Lesson 1: MORE is not always MERRIER

The "original Pine Grove", where I had the privilege of working since 2007 was a gem. It was bright, wide open, conveniently located, functional and had a lot of good vibes.   

It was also home to LOTS of shelves that were home to books and sets and collections that had accumulated for many, many years.   Though I believed I did a stellar job of decluttering, weeding books, and removing irrelevant items, I didn't.   It was easy not to because: 

•  "just in case"
•  "we MIGHT need it"
•  "we had the space anyway"
•  "I'll sift and sort next week"  

Most of us can relate to MOVING and those moments of realization that we kept WAY TOO MUCH stuff over the years, and we pledge to NEVER do that AGAIN!    Well, guilty as charged.    

I feared that the design of the new space (based on meetings with design team) wouldn't allow for the traditional WALL O' BOOKS, the bowels of storage that would house sets and sets of quality items, and the views that would reveal mass quantities of literature.   That was BEFORE we moved out to our temporary "digs".

After two years of modified collections, rotating collections, relocated and decentralized collections, more stealth offerings, on demand requests, lots of in and out of district sharing, and overall LESS, my view changed.   It was actually quite FREEING! 

We don't need WALLS and WALLS and STACKS and STACKS of books.   We need enough to provide:

• Variety of titles, genres, levels, formats
• multiple copies of volume 1 in series and popular titles
• PRINT (not just digital)
• Promotion of e-options (fiction and non)
• multiprong approach to promotion of what we do have
• options for students to request, borrow, suggest, and see their choices in the library

THEN

Though none of the above is a NEW concept, our focus will be on all of the above and NOT filling every square inch of shelving just to fill the shelves!   

NOW