Books, books, books

September 21-1 hour
September 22-30 minutes
September 23-30 minutes

This past week Mt. Ulla has had a book fair. Our library runs on a completely flexible schedule so teachers and students can come to the library as they need. To benefit the teachers and students, the library remains open for circulation during the week of the book fair. Mrs. Sloop said that there are a lot of schools that close down circulation during that time because of how busy and chaotic it can be. She does not believe in that. She wants all teachers and students to feel welcome at all times. She said that it might be possible because we have a smaller school of under 340 students but she still feels strongly about it even if there were more. With all that said, there are books everywhere in the library! Mrs. Sloop and Mrs. Sheets stay so busy with circulation and book fair that they have difficulty finding the time to shelve all the books. The books still remain available to the students, they just are not where they belong.

I have been trying to go in during my student's enhancement times to help shelve the books. On September 21 I went into the library while my students were on the play ground from 11:30 to 12:00 and again when they had Guidance from 2:00 to 2:30. September 22 my students got to go to the book fair to shop. While they shopped, I helped shelve and helped some students find books for checkout. On the 23 I went into the library when my students were in Art class from 8:30 to 9:00. While I was shelving, I tried to come up with a system that made the process more efficient instead of walking back and forth from one side of the library to the other. For the nonfiction books, I made several stacks based on the books call numbers. I now have a fairly good idea of which part of the shelf that the books are located, so I separated them based on which side of the shelf they belonged and their Dewey decimal number. I had a similar system for the fiction books by placing them in stacks in alphabetical order and where they belonged on the shelves.

I have enjoyed shelving books because it is helping me learn the Dewey decimal system and I love organizing things. I have enjoyed learning how the library is set up.



Within these times, I have also helped students check in their books, check out books, and help find books using the online catalog then finding them on the shelves. One child was looking for a book on parrot fish. It said that it was in, but because all the books have been here, there, and everywhere, we were having difficulties. We eventually found it on one of the book carts waiting to be shelved. Another child wanted a book on China. There were several books on the Chinese New Year and she was satisfied with those.