My Space

account or an IM. So I’m going to use this space to post accounts of the huge amount of work that goes into separating libraries and setting up a new one. I’m not only going to use this blog as a journal account of the process involved, but perhaps as a guide for next poor soul that has to go through this experience.

Let’s preface this account with the fact that I have experienced separating libraries on a mini scale. The district that I worked in last year was loosing population. It only had two schools in the district as the high school students went to another district to high school. The district was in the process of moving students from the lower elementary to the middle school. They were gradually moving a grade or two each year to the middle school. Each year, the librarian had to separate materials that were specific to the grade levels. It entailed running histories on the teachers and students, fighting the administration, and using my own knowledge of what I knew the students read.

I had no idea when I moved to the new district that I would be organizing two new middle school libraries. We will be moving into our new libraries in the Fall of 2008. The administration has promised us that they will give us our assigned school by the end of this school year so that we can plan our new spaces. At the moment, however, I must help the architechs and designers make decisions about built-in shelving, etc. that affect the actual building itself and the placement of fixed walls, etc. This is time consuming at a time of year when most librarians are spending the last of their budgets, collecting the equipment needs of the school, and generally doing all the grunt work of the library.

At my next posting, I’m going to try to dig up the enthusiasm that I felt when I first learned that we were moving out of our 100 year old building after the referendum passed.

Deloris