Over the summer vacation, our library had new carpet laid. This caused a ‘beautiful disruption’ as we had to close early to pack every book and every piece of library equipment into boxes. We labeled and color-coded each box to show which books it contained and which part of the collection the books were part of. So yellow for primary nonfiction, purple for YA fiction and so on. Our wonderful parent helpers and student librarians helped to fill the boxes. We ended up with more than 170 large boxes.
Then over the summer, the shelves were taken out, one interior wall was removed, the boxes were taken out, the old carpet was removed and the new carpet installed.
I arrived back from summer vacation two and a half weeks early to start the job of unpacking the boxes. Before the unpacking could begin we had to place the shelves back in the library – we decided as a team not to put the shelves back where they had been. We used this disruption to change where parts of the collection were. So we now have one area that is for secondary and one for the primary. The circulation desk is now in the center of the room and we have more dedicated display space. Many of the ideas for the change came from consultation with students and staff, our own ideas as a library team and Kevin Hennah’s workshop at the Waterloo ECIS librarians conference I attended a few years ago.
We have the same floor space, we have the same old shelves, the same old furniture, the same old books and the same old librarians (well I am still the same old librarian).
Yet, everyone who came in as the school year began commented about how wonderful the new library was. It had more space. It had more light. It was more welcoming. It is better.
Just goes to show how beautiful a disruption can be and how a different, dare I say a better layout of shelves can make all the difference.
