Classroom Libraries
August 6th, 2007 by Christopher HarrisOne of the Leadership Retreat participants brought up a question in response to Doug Johnson’s statement that “libraries = economy.” Despite what we know are the benefits of economy of scale that come from buying resources for common use in the library, more and more programs are turning towards classroom libraries.
Here is the problem. On one hand, we know there are many problems with classroom libraries. They have limited access, provide only a small selection of materials, tend to have no inventory control, and generally do not meet students’ diverse reading needs. And yet many new reading programs are built almost entirely around classroom libraries.
What is a librarian to do? Here is one possible solution. Own the classroom libraries.
What if we helped with collection development for the classroom libraries?
What if we offered to take on their textbook budget and do all the ordering for the classroom libraries through our established book jobber accounts?
What if we barcoded every single book in the classroom libraries and provided a circulation station in each classroom for statistics and inventory control?
What if we set up collection rotations that moved classroom libraries from room to room to maintain fresh selections?
What if we facilitated interclassroom loan of books from room to room?
Heading way outside of the box….
What if we distributed the entire fiction collection into classroom libraries that we managed remotely and maintained the physical library as an information commons?
August 6th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
It can be done1
We have created a model for classroom libraries at our school similar to what you describe. We have what we call a literacy library which contains sets of materials, both fiction and nonfiction. The nonfiction is on a variety of reading levels so a teacher can pull a set of materials (or we pull for them) on the reading levels of the students they have in their class right now — not last years students. Fiction is primarily sets of titles — very few full classroom sets — used for theme based readings, small group lit circles, and supplementing booktalks we do.
We have sold our teachers on browsing tubs for their classroom libraries — teachers sign up either weekly or monthly for a tub of books to be delivered to their room. These are then refreshed on a regular basis. We send out @20 of these tubs weekly, with about 6-8 on a monthly schedule. We pull materials from both the regular library collection and our literacy library . We have trained kids and subs to fill, check out and in, and deliver these tubs so extra workload is not overwhelming. Circulation is through the roof. Yes, we lose some — but the books are out in kids hands being read and used.
There are still a few pockets here and there, but money is not being spent on these individual collections any more –it’s more what people just couldn’t bring themselves to give up. When we did consolidate classroom libraries, it was amazing just how many copies of the same book came out of the woodwork that no one had a clue were duplicated to that extent.
August 7th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Sandra,
Wow! Thanks for sharing. Here I thought I was thinking those crazy thoughts, but you show how this idea can be implemented. I love the power of blogging!
August 7th, 2007 at 9:07 am
I think there is definitely a need for the library to collaborate with teachers on supplementing their classroom libraries. Many teachers come in at the beginning of the year and check out their limit in books (if there is a limit) in several of the schools I’ve worked in. Unfortunately, getting many of those same teachers to return and rotate their “collection” was the hard part. Circulation stations in each classroom? What a novel idea :) It sounds like Sandra’s school has a good system in place to deal with the rotation issue, as well as to increase access/circulation for students and expose them to materials they might not otherwise know about.
August 7th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I love the tubs as a way of deliviering library materials to help flesh out a classroom’s library. Wouldn’t it be great to have an interactive way to have teachers and students build tub themes/requests. Classrooms being able to search though library materials, dragging and dropping them into a “backpack” type system and sending them electronically to the media center, who would then fullfill that request. We could see what the class is reading and add some materials that we know of that would enhance that request. The library could then keep an archive of these tub “themes” for future reference and classroom use. When there were enough of an archive built, teachers could browse through these pre-built tubs themes and there could even be a feedback/comment/rating system implemented for students and teachers to talk about the their experiences with a particular collection.
Teachers and students could then tweak those collections to fit their needs. A dynamic and interactive classroom library…. just a thought. Definately some great ideas here.
August 10th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Okay–we give all the fiction to the classrooms. What happens to readers’ advisory (which in my library goes both directions–students tell me their newest finds and I tell them mine); this also seems like a major organizational headache, so I’d want to make sure that the gains were worthwhile. There are advantages to having a centralized fiction collection. I was briefly considered for a Spanish position at the high school where I’m the librarian. When I went to that classroom to take a look at the resources available, I was amazed to see a huge quantity of materials which would be of interest to other programs. I didn’t expect that in the Spanish teacher’s collection, for some reason. Another time I subbed for a teacher when another teacher dropped by to see if I could locate a video in the teacher’s lbirary. “She said that it’s about such and such and it’s supposed to be on this side of the cupboard.” We spent 10 minutes searching, then gave up. Of course, half of the materials in that collection were illegal to start with. I like that you’re thinking outside of the box, but I don’t see that many advantages to your idea. Maybe it would work better at the elementary level.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Jude,
Readers’ Advisory makes for powerful conversations, but I don’t see why those conversations would have to falter under this type of model. Maybe the library moves this conversation virtual – we are doing so with our Fish4Info.org portal, many others have done so with book blogs. Or, what if the library maintained a smaller fiction section of new and notable books? Perhaps display them cover out and set up a reading area?
Your discussions about stockpiles of resources hidden away in classroom libraries is exactly why we need to look at a new model. The organizational headache is not knowing what is available and where it is located! Once we know what is out there and have digital records for items, it becomes a procedural thing. Our library systems can handle multiple collections in multiple locations – heck, just set up each classroom as a “branch library” if it comes to it. What we would have to do is set up procedures for circulation and movement of materials.
How do we do that? Get the administration behind the idea. Do a quick survey of classroom libraries and start adding up the cost of materials discovered. Do some nice graphing to show how much has been spent and the “value” those dollars would have had if they had been spent in a central library model.
August 15th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
[...] simply aren’t aware enough of library resources to qualify as opposites. Still, check out the great discussion about classroom libraries that has been continuing on [...]
August 15th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
[...] simply aren’t aware enough of library resources to qualify as opposites. Still, check out the great discussion about classroom libraries that has been continuing on [...]
May 18th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I’m trying to organize the books in my classroom library. I have roughly 400 books that are mine (not school property), and I need a system to organize/sot/inventory the books as well as a system for checking them in and out. Any help would be great!