The Great Library Makeover – Part 1

The Great Library Makeover

I realized the other day that while I’ve been posting tons of pictures of our library makeover on Instagram and Twitter, I had yet to properly blog and show off how amazing the library looks.  So this post is Part 1, since we aren’t quite done with everything yet.  You’ll get to see our fiction section, reading nooks and brand new cafe.  The instruction area and Makerspace are still works in progress – so I’m waiting until they’re a little more done to make the big post on those areas.

Adding some color

For the first phase of the makeover, we repainted the library over the summer as part of our Lowes Toolbox for Education Grant.  The beautiful blues and greens really brighten up the library, and it creates an atmosphere that is vibrant and calming at the same time.  You’ll see them throughout the posts I’ll be writing – it’s made such a huge difference.

I spent a lot of time this summer going to IKEA to get little details that help make the library nicer.  One not-so-little detail is our new catalog station.  It’s a former employee station from IKEA that I found in the as-is section for $22!  I couldn’t resist that price, and I love how it looks.  It has nice little cubbies on the sides – we keep our loaner books for students who have overdue or lost books here.

The Reading Cafe

This has been one of the biggest new things that our teachers and students love.  My supervisor bought these for our library from Demco (these are the tables and these are the chairs).  These have been INSANELY popular. Teachers love sitting here during their planning period.  Students love them for working on homework and eating snacks.  Parents visiting our campus will use them to chat with their child’s teachers.  I’ve heard many comments from students and adults that it makes the library feel like a Starbucks, only cooler (and without coffee for the kids).

This new book display rack was an investment I decided to make to create a little more space in our reading cafe.  I used some of our bookfair funds from last year to get it from Demco – it’s pretty economical for its size.  You can see the red racks we had before in this post.  My library is on the small side for the size of our student population. So when I found out I was getting the cafe tables and chairs, I knew that something had to go.  I decided to change out our red display racks (which didn’t really fit with the new color theme) for a more compact book display.  This one holds as much as one of the red racks.  I think it makes the area much more user friendly.  I’m repurposing one of the red racks for our Makerspace – you’ll see those results soon 🙂

Library Makeover

At the end of the school year last year, I rearranged the fiction shelving units to create two nooks in this area.  This also created more visibility in this area, and allowed me to create a little more space in the computer lab.  I’ve moved some comfy furniture over here, and my students love sitting and reading or chatting with their friends.  I plan to add in some charging stations over here later.

What do you think of the change-ups?  How have you changed up your learning space this year?