Opportunities from Disaster: Dismantling the School Library

Opportunities from Disaster: Dismantling the School Library

   December 10, 2018       rHL

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~Contributed by Heather Middleton - Aspen Grove School

Opportunities from Disaster: Dismantling the School Library




Mid-September this year, a portion of our library collection of over 15,000 books was packed and placed into an off site storage unit to accommodate a grade three class after their classroom had been flooded...

From this disaster, we had an opportunity to make changes as we would be starting afresh when the books returned. On the advice of a colleague, whose school had moved their library in previous years, observed that this was our opportunity to make a change for our school library. It was opportunity for change not only in library configuration in the placement of the shelving but also opportunity in making changes in the collection itself. Great advice from a librarian colleague!

Throughout the next month, access to the library materials was provided on a limited basis. By delivering books in book baskets to our Junior classes during their scheduled library times younger groups still connected with the library. Thankfully our library had a portable scanner and we had access to Follett’s Destiny Quest online.

While the school library was unavailable, older students began using the local Regional Library more frequently, and, students also began sharing their personal copies of books with friends. The entire school community showed initiative to keep their reading active. Classroom teachers added books to classroom libraries to allow students to take home personal reading material,

All of the school community was coping with the closure by providing more choices for encouraging readership rather than simply sending a class to the library. Other solutions, such as the student run traveling library. Our school library in the previous year, had purchased a travelling library of 200 or more books from scholastic books to encourage more reading circulation from its Middle Years students.The traveling library was stored in book bins, then delivered into one of the Middle Years classrooms, and books were circulated by students on their own initiative.

Partially due to the loss of their school library, action was also taken by one of Middle Years Advisory groups who organized a book drive to provide books to students in schools with more limited access to literacy and literacy has become been part of their service project.

What had taken one day to dismantle took five days to recover. The shelves had been removed from the cases and it took hours to find which shelf fit into what unit. The packers who had no experience with the library system hadn’t boxed books in alphabetical order although the boxes had indicated an alphabetic system. However, finding a new order from disorder, resulted in a small but more efficient use of space. In it’s rebirth, the library now extended into the school halls, and the school community as a whole has become even more supportive of its resources.