What do you do to help with library organization throughout the school year? If you’re anything like most school librarians, you wear many different hats at your school. In addition to being the library media specialist, you might be in charge of the school website, yearbook, or technology equipment. Maybe you’re the Accelerated Reader coordinator or outdoor sign updater. You’re also a book shelver, book repairer, etc. If you don’t have an assistant, this can lead to a lot of stress and chaos. We’ve come up with a few library organization tips to help keep the stress at a minimum level.
Library Helpers
First, consider "employing" several library helpers each year. At the beginning of the school year, have interested 5th-grade students fill out a library helper application. These students have to be willing to come in one day each week during their recess time or another designated period. Ideally, library helpers would help shelve books, but they don't always do a good job, so you can assign them other small tasks like putting barcode stickers on index cards or delivering AR reports to teachers. Any help you can get is good help.
Library Organization for Books
Second, take a good look at how you organize your shelves. How do you organize your shelves? If a collection hasn’t been properly weeded it can be a mess. Do your shelves have so many books crammed on them that students can’t even look for them? Is it impossible to put books away?
Fiction
It’s probably easiest to organize fiction by the author’s last name, but you might want to choose some special shelves just for series of books (like Dan Gutman's My Weird School, 39 Clues, Nancy Drew, Magic Tree House, etc.) so students can quickly find their favorite collections or find new series to love. You could also consider using a special sticker to identify books in a series or popular chapter books to make them easier for students to find. It might also be helpful to have an easy chapter books section for early readers.
Nonfiction
Have you recently looked at the dates of your nonfiction books? Do you have biographies on people who were famous twenty years ago or a pro basketball collection from 1994?
How do you organize your shelves? One librarian told us a horror story of doing a major overhaul of the library one summer and I had a hard time deciding exactly what to do. That school year was her first at this school and inherited a mess, quite frankly. Her guess is that the library hasn't been properly weeded in her lifetime. The Easy collection had so many books crammed on the shelves that the students couldn't even look for a book. Not to mention, books were impossible to put away. While you want students to look beyond a book, remember that nonfiction covers can also often look dated. You could use special stickers or shelf cards to point out popular topics and recent additions to your library as well.
However you choose to organize, you should set aside a bit of time once or twice a year to really go through your collection and clean, weed, and reorganize so things don’t stay out of order. This is especially true if you use student helpers or volunteers to assist with shelving.
Check-Out Procedures
Next, look at your checkout system. You can create your own library checkout cards for students. It’s okay if they are pretty low-tech. Just get on your Library Management Tool, print out barcodes for each student, and stick them onto different colored index cards. Use a different color for each homeroom and keep them in an index card box right beside the scanner so the students can't lose them. You can have the students decorate their cards at the beginning of the school year so it's easier for them to find their cards in the box. This also helps younger students who may not be able to read their names yet. You could even laminate the cards to help them last a little longer.
When students come in for book checkout, they bring their books to the computer and scan their card, then their books. This takes some practice, and the students don't always do it exactly right, but it will buy you a little bit of time to help students find books if you don't have an assistant.
Student Visitors
It can also help to take a look at when students are allowed to visit your library. For example, if your school has open library time, require students to have a library pass to visit. That way you know their teachers have accounted for them. You can give teachers a set of laminated passes. As long as each teacher only has 2-3 passes you can ensure your library won’t be overrun with students. Click here to download our free printable library pass!
Finally, cut down the time you spend planning lessons. You can take time during the summer to do a bulk of the lesson planning or you can use our library lesson plans and resources to save even more time. Look to websites such as TeachersPayTeachers for other templates and resources as well. It may seem expensive, but the more you have prepared in advance and ready to go, the more time you have to work on keeping your library organized and helping students.
What idea can you share that would help everyone as school starts this year? Do you have any suggestions for ways to improve my shelves? How do you deal with elementary library organization problems? Leave your helpful hints in the comments.
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Emily says
My library had to be packed up at the end of the school year due to tornado damage earlier this spring. I now have a blank slate (yay! because I inherited a slight mess a few years ago), but I'm at a loss as to where to start when I unpack boxes. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks!
Michelle says
I'm in a similar situations and have 5 days to get it done.
Becky Johnson says
I am in the process of doing this as well, and my first step is seperating my series books. The students love it. My question: How many books in a series before you place it in the "series" section? I have many books that are 2-3 book series, and I'm not sure how to handle that....
Jocelyn says
Becky, I usually put smaller series on the regular shelves (not series book shelves), but I put them separately. So if I have 3 B shelves, one of them may have smaller series on it (together). I'm not sure that made sense, but I hope so.
Nicole Lavinder says
I have also been a classroom teacher for the past 13 years and moving into the media coordinator world. I have inherited a disaster area - the shelves are broke , books are willy nilly everywhere and the dust bunnies have dust bunnies!
I Appreciate the idea of organizing by genres. Also, do any of.you use Accelerated Reader and if so, do you separate your AR from non-AR?
Sherry Copeland says
I have 18 years experience working with AR. Please don't separate them, books should be books. Label the AR books with a color dot om the spine and put an AR label with level etc. on the inside of the book. Teach kids to look for their color dot. With all the tests that are available now most of your books will be AR. Public libraries aren't organized by AR and neither is my library!
Nicole Brown says
I'm sorry what is AR. I'm trying to organize my home library so no experience at all. I'm the adult at the library desk asking for help finding things all the time. I dont know why library tips are not taught in public school. God Bless,
Nikki
Kathy Krier says
AR is Accelerated Reader.
Kim says
I agree. My books are labeled with AR spine stickers that are color coded based on grade level. We also write the test number on the end paper to make it easier for the kiddos when they are ready to take their test.
Mik says
I am a fifth-year media coordinator, with 10 years experience as a reading teacher in fifth grade. After taking the media Cordinator position, I determine my number one goal was to find ways to make books more accessible to our students. However in order to do that they had to have a better understanding of what they were interested in has readers. Therefore, I genre-tized our fiction section of our library. It works so fantastically well for the students!
I am also a big advocate of AR ( when it is implemented in a positive way ) Therefore I put AR stickers on the spines, and then the specific AR information on the inside of the cover. This has provided vital information that the students have learned to understand and use when making book selections. I do have to add, that while I agree creating a section that is just AR can be I mistake… again, I I have found that how things are set up makes a difference. For example, in my Everybody section ( formally named the Easy section… by the way, easy for who?? What message is that title sending two older students that need to read books in that section but their friends do not? In addition, there are books in that section that are on my six grade reading level!) Ok, back to the original topic…
Within my Everybody section I have a section that is all Everybody paperback books and is set up by AR level. Before anyone goes crazy, understand that the hardcover books in this section are in ABC order by authors last name and/or series.
All of these organizational ideas are working beautifully for the students so far ?.
Mik says
Oops...not "my" level ?
Newbie Librarian says
Nicole,
You and I must be kindred spirits. I tôo inherited a hot mess of a library. This being my first year in the library after 18 years of teaching in the classroom. I spent most of the summer cleaning the library with my 70 year old mother, who is in fabulous shape. Both of us tackled dust monsters, 'cause those were some huge dust bunnies! I also have no assistant, but the parents are wonderful and so is my principal. I love my new job, but I find it overwhelming to figure out how to organize it to be kid friendly, but still teach them how to maneuver their way through any library. So do I genre or not or separate all series??? Wish it was an easy answer 🙁
Tracy says
Did you decide to genre? I am curious as I have just "inherited" a library that is needing a reorganization. It is currently 85 % dewey and the other 15% has started with Guided Reading levels and so doesn't work for the students or staff and the concept of genres came up today.
Newbie Librarian says
Hi Tracy,
Yes, I decided on going for genre, but I am getting confused about all those popular series that are overflowing the tops of my shelves. See, I have no space for all the fiction books and as a result, have almost 1,000 overflowing popular series (not counting the overflow in the Easy Fiction section too).
So again, do I genre all and separate series into specific genres or create one more category to my genres that involves including popular series as a genre just like the classics can be a genre?
Tania
Bambi Jackson says
We put the AR books up to 2.9 on individual shelves based on level. This helps the K-3 students find their books.
Neva Odom says
I am a new librarian, working on a certification. I have been a classroom teacher for many years. My K-6 library has not had a full-time librarian for at least the last 5 years or more. I am working on getting the bar codes on the books and registering the books in the computer for easy checkout. Until then, I am checking books out the old-fashion way using book cards where students write their name on the card in the pocket. There is not card catalog that I see and I am having to learn the system of how the books are organized. I have found that I am going to have to recruit some 5th and 6th graders to help organize and put books back on the shelves. Hopefully, I can take some of your suggestions to help me bring this library into the 21st century! Thanks.
Crystal Earnhardt says
I too have had to put all books on computer with bar codes. When finished the other staff members begged me to get rid of the old catalog furniture. Instead I put them down on their sides (using 6 of the card catalog cabinets) making this beautiful coffee size table in the center of the library with easy chairs clustered around it. It's beautiful!
Pamela Landry says
Pls send photos, instructions. I am working from scenario as you are.
Rhonda Lowry says
I genre-fied my library this year. Actually I'm still in the process, but like you I have no library assistant, and have genrefying the library has really helped my time with the students. When they want a "scary" book they no longer have to go hunt for it, as they are all in the same area. I have put fiction and nonfiction together if they fit a certain genre to simplify my time and the students' as well.
Dolly says
Do you color code them or identify them in any way in case they are cross-genre?
Thanks,
Dolly