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.