A Room with a View?

So where do I start? There's been so much happening during the last couple of days, that this blog was the last thing on my mind yesterday, hence no entry was produced. I don't think I particularly benefited from the bank holiday either!

Yesterday morning was spent collecting packing boxes for the non-fiction stock, from a local high school who also had their library refurbished recently. It was useful to see what had been achieved there, as the same company has our contract (I'm going to plug them as they've been so helpful and have (so far!) had endless patience with me, anyone who can cope with the plans being revised seven times deserves promoting: Demco Interiors). The packing boxes are now taking up a considerable amount of space in the library ready to be filled. I'm not actually sure if more has happened in the Courtyard or not as I can't actually see out of the windows, but I have heard noises...
On returning to the school we had a site meeting about what is going to happen over the next few weeks, which was beneficial - My experience is quickly telling me to keep a pot of hot coffee brewing, as it can be useful! Due to the caretaker's other commitments nothing will be done until next Thursday, which means I now will have the freedom of three clear days to get everything tidied and packed up, and the walls cleared ready for the existing shelving to be removed and dumped (good news is that we're getting a free skip hire and may get something in return for the steel shelving!). I have "employed" a worthy volunteer to help me with the boxing up, and will receive some clerical support from the school office which will be very handy. This is one of the advantages of working in a high school, as there are people around who can help as opposed to a primary school where you usually end up doing some major tasks yourself as there isn't anyone to ask.

After the meeting, 4 boxes of new books arrived, kindly escorted by my Advisory Librarian from the Schools' Library Service, who could see at first hand I was slightly stressed, which was calmed significantly after an encouraging and frank chat.

Today I had a fruitful day adding the new books to the system, which I find quite relaxing and fulfilling that we're doing something to improve the quality of the stock. The current total I'm holding back is 621.

I'm still working on finding homes for what will very soon be vacant furniture and thought I'd found a home for the large double cupboard, but it didn't work out as I expected, as it wasn't easily transportable! However, another solution has been found! I was pretty resourceful earlier (some would say cheeky I suppose, but I am a Librarian and "resources" should be my thing!) and made a phone call and asked the people who were going to collect the cupboard if they could pick up a number of boxes from the local library so I can store fiction stock in for the skeleton library, which will open next Thursday, and indeed they did.

Memories of Mr Drybones

The last two days have been spent tying up some loose ends:

1. Plastic book covers arrived - Got all the remaining fiction processed and boxed up. Another thing off the "pending" list.

2. Samples arrived for blinds - Got the colour confirmed ("Custard" much to the Business Manager's horror!)

3. Schools Library Service Phoned- My Peters Book order has arrived (excellent service as I placed my order a week ago!) and SLS are providing us with boxes to house the fiction stock in for the temporary library

4. Held the first Carnegie shadowing meeting - The students were full of enthusiasm and genuinely interested in the books

5. Paints confirmed - we're going for cream, yellow and electra (which the students seem to like the name of. For those uninitiated with the BS colour chart it's light blue)

6. Full size human skeleton borrowed from Science Department - This is for the "skeleton" library service I will be running for six weeks. I'm sure this will bring back memories of my last job where I had 5 wonderful years running a library in a primary school, as we had a resident skeleton called Mr Drybones... I'd arrive at work and he'd be in various positions in the library, just like the one below:

Take a Break, Have a Normal Conversation

With all this planning and preparation, it has been pleasant to be back to some normality today. I hosted a meeting for a couple of friends/colleagues to discuss the way forward with a library website that we are responsible for (www.cilipeoe.org.uk). How refreshing it was to also talk about normal everyday things and to exchange further ideas and give inspiration for the future about our respective libraries and roles. At least now I'll go in fresh tomorrow ready to tackle the Carnegie shadowing with my Year 9 group...

The Plan is Coming Together

I've managed to get a fair bit sorted out today, so the plan is coming together. The groundsmen were hard at work when I arrived at 8am and had finished everything by 10.30am, which was right on schedule - so the Courtyard is ready to have the trellis, plants and table, chairs and bench added (we've decided on aluminium due to it being more robust than wood - I have fears of a pupil carving their name - or the name of this week's particular love interest - into the wood).


When I started thinking about how the library should look, which was around 6 months ago, and what direction we should be going in, with a a few colleagues I made a few visits to other libraries in the area that had recently been refurbished. We concluded what we observed was good practice and functional. We then visited Felixstowe Public Library and I was totally blown away from the impact, which my colleagues also felt - and decided we really needed our library to have the "wow" factor and to be slightly different from the school libraries we visited (this was part of my brief to the library design companies - only one of them actually listened. Guess which one got the contract?). One of the highlights of the visit to Felixstowe LIbrary was the graphic signage - which instantly inspires and we now feel that this will be the "icing on the cake" for our library, showing motivated students reading and enjoying books. And as such, we're having three graphic end panels for the shelving. Today the photographer came in and took various shots that will be enlarged and mounted when the new shelving is in place.

I have done my best to make sure the photos won't date: the pupils are in the new school uniform, that hopefully won't change for another twenty years, and they are reading books where the covers aren't seen or they're books that have something on which would not date such as books with visual chemical reactions on the front cover. We're a Science Specialist School after all!

It has also been confirmed where the skeleton library service will be (which will consist of: a PC, printer, fiction stock, a few reference titles, couple of chairs and table and me!) and where the non-fiction stock will be stored - a secure classroom. We're also acquiring packing boxes for the non-fiction from a very kind school who have also had a new library (tip - always network with fellow librarians and it will pay dividends. Believe me on that one) so I have arranged to collect these next week.

The benches will be removed at the end of the week and I removed the potential hanging cord aka the washing line this afternoon!

See the "before" picture here.

Wishlist

In order to highlight the impending refurbishment to parents, and to encouragement their involvement, I've created an Amazon wishlist where items can be purchased and posted directly into school - I've gone for the whole spectrum of prices, from £3.99 to £399. I suppose its a 21st century version of the "donate a book" scheme. We'll add the traditional name plates to indicate who has given the item. (If anyone reading this has an urge to buy a book, please send an e-mail indicating what you have bought and what you'd like on the nameplate). So far the interest has been good, but we'll know once the next newsletter goes out with a double page spread about the library telling parents what the new features will be (listening post, more space, improved PCs, increased shelving etc etc), a plan and a few pictures of the furniture. The physical work of getting the place cleared will start in exactly two weeks' time, so not long now until lift off...

Work has started on clearing the Courtyard - the husband of the Head of Art and his cousin kindly came in and rescued some plants before the groundsman are in tomorrow...

Online and High Street Bargains

I really am of the Internet age (having first used it in 1997 with great excitement (even though each page took around 5 minutes to download and that didn't include images as these were all blocked to "speed things up"!) and those who know me can say that I like an online bargain and often get one and for others too. However, today I had chance to pop into Ipswich and went into Waterstones just to see if I could spot any special offers and try and save a bit more money than the 20% I tend to get from the usual book suppliers, Peters or Amazon, which I thought would have been unlikely as let's face it the high street stores can't beat online prices. Can they? I ended up saving between 33% and 50% on a dozen or so fiction titles for the library. One particular classic, that I needed to promote the all-time Carnegie Anniversary Top 10, and didn't have in stock was "The Family from One End Street" by Eve Garnett which was on a 4-6wk waiting list from Amazon when I looked yesterday, and there in Waterstones there it was with a 50% reduction and a good pile of them too...

Some purists would be critical that I would choose to buy from non-library suppliers, but let's face it in ever hard times with budgets, I can't afford to turn down these discounts, and making the money stretch a bit further is doing my bit to give that extra support to the students.

Finished "Beast" by Ally Kennen last night. Real page turner that one and my favourite so far. Think I'll relax with a book from this morning's trip with another non-internet bargain today, as my local Threshers were selling 4 packs of J20s for 65p - so I cleared their shelves... Anyone for a drink?

Books v Resources

I'm aiming to have 1000 items ready directly after the refurbishment. I've already expanded what I started with; these were simply - paperback books, hardback books and audio cassettes. We now additionally have picture books, CDs for the Listening Post, Articles, Posters and an excellent weblinks package which I'm going to plug from Carelpress. £70 for 8000 weblinks that are updated monthly and integrates with the library automation system... A small step towards my aim of a "one-stop-shop" for resources.

I've processed 496 new items to date, so almost halfway to my target. Talking of books, it is such a generic term in libraries, people mean resources when they actually say books - or do they? I'm still amazed at the number of people who think that Libraries only stock books. The classic line always is "How many books have you got in the library?". Its only a Librarian who would ask how many resources there are, and probably only an experienced one to ask how many are less than 10 years old too...

So far, I've placed another couple of orders and seeing a book rep next week, only after negotiating a better discount. One of the real highlights of the job is when the brand new resources arrive, ready covered and labelled just waiting to be added to the catalogue, which I'm slowly improving. At least when I now type in "koala", "diabetes" or "wind power" something is actually found.

Oh well, had better go and continue reading through the Carnegie Shortlist ready for the shadowing group. Some good ones this year and pretty accessible - but I've yet to find anything particularly uplifting and cheery.