Monday, October 16, 2006
Library is flourishing so blogmaster is moving on...
The CCA Library has come such a long way in 3 years - look at the photos in the last posting! Carol and her team of Linda, Leslie, Bev, Jamie, Ramona and Peter have worked hard and smart to bring the library to this place. Carol is now the on-site librarian and main cataloguer. My part from the beginning was to bring the mini-assortment of books that CCA had and turn it into the makings of a library that could make its way to accreditation. Right now there is enough "library" to have as a base from which to begin improvements for accreditation. So I , blogmaster and library builder will move on to other adventures. So as of this posting, this blog is ending. Blessings on you all at Community Christian Academy, Lowell MA
Winifred Flint, MLS
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Wednesday, October 04, 2006
The librarian in her new habitat...
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
Our librarian Carol here is helping a student - on her knees as usual. She is also shown managing the library's catalog. Across from her desk are bins full of books waiting to be catalogued - about 400. An eighth grader - Sam- comes in to help with this never ending process - as 2 parents from the PTO - Linda and Leslie.
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New library now has study areas...
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
The big brown table is a great addition to the library - there had been no place to lay out reference books for study in the old location. It also provides an area for classroom instruction in the library (one of the many requirements of for full accreditation with ACSI). Note also our first quiet study area - surrounded by cataoguing bins - but still a private area for a bit of reading.
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The new larger library is now open!
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Librarian is in San Francisco....
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
I'm working....Really...Until the end of September. So I have not yet seen the complete library - otherwise you'd be seeing it too. I am taking a sabbatical where I organize all that I've learned at CCA and am putting it together to help the Christian school movement in general... i also hope to visit some other Christian urban schools out here - always looking to learn form those who have gone before us.
san fran is full of energy, creativity and life- not to mention the best food in the world - sourdough bread and king crab. and this guy reading in the street really happens around here all the time-so many things make me laugh out here.
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Friday, August 18, 2006
WOW! The library is doubling in size!
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
We are moving to an area between the cafeteria and computer room - great visibility. We will have a door to the computer room which will bring us that much closer to ACSI accreditaiton. Access to technology greatly increases our knowledge base and gives an opportunity to train students on efficient and ethical searching (this is a bit more in the future) . Right know the most exciting development will be room for study tables - so students can actually use the library to examine reference books that can't leave the library or to study or to do homework. The librarian in charge this year - Carol- will be in charge of moving the books and of course she already has a plan - she is so efficient. The following are photos of the new library being built. The men pictured are Pastor Najem on the left and Chris O'Neil on the right. Chris is the one doing almost all the physical labor. - blessings on you Chris!
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Sunday, July 23, 2006
"Left Behind" - the great and not so great...
Our mystery reader here has chosen an item from the incredibly popular Left Behind series as his favorite read. This extensive series makes a colorful splash on our shelves - catching the eye of anyone who walks in. Students are drawn by both the visuals and the exciting events experienced by Christians like themselves. A particularly great feature of this series is the way it gives both parents and children a point of conversation - both reading and enjoying the same book- excellent for family bonding and 0f course - building better reading skills. And cliff hanger endings leave the reader hardly able to wait the for the next installment...music to a librarian's ears. We have a limited selection of books that might interest a middle-schooler so this is a very popular series. This series does raise a few difficulties, though, that are addressed in the audio post.
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Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Why "Captain Underpants" is important
oye - how they love these books - normally we wouldn't take time to repair cheap paperbacks but in this case we do - there is fear of a small riot if this series were to go missing...
and our Mystery Reader says this is his favorite book - could it be Elvis?!
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God is sparing the library from this...
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
Even though areas a few streets away from the school are under water - we are still dry...I was particularly concerned because we are partially in a basement...but so far - so good...
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Saturday, May 06, 2006
shelving - a summary of needs
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
See the recent posts for details of shelving needed for each type of book. There are various arrangments possible but one that makes sense is:
typically these are 9 to 12 inches in depth
lacking enough wall apace 2 sets of bookcases could be put back to back
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See the recent posts for details of shelving needed for each type of book. There are various arrangments possible but one that makes sense is:
- use bookcases with 4 shelves - 36" wide
- this will require 2 for fiction/non-fiction/bio and reference
- this will require 3 bookcases for easy readers and picture books - easy readers on top two shelves and picture books on bottom two shelves (technically picture books require one more shelf but we will ignore that for now...)
typically these are 9 to 12 inches in depth
lacking enough wall apace 2 sets of bookcases could be put back to back
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this must be the ugliest shelving in the world...
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
It is used shelving from college libraries that are upgrading. http://www.booksforlibraries.com sells them for cheap if you are going by shelf inch/dollar and they can carry a lot of weight. It's not the most appropriate for a school library but it could work for some of our books. Materials for teachers could go on the top shelves as could the books we are still in the midst of processing (getting into the catalog etc.) Non-fiction and Reference - typically hardcover and thus more heavy would be a good match for these shelves. One disadvantage is their height and bulk which would dominate a room unless placed wisely- we certainly wouldn't want it blocking our precious New England sun!
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more shelving for all but easy readers & pic.books
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
Two of the yellow shelving (52 tall by 36 wide) will take care of our donations of fiction, non-fiction, biography and reference. In these areas we have some growth space on current shelving. Getting two of the same height also allows us to put them back to back to allow another flat area in the library where students can place books to examine them or where staff can process books.
Books are very heavy and the typical bookshelves designed for home use cannot withstand a full load of books. When you see them in catalogs - they are always half filled with decorative items or empty space - not too heavy a load. These bookshelves (rated at 150 lbs per shelf) are from a library supply house - Demco.com - which provides metal shelves at a competitive price and gives the option of moveable shelves - a big plus. (metal is much cheaper than wood.) (This product is called atlantic metal economical steel bookcases)
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more shelving - easy readers
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
Note the space given over to cover out placement - most early reader spines are so small that the title is hard to read from the spine...not great for beginninig readers...so a rule of thumb is 1'' shelving per book. This will alow some combo of spine out and cover out. For CCA this means that about 6 more shelves need to be dedicated to easy readers besides the ones we already have.
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more shelving for picture books - another example
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
The idea here is the old record bins - remember those? Imagine those replaced with coloful dish bins and then filled with picture books...the shelves would still need to be somewhat high. (this photo is of product ironwood glacier media browser from demco.com)
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more shelving - picture books
Community Christian Academy Library, Lowell MA
This is an example of the space needed for picture books. Note that there is plenty of room to flip through the books and that there are several shelf dividers to help keep books upright. The height of the shelves is also taller. This demo has about 25 books per shelf - we have about a 100 donated picture books in the queue which means we will need about 4 of these type shelves to store them. Our current shelf of picture books is jammed 100 to a shelf - so we should get 3 more shelves just to store those properly. This adds up to 7 picture book shelves that need to be purchased to fill our current needs. (this photo is of product Lov'n wood oxford picture-book shelving from demco.com) It is possible that some of this need can be met with clever use of shelf dividers on some of our larger width metal shelves.
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