

2. We moved around the furniture.  

The two bookshelves in the middle were removed and placed at the entrance of the library, moved the tables to more group friendly spacing, and finally we mounted the TV on the wall, which freed up space from removing the huge TV stand.

3. The Satilla Grant

I am lucky to work in the county that I do in which the community cares about learning to read!  Satilla EMC, the local electric company, donated $1,000 in the form of a grant for our library.  With that money, we were able to purchase a wireless projector, a screen, and a new Kindle for e-books.  The projector and screen are part of my initiative for a more collaborative working space for our students and teachers.  Students can connect to the projector wirelessly through Chromecast with their Chromebooks. 

4. 10 NEW COMPUTERS!!

We were able to purchase 10 new computers from our Title I funds this year! One row is along the office space and are connected to our printer.  The other computers are along the nonfiction section in the middle of the library.  This helps us in observing students who are on computers so that we are able to help them more readily.

BEFORE

AFTER

Where do we go from here? There are still a great number of changes I'd like to make. These are the ones that are at the top of my list
1. Keep working on the collaboration center
2. Begin and maintain a MakerSpace
3. Build a listening/tech center for Kindle use4. Update the professional development section
5. Update the biography section
6. Update our audio-visual equipment for the news crew
7. 2. Painting would be nice because the paint is dingy after 20+ years.