Fiction Stock in - Careers Material much improved!

I can't believe it has been over a week since I last updated this blog. Time flies. I won't say "when you're having fun" as yesterday must have been one of the most stressful days of this project (so far!) but enough said about that.

Over the last couple of days I have been slowly moving back from the temporary library and with it has brought all of the fiction stock. Again, my excellent volunteer Janet, came into school to give me a hand - We decided to shelve all of the fiction first (after I 'encouraged' some Year 8 students to bring over the crates! Never heard such a fuss - several of them had to sit down after carrying over a box!), then add the new stock and taking out the duplicate copies if they were tatty (99% were!). I then did a thorough edit of the fiction stock and quite honestly, I am now proud of this section - there's obviously some development needed put it looks good. I am keeping the stained and torn Horowitzs, Wilsons and Shans as these are the most popular authors, but in the library office - so should a very eager reader want to borrow one, and it is on loan they can at least have that.
Joy from Connexions has been busy sorting out the Careers section and done some sterling work today. I can feel that this section of the library is now "on the up" and look forward to developing this area in the future.

The plan for Monday is to be spent tidying up, the Courtyard furniture is also due to be delivered and installed. Demco are due back to sort out a few minor problems, so hopefully on the Tuesday re-launch everything will be perfect. Rewrite - everything WILL be perfect!

Finishing Off and preparing for the grand launch

I've been spending the last few days really tying up lots of small jobs, which have been not particularly interesting. The non-fiction has been re-stocked, Demco are coming back on July 16th (nail biting as this is the day before the official re-launch) to put a few things right, such as replacing the kidney shaped table that arrived scratched and correcting the shelving which was imperfect. The Courtyard is seriously taking shape now with many plants appearing thanks to the hard work from the science department. I've got to sort out the tables and benches and the signage for the shelving over the next few days. I had a very fruitful meeting this afternoon that will hopefully land us with some more funding for stock, from an external source and have hopefully made an arrangement to acquire some more fiction stock too.

The re-stocking of the fiction stock will happen now towards the end of next week. One of the science staff has kindly promised to "loan" me her Year 10 class to move all the books over from the temporary library to the new one, which will really help me.

Re-stocking!

Great news... The PCs were installed yesterday and today my (excellent) volunteer and I started restocking the non-fiction stock. I was glad that the calculations had been successful and we had ample space. The sequencing does seem logical, well to me anyway - trust me I'm a Librarian!

The next task will be putting the fiction into order and shelving this, but for various reasons (too trivial to go into detail here) won't happen until the week after next.

It's starting to look good though, isn't it?

Installation complete. No commentary really necessary!

Installation Almost Complete

A lot of progress has been made today - all of the shelving has been built and bolted together and the computer desking has also been added. There have been problems with the listening post - this refuses to open to allow us to put CDs in! The pin boards arrived which were the wrong size - but quickly rectified by sending a courier with the replacements. I was amazed at the speed these arrived. The finishing touches will be added tomorrow, such as building the book returns trolley and some wall mounted shelving... and hopefully we'll find a solution to the non-opening listening post.

The whole library is looking really good. I'm so pleased that it is progressing so well.... and the colours do work after all that uncertainty (and sleepless nights) earlier in the year.

Shelving & Furniture Beginning to be Installed... The Library is starting to look like one!

This day has been been waiting to happen for a long time. After 9 or so months I am finally seeing the plans being put into practice. The furniture and shelving was delivered this morning, and throughout the day it has been assembled and put into place. It should all be finished tomorrow afternoon.

Our trusted Electricians are back adding an extra network port, cabling and sockets for the library counter.

Shelving is beginning to take shape

Trust these characters to barge in right in the middle of the installation just to test out the "pebbles"!!!. I'll forgive them this time, but if I find any coffee stains anywhere I'll know who to blame!

Flooring

Over the weekend the floor was screeded (much to my surprise) and the second coat was added this morning. The carpet has also been laid today. After that its just the case of waiting until next Monday when all of the shelving and furniture arrives... I'm starting to get very excited!