Wow! Thanks so much! Since we just got Destiny I think I'm going to try
checking out in the middle of the media center with a laptop. (Thanks to
Carole, my Broward County partner!) And there are lots of good ideas here
that I'm going to seriously consider. Thanks for helping!
____________________________________________________________________________________________
What about student volunteers? We have a class at my school that
requires 10 community service hours, 5 of which can be in school. I
have many kids ask me if they can help out in the library for this
time. I see that you're in an elementary school, but if you have any
contacts at the high school(s) in your district, maybe see if any
National Honor Society kids would be interested in helping out, as
they also are required to have so many service hours.
Another thing would be to see if there are any parent volunteers who
enjoy working in the library. At the elementary school I
student-taught in, many parents wanted to volunteer in their child's
school but not directly in their classroom. We had a large number of
these parents who would end up in the library, and they did a
wonderful job. Some of them preferred to shelve and straighten, one
woman would sticker and stamp new books, etc. If this would be a
feasible thing at your school, it's worth a try!
____________________________________________________________________
Lots of repetition year after year with the "Shelf Marker Hokey Pokey"
for the little ones and demos for the older ones (I have the kids do the
demos for the rest of their classmates at the beginning of each year),
reminders that if I see them not using their shelf marker, they sit down,
etc. helps alot. Mostly though, since we have Destiny, I will take my
laptop with an attached scanner and sit right in the middle of where the
most action is (fiction, or non fiction areas) and then I have a visual of
what is going on, rather than sitting at my large, U-shaped circ desk with
the large Dells where my visual of the entire room is limited. I am loving
having the option of using any computer for check out, but mostly that I
can use the laptop right among the students. Since they know I am watching
they try harder to be more careful. This also is a big help when I d o
morning checkouts and have lots of kids coming in at once with no media
clerk this year.
_______________________________________________________________________
Instead of finding yourself stuck behind the desk checking out, is there a
way you can teach the kids to do check-outs? My having an aide is no sure
thing going forward and this seems like it would cause less problems than
the other way around.
__________________________________________________________________________
In my media center I have the kids use Shelf Markers (Home Depot
painted paint stirrers) and I teach the kindergartners how to use
them (stick them in the shelf where you want to look at a book,
pull the book off the shelf, look at it. Want it? Take book and
shelf marker to check out desk. Don't? Now you know where to put
the book back.) 1st and 2nd graders get a quick review at the beginning of
the year. New students are trained to use them by "tour guides" in their
class. I keep the shelf markers in a coffee can on my desk and when
they go looking for books (especially in the nonfiction section)
they have to be using a shelf marker. If I catch them not using
one they're tossed out of that aisle. Also my Everybody fiction
(picture books) are just alphabetical by first letter of the
author's last name so all authors with A are on a shelf together in
no order, except that we keep all the prolific authors books
together (like David Shannon). When I first saw this system I
thought it was ridiculous and it IS harder to find a specific book.
But when you don't have help shelving books or keeping them in
order it works really well. Even first graders can shelve an
Everybody book by getting it on the right shelf!
__________________________________________________________
I'm dealing with a similar issue myself. I want students to demonstrate
care of our resources and they don't always because of the mad rush to
find a football book. When students leave our library class they take a
ticket back to their class. Just today I told them I'd check the shelves
before they leave and if the shelves are great I'll pass on an added
complement and hole punch a star into their ticket.
I'm also planning some direct instruction on how to straighten a shelf
with a list of steps and pictures for the younger ones. Students do need
to be directly taught what we expect and they need time to practice it in
a positive environment.
____________________________________________________________
I guess I need to consider myself very lucky because I still have my
aide. On the days that she is absent, this is how I do it. I am still
out there in the stacks while the kids are looking for books. As they
make their selections they go back to their tables with them to look at
them. When there are five minutes left in the period. I go to the circ
desk and call the kids up a table at a time to do checkout. This might
not work if you have high traffic from students who are "dropping in" to
get books. I have also used a program that I called "Adopt a Shelf". I
served grades 1 - 5 so I chose some responsible 5th graders. I assigned
them a section of shelving. I took their photo and made signs to put at
the top of each shelf - "This shelf adopted by....." with name and
photo. Those students came by each day (sometimes every other day) on
their way back from lunch to their rooms and straightened up their
sections. After a month or so - they knew when a book was there that
didn't belong. They loved doing it and it helped me out. I had an ice
cream party for them at the end of the year. I'm sure you will get some
other ideas. Good luck.
___________________________________________________________________
From the address I'd guess that you have a high free/reduced lunch
population. Our school is 82%. I have selected two shelves (one fiction,
one nonfiction) for kinders. They chose books four at a time from those
two shelves. The others are reading board books or Baby Bug magazine or
Animal Babies magazine from a tub. After selection, check out, then
seated in another place. The kinder aide stays with the class. Class
uses markers to replace books to proper place. First grade gets gradual
release to "E" section. They "earn the priviledge" of entire "E"
section. Also enforce marker use and use reward system. Second grade
learns DDC and earns release to entire library. They can also lose the
priviledge of chosing their own spot to search for a book. Also reward
system. Third through fifth has reward for silent reading.
Sorry for brevity but also running a book fair with no help. I get
downright twitchy during these times. :)
______________________________________________________________________
Shelf markers can be an incredible help! If you don't have them, you
can ask local hardware stores to donate some paint mixing sticks. Teach
the children the shelf marker hokey pokey:
You put your marker in,
You pull your book right out-
You put your marker in-
And you pull that book right out,
Flip through all the pages, to see what it's about-
Put it back if you're in doubt!
This seems to help and they do like learning the song....
___________________________________________________________________________
I would get "nasty."
I would warn them before I release them to check out that this is their
library and if they want the books to be on the shelves correctly when
they are looking, then they have to be respectful of the organization and
of other users. If the "mess" does not meet your standards at the end of
the period, they will not get to check out the next week.
Then as I am checking out books, I would watch for areas with lots of
students in them, and do my spot checks there.
I also had a policy that if the 4th graders and up were leaving the
shelves in good order, books in their proper place AND right side up,
spine out I would no longer require them to use the shelf markers. This
was a great incentive to be neat and keep things in order. Graduating to
no shelf marker was a biggie.
Or, divide your library up by the number of classes you have, omit the 1st
graders or assign them things like the magazines and other areas that just
need minimal straightening and organizational skills. Each class is
assigned an area to keep neat and clean. You could even create some of
those signs like we see on the highways, "This section is maintained by
Mrs. Davis's 3rd grade Class."
TEACH the Dewey and organization lessons! Any time I was alone in the
library, that would be the day we would go over shelving rules and then
have table "races" to see which group could get all of their books
shelved. Everybody had to try; only one student was up from a table at a
time. When they thought they had it they put their hand up and I checked
them (So, I had 6 or 8 kids up at a time.) They tried again or they could
go back to their table and trade off to another shelver. (The variation
on that, they could call one person from their table over to help them,
when they thought they had it, the helper went back to the table and the
original kid raised their hand again.) They loved it, and I got the books
back on the shelf, it even seemed like they really understood it better.
But, playing that a few times prior to them taking over the up keep of an
area will ensure that the books are being shelved correctly. AND, each
student really does understand how to shelve correctly.
____________________________________________________________________
I actually have a big blue bucket sitting next to the circulation desk that
the kids put the unwanted books in and then I re-shelve them between
classes
or at the end of the day, depending on when I have time. I found that this
stopped a lot of my problems and in the long run saved me time. It doesn't
stop the new kids who aren't use to the method from putting books back on
the shelf wrong but the kids who know what they are doing are quick to help
the new kids. Plus an added benefit for me and the kids, we get to see what
sections or authors the kids consistently look at. This helps when I'm
buying books. The kids also after the first couple of weeks seem not to
pull as many books from the shelves and make their selections much faster
and in the upper elementary, it has actually started some unexpected book
talks and excitement about some rarely read books since the kids can get
books out of the bucket, which is something I encourage them to do.
________________________________________________________________________
Parent helpers? I had a wonderful one at my previous school. She
actually did the checking out so I could help the students choose the
right book for them (and "clean up" after them!)
________________________________________________________________
Could you begin a self checkout? I implemented that here at my school. K-8
school. Nobody goes behind the circulation desk. The computer faces the
library.
_______________________________________________________________________
It has to be really hard in elementary. I'm in the same situation in the
middle school, grades 6-8, nearly 1000 students. Also, no student help
this year because of elective scheduling. Time and time again I talk about
creating a mess in the shelves. You miss everything when you're forced to
do book checkout behind the circulation desk and your attention isn't on
students. In the morning before first period I no longer let them
aimlessly walk among the shelves. They have to browse the paperbacks or
two carts full of books that haven't been shelved. They may look up a book
on the computer first, but they have to tell me the title/author. The same
procedure goes during lunches. I've talked to the teachers about active
monitoring and no longer are entire classes of 30 plus allowed to wander
the library at the same time. They go by tables of 5-6 at a time and they
have a time limit. Teachers are expected to help them as well as keep an
eye on them. The frustrating thing is that I'm pretty sure it's just a
handful of students who are deliberately making a mess and ignoring
directives. The majority of students are well-behaved and fairly
respectful of the books. I also think they're aware that it's just me in
here trying to keep up with everything.
I know exactly how you feel!
________________________________________________________________________
That is a pet peeve of mine and an ongoing problem. My first and second
graders check out one book. After 2 weeks of warning them to use good
shelf etiquette, I will pull books and put them on top of the shelves
(you could put them on a table). The students then can only choose a
book from there. No shelf browsing. 3rd - 5th can check out 2 books. If
the shelf order is an ongoing problem, I will only allow them to check
out 1 book. So far this has worked well and the students patrol each
other to get the sanctions lifted. :)
___________________________________________________________________________
Do you have access to parent volunteers who could do this once a week? Or
could you roll this responsibility into some sort of a library club? (with
a book club, a chance to make recommendations for new purchases, etc.?) I
am blessed with aides who each have a certain section of the collection to
keep up with for part of their weekly points.
_____________________________________________________________________________
I'd suggest that you take a page from the university libraries and teach
the kids NOT to reshelve books, but to either leave them on the tables,
put them on a specially marked cart, or leave them at the ends of the
shelves. You may end up using one, two, or all three of those methods,
but that would be easier on you than going through all of the shelves
looking for books that are out of place. The upside of this is that you
will, yourself, handle every book that the kids have handled, so you
will see which ones are of then used in-house and you will develop a
"feel" for what they look at but don't check out. Some circulation
systems will even let you track in-house use IF the books don't get
reshelved first.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Do you have the kids use "spacers" ? I have plastic spacers that look
like oversized bookmarks. Each child has one to "mark the place on the
shelf where the book lives" and even my preschoolers are pretty good
about taking only one book and leaving the spacers to mark the place.
It is not a perfect way to keep the books spine facing the right way, or
not have book on their sides, but it does help a great deal.
_______________________________________________________________________________
When I was in the elementary library, I used shelf markers and my kids
were always proud of being able to handle them. My only rule was they
couldn't hit each other with them :-) They loved them and I had very few
mis-shelved books.
____________________________________________________________________________
Susan Davis
Media Specialist, NBCT
Bennett Elementary School
1755 NE 14 Street
Fort Lauderdale FL 33304
754-322-5464
FAX 754-322-5490
susan.davis@browardschools.com
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