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In my post Creating and Adding to Your Classroom Library, I wrote about finding books for your classroom library, purchasing those same books on a budget, and organizing your new books on your bookshelves. I wrapped that post up by explaining that you'll need to develop a classroom library checkout and return system. I personally use Booksource Classroom for book checkouts, returns, and inventory. While Booksource Classroom plays a big role in my classroom library self-serve checkout process, creating a system that runs smoothly and works for you and your students goes beyond a great online management system. So, let's start with the basics first.
*I haven't been paid to hype up Booksource Classroom. I'm just a fan sharing what works for me with you, my fellow teachers!
Classroom Layout
Does your classroom layout allow easy access to your bookshelves? Making sure your room is set up in a way that prevents kiddo traffic jams may sound like a small detail, but it's actually huge! When you're out shopping for a particular item at the grocery store and you walk down the aisle and discover that the last item on your list is located somewhere behind four or five people all struggling to reach the same inconveniently high shelf, it kind of sours you on the whole shopping experience, doesn't it? Getting that last item suddenly feels like a bit of a hassle and makes you want to leave it and come back for it another day.
Well, students browsing for books can feel the same way. It's not fun to search for books in a sea of people, so students will give up their book search if the area near the bookshelves is too crowded. So, how do you prevent human traffic jams? I learned from my father, who has been catering large events longer than I have been alive, that the key to avoiding human traffic jams is creating circles (or one large oval, in my case).
My father uses circular tables for his large, buffet-style banquets. That way there is no line of people to get stuck in like you often do following a buffet line down a long row of rectangular tables. His guests circle each table as long as they need to and hop in and out of the rotating circles of people to quickly get what they need. The tables are well-spaced out, and guests aren't limited to a one-way traffic system. I set my classroom up with an oval foot traffic pathway for the same reason. (You can see my layout below.) My students can access anything in my room from more than one direction. This prevents traffic jams and makes everyone happier!
Even if you are unable to set your entire classroom up using some kind of circular pathway, it will certainly be helpful to make sure students can access your classroom library from more than one direction.
The Book Return
Now on to book returns. Every library, no matter how big or small, needs a dedicated space for returned books!
My students used to stack their returned books on the corner of my desk, but the books took up too much space on the days that I didn't have time to get them re-shelved before school let out.
So, the book return spot in my classroom is now a three-tiered utility cart that I got from Target for $15. I use the top tier for book returns, the middle tier for wait-listed books (I'll explain my wait-list system in another post soon), and the bottom tier is for damaged books. I quickly explain the purpose for each tier on the first day of school, and then all of my students know how to use it for the rest of the year.
The labels you see in the above photos are available for free in my Teacher's Pay Teachers store! Click here to download my book return labels for free!
While laminating the labels and securing them to the cart with tape is an option, I printed mine on full sheet address labels, cut them out, and stuck them to the cart. I'm happy to report that they never peeled off. They stayed on securely all year! *As an Amazon Associate, I earn commission from qualifying purchases
You could use anything as a book return really - a bin from the Dollar Tree, a milk crate, a specific shelf in your room - but no matter what you choose to use as a book return, your students need a designated place to put their returned books.
Book Inventory and Management Systems There are several book inventory and management systems to choose from. I have used Booksource Classroom's free system for three years, and it has been a game-changer! Instead of trying to track which books are currently checked out on paper, my students can use this self-serve checkout system themselves much more quickly, and I can see which book each student currently has checked out with a quick search! My students use an iPad that I received from a grant to check their books in and out on Booksource Classroom's website, however, your students could also use a designated class Chromebook to do this as well. I have the login information printed on a label that is attached to the top of the iPad case so students never forget the class password.
Once they've logged in, students search for their group, then their name, and then they will select the option for checking out or returning a book. I don't separate students into groups now, but when I taught multiple grade levels I had one group assigned to each grade. You can also change how many books each student is allowed to have checked out at one time in the settings. I have mine set to just one book at a time.
You can purchase a barcode scanner for students to use to look up the books they are checking out and returning in the system, but mine have always just typed in the title of their book in the search bar to locate it. (A quick, but important, note about returning books- students have to give their book a star rating before clicking return or else they will not be able to return it in the system.) Speaking of barcode scanners, while you can manually type in the ISBNs for your books, the quickest way to get your inventory into the system is by using a scanner or using the scanner function in Booksource Classroom's app on your phone to scan the ISBNs on the back of each book. If the cover artwork is missing or the title isn't complete after your scan, you can always edit the information on the computer.
I Learned An Important Classroom Library Lesson This Year
While this is a great system, I have to wrap up this post with an honest teacher fail. You see, something happened this year that I've never encountered before with the classroom library system I've created.
Each year, I expect to lose about 10 books to either damage or just being lost by a student. Ten is about average. This year I had 35 books go missing, and I lost them for good! The worst part was that I didn't even realize it until the end of the year. I didn't realize it because, for the first time, students were taking books without checking them out on our iPad, and it wasn't until I really started looking through the shelves the last week of school that I realized just how many were missing! So what happened? I asked my students. I asked myself, and I came to the conclusion that at the beginning of the school year, I placed the checkout iPad in the WORST possible spot that I could have chosen, and I didn't even realize it. #TeacherFail
The spot I had chosen wasn't bad because it was inaccessible. It was super easy to get to! It was bad because it required students to check out books with their back to the entire class as their classmates watched them. You see, I had the iPad placed at the very front of the room so that every time a student needed to check out a book, they had to walk directly in front of everyone. I unintentionally put my students and their book choices on display for their classmates.
While some kids didn't care a bit about checking out a book in front of others, I realized far too late that my reluctant readers, readers with lower reading levels, and students who were on the shy side wanted to avoid being seen checking out and returning books so much that they would just take a book off the shelf, sit down, and never return it again. And that is how I lost 35 books in one year. Here's the thing though. I'm not mad. Sure, at first I was frustrated, but I'm not upset now. I'm not upset because it was a learning experience that I have, in fact, learned from, and now I can make a small change that will greatly benefit my students. So come August, I'll be finding a much better spot for the iPad! Finding books that appeal to my reluctant readers is something I feel very passionate about, so much so that I dedicated a blog post to highlighting some of my favorite book recommendations for reluctant/struggling middle school readers. You can find my post Hook Reluctant Readers with These Middle Grade Books here!
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