This was another fun school library to visit! It’s always great to visit our members: most of the services and materials are similar across all our libraries, but every library has a few interesting individual features!
Right at the front door was one of the individual features of this library: a Little Free Library, with books available to everyone! I’m such a fan of the Little Free Libraries, and it was so fun to see it here!
You can see how nice the desk area is, with displays, handouts, and all sorts of things to look at as patrons are processed.
Thinking about those patrons is always a good idea, and this is (hopefully!) a fantastic idea for summer reading! The library books can be checked out for the entire summer now – giving students a great opportunity to get some fun (or even educational!) reading done over the summer!! This is the first year they are trying this idea; so everyone cross your fingers that it is a big success!
This is another example of being user-centered in library service: a supplies cart! Every library person knows that patrons come to you in a steady stream to ask for tape, staplers, scissors, paper clips, and more. Here they have just eliminated a lot of wasted staff time, and provided the supplies for easy patron access. This kind of thinking about focusing your limited time on the work that has more value and meaning to your community members – great job here!
Like many of our CMLE member schools, Elk River provides students with Chromebooks. They also provide this very nifty station for assisting students with their tech problems! This is very conveniently located in the library, along with some other useful spaces, but is staffed separately. It’s so nice to see different groups of school staff all working together!
Technology is, of course, important in the service provided by this library. Here you see not only a cool whiteboard but also Media Specialist Scott Eskro giving us a cheerful wave! (Hi Scott!)
And there are, unsurprisingly, tons of interesting books available! My “librarian disease” was in full gear here, as in every library, as I struggled not to keep stopping and picking up all the books to read. (It’s a struggle in every library I visit; but I’m pretty sure that all of us in the library profession struggle with this!)
This was not in the library, but I always love to see thinks kind of art project in the hallways of the schools I get to visit! Any book-themed art project, not matter how tenuously connected to books and libraries, is always so fun to see! And this one was just neat to look at, in addition to being artistic and interesting.
As always on our library visits, it was just great to see Scott, his entire staff, and all the happy library patrons swarming the place! It really is so fun for us to visit members in your libraries; so check in with us to get onto our schedule! (It really helps us if you tell us a couple of days that work for you before we have to track you down!)