Setting Up My Library

I spent last week unpacking boxes, moving shelves, weeding the collection, making signs, hanging signs, moving tables, setting up computers along with a host of other duties that Teacher Librarians engage in at the beginning of the school year.

I was thinking all summer about setting up my library and then, while typing in the title of this post, I realized my mistake.  I am not setting up MY library, I am setting up the students' library. I am setting up the teachers' library. I talk about this being their space and I try to develop a library program that makes this a reality, but I still call it my library. It's not mine. It's ours.  AND, "What is a library?"  Maybe I should say, "I am setting up the place where learners congregate.  I am setting up the place where questions are asked and answered. I am setting up the place where knowledge is constructed. I am setting up the place where connections are made.  I am setting up the place where ideas are expressed."  In tangible terms, I am setting up a room with books and technology. How can something so simple be so amazing?  

I've still got a ways to go in the next few weeks, but check out how this space with books and technology where learners congregate is looking:

I added a few friends

I hung posters up high

and moved the location signage down low...

It's a start. Now bring on the learners!