Library trip.

Part 2 in a series:  I develop a library-skills curriculum for second grade. (Part 1)

I went to my neighborhood branch library this afternoon while Mark watched the kids, armed with a notebook and a camera.  After returning some books and paying my six-dollar fine, I walked around and took notes about the layout, since that is the library I will teach my son to use.

There is a children's room, suitable mostly for reading to little ones.    Shown here are some picture books and readers in bins, alphabetized by title.  On the shelves are more picture books alphabetized by author.

Videos and audiobooks are kept there, as well as a collection of children's periodicals.

Outside this little room are the juvenile stacks.  The fiction is alphabetized by author and the nonfiction is arranged according to the Library of Congress system, which pleases me.  I spent seven years in a library that contained almost nothing but Q-QC and TA.

Mental note:  must find info on the rest of the LC system.   GV?  NC?  What's that?

Juvenile reference is a single shelf at the beginning of juvenile nonfiction.  I write down some titles we might find useful:  Lands and Peoples -- social studies encyclopedia.  Children's atlas.  Ox. Comp. Child. Lit.  Science encyclopedia -- 2 of them.  Encyclopedia of Life Science.  Int'l Wildlife Encyclopedia.  Wildlife and Plants. 

Where's the kids' regular encyclopedia?  I find it in the main reference section with the Encyclopedias Brittanica and Americana.  Also dictionaries and phone books and other atlases.  It's the 2007 World Book.

What else might we need to know?  There are three library desks:  checkout/returns, reference desk, and children's librarian.  The children's librarian is not there, but the other desks are staffed. 

There are a few comfortable places to read and also study desks:

There are, of course, computers for using the library catalog and web browsing.  One thing I like about our neighborhood library is that there are not any children's computers at brightly colored tables with a bunch of games pre-loaded onto them.  What computers there are for web browsing are always packed with teenagers.  I suspect that this is due to low funding and I hope and pray that nobody comes through with funding earmarked for preschoolers' computer games. 

I sit down at one of the terminals and do a catalog search for juvenile nonfiction about libraries.  I click on one entry, which isn't actually at this branch, read the call number, and walk over to the corresponding shelf in JUV NF.  I choose a handful of books to take home, maybe to incorporate into my curriculum, and run them under the express checkout scanner.

Posted next to the scanner are the library rules.  I make some notes:  no loud speaking, no playing audio, no running, fighting, noise, games downloading, annoying people, eating, drinking is ok if cup is covered, no loitering, don't break the law. 

I wander around some more.  Today's newspapers are in the adult fiction section.  There's a copier there too.  It accepts coins, which is good for children.  I forgot to see how much it charges per copy.  Under the clock are shelves of tax forms.

I can't really take any more pictures unless I start asking people for permission --- the library's pretty crowded.  But my hour's almost up, and my baby's at home, so I put my books in my bag and head out to the car.  That should be enough information to get started.