A. Reading Lounge
In 2017, I re-organized the Reading Lounge, which was envisioned as a place with three goals:
Be a place where teachers can easily check out class sets of books that connect to the Middle School curriculum.
Be a mini-library where students can easily check out high interest books in a space closer to them than the full library.
Be a fun space for teachers to bring classes so students can read independently.
The school was able to double the number of books available to Middle School students. Personally, I inventoried the books we already had, identified genres and Lexile-levels for each book, identified possible orders by developing priority lists, and conducted purchases for the school through purchasing orders. I directed strategic purchases to complete series through bookstores (ex: Kinokuniya and Asia Books), and I directed purchases to start new series through wholesalers (ex: Big Bad Wolf Fair). I personally purchased the plastic storage bins in the pictures below and designed all the displays and book tags.
Goal 1: Teachers Can Easily Check Out Class Sets
One goal for the MS Reading Lounge was to improve the functionality of checking out class sets. The school had invested in small sets of books that could be used for small group reading. For our department to strategically plan Literature Circles, Reading Groups, and Book Clubs, we needed to know what titles were available and how we could split the titles among grade levels. This required locating duplicates of books, counting them, determining their genres, storing them in cabinets, tagging the books and cabinets with labels, and creating visuals to help teachers navigate the cabinets.
Goal 2. Students Can Check Out High-Interest Books
Another goal for the Reading Lounge was to develop an organization system that would help students find books, which were scattered across the room in a random order. This required inventorying each book in the reading lounge, researching whether or not the books were part of a series, purchasing boxes for the series, creating box labels for book series, and creating visuals to help students navigate the boxes. Once the books were organized, I realized that we were often missing integral books in a series. For example, we might have the second and fifth book of a five book series but be missing the first, third, and fourth. I created a purchasing priority list to help guide administration in future purchases. Through the course of four orders, we were able to fill many of the holes in our series and designate them as finished!
Goal 3: Students Can Read Independently
A reading lounge like this all about positive experiences. Students should have positive experiences reading, and teachers should have positive experiences finding resources. We are hoping to double the size of the Reading Lounge by knocking down a wall and combining the current space with an adjoining room. When this happens, we will implement a newly designed, modern layout. Whether it is in the old space or the new space, the room will still be all about positive experiences.
Based on information from our librarian, I made tutorials for students that explained reading topics, including checking out e-books and searching for books on the library's website. I also created a tutorial explaining the check out process for teachers who visit the Reading Lounge. I also suggested implementing changes to the Reading Lounge's layout that would increase its functionality. The map is below.
