OMG it's over!!

I truly cannot believe that my first year of middle school is over.  That was truly one of the fastest years of my career.  And I cannot WAIT for next year! My colleagues roll their eyes at me, but, I am serious!  Now that the space is organized and the collection is in better shape, it is time to GET EXCITED ABOUT READING!!! I am so excited to plan reading promotions and get the kids more into reading!

My smart goal (ugh--for those of you having to do them, too) for this year was to increase fiction circulation by coding the books by genre.  I put a colored dot on the spine label of each fiction book to help the kids know what genre it belonged to.  Circulation went from about 8,500 last year to over 12,000 this year!! I am so excited!! I'm not sure what to attribute the increase to, but I have some theories:

• Better organization: the paperback books that had siblings in the regular fiction books are now relocated to be next to their hardcover relatives.
• Better variety: instead of promoting the tried and true books that all the kids read anyway (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, 39 Clues, Warriors, etc), I weeded the excessive copies we had of those titles and encouraged students to choose something similar, yet different.
• Weeding: getting rid of the old, outdated, unattractive books helped students find better and more interesting books, both in fiction and non-fiction.  Fiction was my focus for the 1/2 half of the year, but tackling non-fiction definitely helped our circ numbers.  
• Reading: I read more this year than I have in many years.  I thank my dear friend and colleague Jenny for being a great reader-librarian role model.  I was able to talk to the kids about what they liked/didn't like and recommend books based on that.  When I finally read Divergent, I felt like shouting it from the rooftops!  The kids were horrified that I hadn't read it.

My principal was hands-off yet supportive.  He allowed me to try out new stuff and checked in often enough that I knew he was interested--but not overbearing.

Last summer, I spent most days cleaning out the rooms off of the library proper.  I looked at the shelves, but not knowing better, I thought everything looked pretty good.  It wasn't until we started using the collection and the catalog that I realized what a disaster it was.  Trying to find a book was so frustrating, and using the catalog was futile, since most of the records were incorrect or incomplete or both.  The entire first semester was spent cleaning up the catalog and weeding the fiction section.  Consolidating the paperback books into the fiction section was also a must, and it revealed lots of duplicates.  What a waste of money!

Most of the winter months were spent adding AR quiz information to the catalog records.  I can say that we have now updated all books that have AR quizzes--both the book label and the record are intact and correct.  That was huge.

Then, in late winter, I started tackling the non-fiction shelves.  What an awful, awful nightmare.  Who knew I'd find books about Soviet George and West Germany! Seriously?!?!? The school opened in 1996, long after the Iron Curtain fell and Germany was unified.  Unbelievable.

I haven't even talked about the kids--how I adore their quirky strange selves!! They were really the best part of the job and made the shit-show of the physical space bearable.  Next year is going to be just really, really awesome!!