Monthly Media Center Reports

I am definitely NOT ready for August yet, but that doesn't mean that I'm not already planning ahead. As soon as my new Big Happy Planner and sticker arrived I got to work adding everything school related to my calendar.

If you haven't tried {these} erasable markers yet, you have GOT to! 

Seriously, go add them to your Amazon cart now. You will be so glad you did.

Once I got my planner organized I started to think about school...sigh!!!  I wanted a monthly document I could add to my planner that gave detailed information about circulation, weeding, popular titles, purchases and new books/series that I added to the collection. So, I set to work and created this easy to print document that you can add to your calendar/lesson plan book to keep track of everything library related.

Click {here} to view this product in my TpT store.

Each month features a two page layout. I am planning to print mine double sided on cardstock and add them to each month in my planner.

You can document the following information each month:

- total # circulations

- # copies weeded

- top 5 circulated books

- orders placed

- miscellaneous notes

I hope that many of you will find this little tool helpful. I think it will be a great resource to share with administrators throughout the year regarding the activity in your library.

Happy Planning!!!!!

HOW TO - Creating Sublocations in Destiny

I have received several emails from people wanting to get more information about how I created sublocations for books once I {sort of} ditched Dewey and reorganized my nonfiction sections into subjects. So, I will do my best to try to walk you through it step by step.

STEP 1: Locate the book in Destiny by scanning the barcode and click on {AVAILABLE} in the Status Column.

STEP 2: Click on {EDIT COPY}

STEP 3: Scroll down until you come to the sublocation heading and click on {OTHER}

You will have to do this for the first book in any new sublocation. This allows you to create the sublocation name. Once you have done this, you should be able to just search for the sublocation by clicking on the down arrow by the {SUBLOCATION HEADING BOX}.

STEP 4: Add the title of the sublocation and click on {SAVE}.

STEP 5: Click on {SAVE COPY] if you see the correct sublocation listed.

Now when students are searching for a book they want to check-out using Destiny Discover here is what they will see. Notice that under the Call Number they can also see the Sublocation.

I opted to just leave the Call Numbers as is. I did not add any additional stickers or labels to any of the books that I put into new sublocations. I am fortunate to have TWO full time library aids that do all of my shelving. They played an active role in helping me with this HUGE project. They didn't think shelving books in the new locations would be an issue.

Hopefully that was all as clear as mud . . . lol! Learning to navigate and use Destiny is still a work in progress for me. A lot of times I figure things out by trial and error.

Extreme Makeover - Shelf Edition

I finally found time to tackle a project that has been on my TO DO LIST for the past three years. I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get it. 

After completing our end of the year inventory and weeding several titles from the collection, I gave my EASY - NONFICTION section a complete makeover.

I started by ordering 25 of {these}buckets from Walmart.  They are heavy duty and fairly wide so they worked perfectly for the oversized books.

Next, I set to work dividing books into preliminary categories. I will admit, this part probably took the longest. As you can see there were some random titles that didn't really fit into any specific categories so I left them on the top shelf and just kept them organized by their call numbers.

It was important to me that everything be kept organized in Destiny so I created sublocations for each category and updated the title info. This alone was a BIG project . . . but I think it will be helpful in the long run when students/teachers are trying to locate a specific book. 

Once I had all of my category names I started making labels for the buckets. I went ahead and put labels on 2 sides of each bucket. This will allow me flexibility on which direction the buckets can go on the shelves.

I don't have the labels available yet in my TpT store . . . but they will be coming soon. I used so much clipart making them that it's going to take some time to get all of that info put together so I can give the creators of it acknowledgements.

Next, I set to work on making the shelf dividers.

There were several series of books that I recently purchased that I didn't want to separate quite yet so I kept them together and made individual labels for them. In the picture above you can see what I'm referring to.

I was so happy with how this section of my library turned out that decided I couldn't stop there . . . so I started making more shelf markers for my Fiction sections.

All of this is available in the newest addition to my TpT store.

 Click {here} to see everything you need to give your library shelves an extreme makeover just like I did.