Shelving can be a struggle, especially when no one wants to do it! If you work at an elementary school and see up to 9 classes a day, and each student checks out 2 books, you can be shelving up to 400 books per day!
- Adopt a Shelf from Elementary Librarian
- Put a sign on your shelving cart: “Looks what’s back” or “Look what’s popular!” (Alexandria)
- Book Basket - keep a basket next to your reading chair. After reading the books to all your classes, let students know they can check out those books the next day.
- Genre Stickers - If you have genre stickers on your books, it is easy to make a thematic display or bin.
- Display Books on top of the Shelves (Alexandria)
- Display books at the end of each row (Alexandria)
- Parent Volunteers
- Office Aides
- Shelvers needed! Place a sign on your library door during recess when you can supervise students.
- Start a Library Club
- Special Collections: All the Eyewitness Books on one shelf regardless of Dewey Number
- Numbering Series
- Series book Bins or Shelves (Mrs. Reader Pants)
- Shelf signs (Mrs. ReaderPants)
- Single Alphabet Letters in Fiction section
- Pre-Sorting (Alexandria)
- Sineage
- Genre Displays
- Seasonal Displays
- Subject sections
- Favorite Character bins FREEBIE on Teachers Pay Teachers
- students place books on top of shelf where they go so you can file them later
- Shelve books while students watch a video, read silently, or work independently
- Put book browsing buckets on each table (School Librarian's Workshop FB Group)
Articles
7 Ways to Shelve Books Fast by Alexandria
Created for "A Library Survival Guide" Presented at CSLA Yosemite, 2018. Updated by mrsgteach@yahoo.com on 08/07/2018