I've had a chance to think

I have had a chance to reflect on my previous post, to think about what is going on and how I can take it in the right direction.  Though teachers know that they can bring students to the library for a research lesson, they don't.  They also know that I will put together a pathfinder for students on the topic they are researching, but they don't ask for it.  So, the obvious question is 'why', which leads to 'what can I do about it'?

First, for a explanation of who has been using the library, for what purpose and who is not using its services as often as before.  The majority of classes, which come through the library are from English, science, humanities and music.

The English classes come mainly for book talks.  I am hoping that one of the grades, which does a research project on the 50s with their study of The Outsiders, will be persuaded to book a research class but that is for the future. 

Humanities use the library a lot, especially in grades 9 and 10, but also in the other grades.  They are in the habit of bringing their classes in whenever there is a research element in a unit. 

Some science classes started to come in last year and I did give lessons for them on using online databases, on how to find books and on bibliographic referencing.  Interestingly, this year the teachers seem to have 'forgotten' to book classes when they are doing projects.  Instead, I have students wandering in and asking for help to find material in books.  Their teachers require that they have at least one book source but fail to let me know and fail to ensure that their students even know how to find books in the library.

I became quite frustrated and went to talk to one of the teachers involved.  I shouldn't have been surprised to discover that the teacher thought that his students would know how to find books because they were in grade 9.  He also thought that they would know how to do a search on the Internet or in the school online databases because of course, they're teenagers and they know how to do that.  Oh dear!  If only that were true!

Well, this talk brought me a little closer to understanding my problem.  Many teachers believe that students know their way around the Internet, in which case there is nothing to teach them about doing a search.  This is my first hurdle.  Bring the message to my colleagues that their students don't know as much as they think they do.

(More to follow!)

How do I encourage teachers to bring their classes in to the library?

I am frustrated!  Today students trickled into the library during period 1 from a science class looking for books on pesticides and chemical fertilizers.  Did I know that a research project in that class was ongoing?  Had the teacher checked to see if the library had any books on the topic?  Did the teacher know whether the students knew how to find books in the library database?  Did the teacher even check to see if the library was available during the time that the students were sent there?  Obviously the answer to all these questions was 'no'. 

So where do I go from here?

434% Increase in Fiction Circulation

On Friday I decided to find out how many fiction books had been checked out of the library since school started a little less than 3 months ago.  I knew that the numbers would be good.  You can tell.  And I was right!  I'm not sure of our population but I think it is between 250 to 300.  I will have to check on that Monday.  Whatever the number, we have circulated 622 fiction books.  If we have 300 students, that would be just over 2 books per student. 

Next I decided to check on the same time period in 2008 and 2009.  I started in the August of 2009 but hadn't had the opportunity to sort through the fiction collection and start buying new paperbacks.  In that year, 166 books were checked out for the same time period.  Now I was really curious.  How many had gone out in those months in the year before I started:  196.

I sent the statistics to my head of school and he asked the obvious question.  Why had there such a dramatic increase?  The answer has been partially answered in the previous paragraph.  I was new to the library and so, I had just begun to understand the needs of the students and to weed the collection.  However, there is more to it than that.

The collection I inherited was for the large part hardcover and all the books were stored on shelves which went around the walls of the fiction section.  Because of the type of shelving and some overcrowding, there was no way of displaying the front covers of the books, other than by removing the covers and putting them on a bulletin board.  Unfortunately, there were no bulletin boards in the fiction area so that was not in fact a possibility.

I started by buying paperback spinners and pulling out books from the collection, which would fit on them.  There were a number of permabound books so I manage to sparsely fill the spinners.  Next, I weeded those hardbacks left on the shelves to gain some room to pull books with exciting covers out and display them on the shelves.  Yes, we know that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover but students do (and to an extent, so do I if I'm honest).    I've done three more weedings since then and we are now down to a very compact hardcover collection.

Once I started to understand what kind of books my students were interested in, I started to buy new paperback fiction.  Some I bought on the recommendation of the students, others from lists of suggested titles and finally, last Easter I spent the day at Blackwell's in Oxford and bought a £1000 worth of new titles.  We were off!  And we've never looked back! 

I have spent a lot of time pouring over catalogues and looking at how bookstores display their stock.  I've bought Plexiglas display units for some of the hardcover shelves and also to go on the top of lower shelving.  These allow me to display hardcover books with their covers revealed to the patrons.
I move my stock continually so that students always see new books on display.  I also move the books around on the spinners so that books which have been at the back are moved to the front.  Finally, though not really since I am always looking for new ideas, I have made room for 3 bulletin boards which I use to advertise new books, genres, authors, or just books I think might be of interest.

One of my favorite displays last year was of a group of hardcover books, which had never been taken out of the library.  They were my 'lonely hearts' books, looking for someone who shared the same interests.  Each one had a stick coming out of the top with a note attached (pictures to follow!).  For example:  Lonely book seeks lover of adventure, danger and mystery.  Guarantees a good time!

I have just started on this journey to help my students discover that books can be exciting.  In the process, they have introduced me to so many authors and genres I had never encountered before.  The journey continues and I shall continue to chronicle it.