Component B: Appealing Space

One of the early changes I made was to add color into the library space. I wanted to bring in lighter and brighter colors to show off the personality of the library and get the attention of my students. Not being able to afford furniture, I decided to paint to make the biggest impression on students. I chose a light gray for the walls and a mix of teal, purple, and bright green for accent colors. The students loved the changes immediately. The pictures below show the before and after of some of the spaces.

Circulation Desk

Painted walls and added brighter color to the window sills. Jazzed up the circulation desk to make it more inviting and interesting.

Teaching Space

Painted walls and added accent colors around the large window and poles.

Removed a non-working Smartboard and replaced with a retractable screen to provide a more open space when not needed and an Apple TV for better picture and sound.

Work Space

Adding color around the pillars made this space much more interesting.

Not only did I want the color to stand out on the walls, I also wanted other colorful library accessories. I decided to add some bright signs and paint the book trucks.

Book Trucks

To keep the color bright in other places, I painted the book trucks that are most often in the library space. The extra pops of color really brighten up the space.

Neon Signs

These signs hang in different places in the library and lend a little extra personality.

Open!

Students know that when the Open sign is on, they are welcome! I have open library times before, after, and during school hours.

Besides the color in the space, I recognized immediately that the collection needed weeding. The bookshelves were very full and books were tightly packed in, making it very difficult for students to effectively browse and see the great titles available to them. In the picture below on the left, you can see one shelf that was packed full and not very appealing to students. The other two pictures below, you can see there is breathing room on that same shelf for books to be creatively displayed. The fiction shelves and books are now color coded to reflect the genre.

Before

Shelves are full and students are unable to browse easily.

After

Books are organized into the color-coded genre sections. There is room on the shelves for books to breathe.

Dynamic Shelving

Titles in series or multiple copies can be easily arranged to stand out. Great book covers can be seen.

After watching what areas in the collection were most interesting to students, I decided to utilize bins to keep like titles together, even if the Dewey Decimal system did not have them shelved together. Areas that were frequently visited were: sports, graphic novels, and popular series. The bins allow for easier browsing and act like a form of dynamic shelving - covers facing out.

Sports nonfiction

Students most frequently search for sports books by sport, so shelving them that way made good sense.

Biographies

I pulled out the biography books about athletes to make them easier to find.

Graphic novels

I was able to put series together in bins making it easier for students to flip through and find the next one.

iPad for catalog searching

This iPad is always set up with our catalog for independent browsing.

Book Checkout Counter

Students enjoy seeing how many books have been checked out from the library. It adds up all year.

Circulation Desk

I have found that students enjoy having something to do if they have to wait in line. I add pictures to this digital frame all during the year and a quick game of Tic Tac Toe is always fun.

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