Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

Today I made a huge display out of a section of empty shelves.  You see, with the big weeding project almost done, I had two whole cases EMPTY–top to bottom, side by side.  What to do? They are mounted on the wall, so there will be no moving them. So I lined the border with a colorful bulletin board paper, made a cute colorful banner to go across the top that reads “New Books,” and then hand picked books to display there from the shelves — the ones that have the overall appearance of being new. They are flying OFF the shelves, I kid you not!  My students have noticed the changes in the library, and every shelf has space for at least one book to be displayed. One of my math teachers said yesterday in the faculty meeting after noticing the neat and tidy shelves with displayed books that I must have had some marketing in my background. I shared with her no, but I do love book stores, and I recognize that the top sellers are usually facing out on the shelves.  It’s amazing how kids select the displayed book when browsing.  I’m just glad to see them suddenly very interested, and browsing has taken on a new meaning at my school. Yes they still use the catalog on the computer, and they attempt to find books that match their Lexile (a heavy emphasis at my school,) but I have encouraged teachers to allow at least one free choice (no Lexile strings attached) to encourage kids to explore their interests.  If I think about it, I’ll take a picture to post here.  I don’t have as easy access to a digital camera at the time (but am working on  it.) I guess I could whip out the cell phone…I have done that before–though then i would not be modeling the school rules, would I?  But that is a whole other post waiting to be written (Rules, Smules, which ones are okay to break?)

Filed by Cathy Nelson at 11:22 pm under Collection development,SYP
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