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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

Forgive me BLOGGERS, for I have sinned...

It's been almost 2 years since my last blog post. 

Due to a major renovation of our middle school, we were all relocated to 6 locations for 2 years while the transformation took place.  It involved a lot of storage trailers, 4 elementary schools, a vacant Catholic school, a wing at the high school, an RV named Ms. Lindy, and a unbelievable amount of patience, cooperation, and problem solving.

OHHHH what a journey it's been!  Since then, we've weeded, packed, redistributed, packed, unpacked, arranged, planned to pack, weeded, packed some more, consolidated, weeded, and are now UNPACKING!

If I had blogged regularly, the blog would have shared obvious patterns of self-doubt, confusion, excitement, frustration, successes, epic fails, learning curves, and questions. But mostly, there were A-HA moments.  Moments of learning, figuring it out, gaining perspective, and adding valuable lessons to my personal and professional toolkit!    In no particular order, some highlights that will be gamechangers for me:

• quantity of books does not automatically equal inspiration
• students adapt more easily to less desirable facilities than adults do
• the culture of the classroom dictates how much VOICE students have 
• the space should take less priority over the people in it
• leadership can happen anywhere
• change inspires innovation in some and depression in others
• it is very easy to be sucked into negativity despite positivity looming all around
• if you aren't enjoying what you do, everything seems like a lot of work

Pine Grove--The GREENER GREATER GROVE

Main area of the PG Library

So, with those lessons and a folder full of post it notes with new and transformed ideas, we are off to a NEW school, NEW library, and a FRESH start.  Stay tuned for our adventures!