Reorganizing the Audiovisuals and adding pictures to the SCS Library page

Our library has an aisle reserved for audiovisual materials. Here patrons can find videos, DVDs, audio tapes, and playaway books. One of our recent projects has been the reorganizing of those materials to make them easier for our patrons to find things. Currently, we are in the process of separating the educational videos (all coded with Dewey Decimal Classification -- DDC -- numbers and shelved in Dewey number order) and the general videos which will be shelved in alphabetical order by title. What will this mean for our patrons? If a staff member comes in looking for a DVD on some educational topic, he or she can use the OPAC search to find the DDC number and go to the AV Aisle, look on the left-hand side where those videos are listed in number order beginning with 000 in the upper left corner of the aisle and ending with 999 in the last shelf on the bottom far end of the shelves on the same side. Other DVDs/videos will be shelved on the right when standing at the computers and will have a letter at the top of the spine and call number at the bottom, example Superbook will have a large "S" at the top of the spine, and "DVD Sup" at the bottom. All biography videos will also be shelved together alphabetically and will be in a separate section at the far end of the "other" video aisle on the right hand side. This is a work in progress, and though the videos are already reshelved in this order, the labeling is not finished yet. Please be patient and bear with us as we complete the relabeling.

Another new library feature: photos on the SCS Library page! If you haven't seen them already, you will want to check the SCS website, log in and go the the Library page where new student pictures have been posted. We will be changing those pictures out regularly, so be sure to check back every week or so.

Clearing out the old to make room for the new...

Our "Teachers Help Yourselves" cart grows daily. It includes titles we have discarded from the library through the "weeding" process. The problem is that though the number of books keeps increasing, the cart doesn't grow with it. After several concerted efforts to get books in the hands of teachers -- and giving away a fair number -- we still had quite a few items that weren't going to good use. It was time to start fresh; to clean off the cart of those books that weren't going to be getting a good home around SCS, and make room for new giveaway titles still to come.

Enter our posse of helpers! Fifth graders Lizzie, Ashley R., Kayla, and Anna arrived today at recess time ready to volunteer to do some work. In a short amount of time, they had boxed up the entire cart to be donated to another ministry or non-profit organization that can make use of them.

We can't really say enough about our helpers. Third graders Daniella, Katherine, Mikayla, Christiana, Hannah, Danielle, Amy, Steven, Michael, Tabby, Emma, Noel, and Noelle, as well as fourth graders Cory, Julianna, and Juliet, other fifth graders Kristina, Julianna, Ashley B., Lauren, and Emily, and high school students Noelle, and Kristy have all worked hard to serve in the library at various times during the past few months shelving and stamping books, dusting and doing other things to cheerfully help where needed. We appreciate all our enthusiastic volunteers.

Getting warmer...warmer...and Interior Decorating

It wasn't long after the post regarding our furniture rearranging in the office that Eddie from the custodial staff came in to help us get those heavy pieces out of the way so that the whole wall of radiator could be unblocked. Immediately, there was a noticeable difference in our temperature, so much so that it is now a rare day that we turn on the space heaters in the HS Room. Before, turning on two space heaters was one of the first things that needed to be done in the the morning, and that extra heat only served to take the extreme chill out of the air. Now, all rooms are fairly comfortable even on the coldest days. Undoubtedly part of that comes from the fact that the construction area on the other side of our white wall has been enclosed in the last couple of months, and so our white wall is not an outside wall anymore.

The Elementary Room got a bit of a facelift a few weeks ago. Just before the February vacation, Miss Martin's class brought in dioramas that they had done in their research on animal habitats. They are on exhibit in various places around the Elementary Room, and will be here for about four more weeks if anyone is interested to take a look.

New Materials

Books, books, everywhere, books! It is a good thing to have plenty to read when you visit a library. One very nice thing about SCS is the generosity of our patrons and their parents. We have received donations of books over recent months and are doing our best to keep up with the processing of those and our new books. In fact, in the past few months we have added in excess of 800 new titles to our library. Part of that came through the purchase of materials with funds from our NYS library allocation (we receive a certain amount per child from the state for materials for the library), some through the recent Scholastic Book Fair, some with money from our library budget, as well as those previously mentioned donations from teachers, parents, and students. It is one of our goals to expand and update our offerings, and we have been weeding out items that are well-worn while we add new things that will be of benefit to the SCS community.

Did you know that in a addition to the HS and Elementary Rooms we have a Parent Collection for parents to check out as well as Professional Resources for teachers? We are working on adding to our foreign language materials. In a previous post we mentioned the addition of a set of Christian biographies in Spanish, and will soon add some resources in Korean. Keep checking in with us as new things are being added to the shelves daily.