A few weeks ago, when I weeded over 500 books from the library I started looking for ways to reuse some of the books.I was talking with my dear friend Shannon Miller about the gentrification process and she mentioned that she gave most of her weeded books to a friend who made crafts with them. I loved the idea and started thinking of ways I could use some of the books.

Anyone who knowns me knows I love me some Pinterest! I even wrote an article about how to use it in the library which appeared in School Librarian Workshop. I searched Pinterest for uses for old books and was amazed at all the ideas I came across. I then made a Pinterest board I made of ideas I found.

I decided that I would take some of the pages from the discarded books and wallpaper my library door with them. Using double stick tape in case I want to change it.

 I mixed up different books and images! I just love it and so do my students and teachers! 

We are done! 
6 Days over 6500 books later the Fiction Area is now in Genres!
I am so excited!!!

I can not thank my aide Michelle, my student teacher Barbara and the parent volunteers enough. I could have never done it without you!!

Today we put the entire Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Mystery/Thriller sections on the shelves.

Destiny did gone down today in the middle of a batch update so we had to go back and rescan some of the books. Luckily, I had only done a little bit of books before the system went down. I recommended that you only scan a shelves worth  before you hit batch update. 

The other biggest issue today is that we ran out of room in the fiction area for all the books. Even though we had weeded over 500 books. The problem was we added a lot of books from the short story collection into the fiction area and we also left too much room at the end of the shelves when we put the books back. This meant we had to go back and condense the shelves. It was annoying but something that was bound to happen. 

We do need to get a few more signs because we realized that some of the areas could use double signs but other than that we are done!!

It was a huge amount of work but I really think in the end it will be worth it!

Looking back over the post and the pictures I realized just how far we have come over the past week. We have all the books categorized by genre and are now in the process of putting them back onto the shelves. 

Today we got the rest of the YA done, and all the Romance, Historical Fiction, Sports and Adventure books back onto the shelves. It was a time consuming process because of the fact that we also had to make sure that the books were in alphabetical order before we put them back on the shelves. 

I will admit that there were times during the day when I was so tired and achy that I did just consider throwing them all on the shelves and letting the kids figure it out... 

The biggest thing I realized today, was just how much of a toll this works takes on your body. Michelle (my aide), Barbara (my students teacher), and I were really feeling it everywhere. My legs hurt from the constant bending and up and down. My arms hurt from lifting the books and putting them on the shelves. My shoulders and my hands hurt from holding all of the books. Muscles I never knew I had ached. Barbara and I spend the day alternating which hand and side of the body were using to help ease the pain. 

If you want a good workout move the fiction area! 

Today was a lot all about the repetitive movements, pick up the book, scan the book, hand it to Barbara who places the book on the shelf. Over and over - we had to do over 1000 books just today!

We only had one parent volunteer and Michelle was only with us half day, so most of the work feel to Barbara and I. I am impressed with what we were able to accomplish.

On Monday we have to alphabetize, scan and put back on the shelves our biggest sections, Fantasy, Science Fiction and Mystery/Thrillers. I am not sure if we will get it all done but we will try. 

I did realize that we need to order a few more signs because some of our areas span a wide area and/or turn a corner and having another sign or two can only help with the navigation. For $7.50 a sign it is well worth the extra money. 

One week done- tons of things accomplished -but more to go.

Now off to a nice long bath and bed. I am exhausted!
 
Thank god for acupuncture tomorrow my back is killing me :-)