Bookroom Organization Behind the Scenes
I’ve seen many bookrooms over the years, both in person and in photos, and there’s something I’ve noticed about most of them – they are over-organized. Well-intentioned teachers or other staff members have devised complicated check-out sheets involving cards, binders, clipboards, and the like. They’ve labeled boxes with titles, alphabets, numerals, colored dots, address labels, clothespins, and Ziploc bags. All for the sake of keeping the school book room organized. What a mess!
The best way to organize your bookroom is to keep things SIMPLE! The latest bookroom I organized, with the help of some teacher friends, was a victim of over-organization. Musty, old cardboard file boxes were labeled with the titles of each set of guided readers housed in the box. And each set of those readers had an old library card (recycled from the school’s former card catalog) with a handwritten title that was paper clipped to the books. Teachers were asked to pull the card of the books they wanted to borrow and file it on a poster with library pockets, one for each classroom. The system was cumbersome, the cards and paperclips were a mess, the boxes smelled bad, and it was difficult to find what I needed. Definitely not simple. And the worst part of all was that the system was over-organized to a point where it was impossible to add new titles to the book room without completely overhauling the entire thing. And this bookroom was desperate for new titles, especially nonfiction.
Enter the new and improved system! I purchased colored tubs at Ikea; they were large and inexpensive, they fit the shelves, and were plastic. No musty smell! My trusty friends and I pulled out the books and sorted them (this could be by level, content, grade, you name it). We labeled each tub, rubber banded them, and tossed them in. That’s it! Now teachers can pull a tub off the shelf and easily flip through the books and clearly see the title and cover of each set. Finding the books teachers need is now faster and easier than ever before. And there’s no check-out system to hassle with – just take your books and teach! Another added bonus to the simplified check-out system is the check-in process. Find a tub with a matching label and put your books back in. No more hunting through boxes and squinting to read book titles in order to find the one box you’re looking for. Such a time saver!
With a new system in place I was able to take stock of the books we already owned and the types of books we desperately needed. Adding the new books I ordered was a snap! I was surprised at how few books we actually had. The old cardboard file boxes took up a lot of space without holding many books. So what looked like a bookroom fully stocked with books was actually masking an under-funded bookroom. Once we reorganized we discovered we had empty tubs to spare. But that’s alright, it’s just more room to grow.
Take a look at our work in progress and see the after shots…
Bookroom remodel in progress…just look at those musty old boxes!
All finished! Looks better and smells better too! What a relief!
Wow! What a difference! Best of all, it’s easy to checkout books. 🙂
