Dynamic Shelving

Making Changes

The beginning of the school year marked the beginning of my third year in my library. Despite a lot of people telling me not to change anything in my first two years, I did make a lot of changes to make the library brighter and more welcoming.

Now, I have plans to make more dramatic changes. Although I weeded the worst offenders (out of date, no covers, out of the age range of my library, or beyond repair), I left a lot of books I might have weeded in other circumstances. Many of those books will go this year though.

On the first day of school, I opened an inventory to begin tracking my books for the year. (Little did I know I’d also be doing a technology inventory, but that won’t take me as long.) I decided to begin in the picture book section and I began pulling every book off the shelf to scan through it.

All this movement gave me the fantastic idea to also rearrange my shelving. Now I can’t move the actual shelves since they are attached to the walls, but I can move the books. (I can hear you all now… you’re going to move ALL the books?!) No, not all of them, I promise. Mostly the picture books and the fiction books (both the fiction and the quick reads).

I’ve been watching videos and looking at pictures from other librarians so I’m excited to try dynamic shelving. I actually did a small section of my picture books but my little kids haven’t really noticed.

So I decided to make a more dramatic change and did my horror and most of my fantasy genres. It’s already showing a huge change. I had seven horror books and five fantasy books checked out in one class!

Why Dynamic Shelving?

It’s a big change from the static shelves that we are used to seeing in the library. Most of the time when you walk into a library, you see rows and rows of books. Not unlike this:

Adults are better able to browse shelves, read spine labels and make decisions by reading what the book is about. Children are still learning how to gage a book and whether they would be interested in it. By changing the shelving, it gives them a better chance to look at books before choosing. By shifting the books from rows to more attractive shelving, children choose books that they might not have otherwise chosen.

Dynamic shelving is also known as bookstore shelving, although I don’t think they are exactly the same. Still, they have similarities. When a library changes the shelving, they face books out, add stacks of books (mostly series), and generally make it easier to see the books.

Advantages

There are multiple advantages to changing the shelving. In addition to making it easier to see the books, it also makes for quicker reshelving. Instead of having to go through each shelf to find the author’s last name, the librarian can quickly scan for the series or front face it instead.

In my library, not only are my fiction books shelved in genres, but now moving to dynamic shelving means that I can quickly and easily put books back. I plan to rotate out the ones that I have front facing so that students see more books that they might otherwise not have noticed.

Shelf cleaning is much quicker also. Books can be put back into place, stood up, and the librarian can move on within just a few moments.

Time

Changing the shelving saves so much time by cutting down on shelving time and cleaning time. I know that I am frequently busy while in the library and being able to spend less on a recurring task will make my life easier.

Overall

Changing the shelving is a bit time consuming, although not as much as you would expect. I completed seven shelves the one day I worked on them. In addition to moving the books into the new shelving, I also weeded and inventoried each shelf as I worked. Still, those seven shelves only took me an hour. I have quite a bit more to do, but am hoping I will be able to finish it during the next few weeks.

Have you tried dynamic shelving in your library? What did you think of it?