Connecting school librarians and school libraries
-
Wilma Boonstra
- Female
- Woerden
- Netherlands
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Welcome to Wilma's personal page
Profile Information
- Are you from the primary, secondary, primary/secondary or higher education sector?
- Secondary/High School
- What is the title of your position?
- School librarian (in Dutch: Mediathecaris / Hoofd mediatheek)
- If your organisation has a website we would be interested to know
- http://www.daltonvoorburg.nl
Brief history of the Dalton school library (2007 and earlier years)
The Dalton school library has quite a long history. During the sixties or seventies, I'm not sure about the exact date, the school employed a real librarian. So from then on the library could start to grow.
When I started working at the school library, in August 1998, the library was as big as approximately 3 classrooms, let's say a 150m2 (square metres). The collection consisted only of books (with a dust layer on it) and a few magazines and newspapers. The first thing that was on my list was to remove all the irrelevant books out of the collection. The second thing was to get things automated. There was a huge cardcatalogue and it took a lot of time to maintain it. So, after one year the library automation programme "Educat-V" was purchased. Now I could start to catalogue the books that had survived the cleaning up.
As you might know, it takes quite a while to have your whole collection automated. It took a few years but little by little the situation improved.
The present-day library
The Dalton school library in its present-day form dates from November 2007. The old library closed it's doors just before the summer holidays of 2007. The collection was stored in removalboxes and stored at several places in our schoolbuilding. During a few months the school had to manage without a library! But hey, we survived.
In November 2007 the school library removed to a new space centred in the middle of the schoolbuilding. All the furniture, like the bookcases and the studytables and also the informationdesk, was handmade by a cabinet-maker/joiner. Everything was new and I can tell you that it felt so fresh and good to work in that environment. The photographs show more details of the furniture!
Facts
The library can 'shelter' aprox. 50 pupils and 8 teachers. The places are divided in:
- 16 study tables
- 18 computers
- readingtable for aprox. 11 people
- sofa (couch designed for pupils who want to read fiction and that want to lounge a little-bit). There's place for max. 7 people.
- moviebox. This is a separate room (in fact a huge closet) with a huge flatscreen. It is designed for pupils who want to watch a movie. The Dalton curriculum tends to let pupils Pupils tend to have difficulties in reading books because of: dyslexie, they think it's boring, they cannot focus themselves on a text, etc. etc.
The teachers have their own corner in the library. They have their own printer.
Computers and repro-facilities
All the library computers are connected to a inkjetprinter. Printing is for free but the pupils are used to ask permission before they start to print. The printer is situated at the information desk so we are having our eyes on it.
The copying machine is also stored in the library.
Library in reality
I will try to sum up all the things (activities) pupils actually do in our library:
- spend their (free) time doing their homework
- during the lessons they can leave the classroom and come to the library to look up for fictionbooks of for non-fiction books
- use internet for several purposes. We try to make them use the internet only for educational purposes. Playing games is only allowed after asking permission. But I think it may sound familiar when I say that it is impossible to have every pupil decent doing only the thing that they are supposes to do. Well, at least we give it a try because we don't want the library to function as a playground!
Ofcourse they can lend almost every medium in the collection. Each pupil has its own card with a unique barcode on it. When he or she comes to our desk because he or she wants to lend something, we scan the barcode and then the pupils record appears on the screen. Well it is a little bit complex to explain how and what takes place, but in a short way that is how it works.
Now I will give a brief summary about the Dalton Voorburg school
The Dalton school library has quite a long history. During the sixties or seventies, I'm not sure about the exact date, the school employed a real librarian. So from then on the library could start to grow.
When I started working at the school library, in August 1998, the library was as big as approximately 3 classrooms, let's say a 150m2 (square metres). The collection consisted only of books (with a dust layer on it) and a few magazines and newspapers. The first thing that was on my list was to remove all the irrelevant books out of the collection. The second thing was to get things automated. There was a huge cardcatalogue and it took a lot of time to maintain it. So, after one year the library automation programme "Educat-V" was purchased. Now I could start to catalogue the books that had survived the cleaning up.
As you might know, it takes quite a while to have your whole collection automated. It took a few years but little by little the situation improved.
The present-day library
The Dalton school library in its present-day form dates from November 2007. The old library closed it's doors just before the summer holidays of 2007. The collection was stored in removalboxes and stored at several places in our schoolbuilding. During a few months the school had to manage without a library! But hey, we survived.
In November 2007 the school library removed to a new space centred in the middle of the schoolbuilding. All the furniture, like the bookcases and the studytables and also the informationdesk, was handmade by a cabinet-maker/joiner. Everything was new and I can tell you that it felt so fresh and good to work in that environment. The photographs show more details of the furniture!
Facts
The library can 'shelter' aprox. 50 pupils and 8 teachers. The places are divided in:
- 16 study tables
- 18 computers
- readingtable for aprox. 11 people
- sofa (couch designed for pupils who want to read fiction and that want to lounge a little-bit). There's place for max. 7 people.
- moviebox. This is a separate room (in fact a huge closet) with a huge flatscreen. It is designed for pupils who want to watch a movie. The Dalton curriculum tends to let pupils Pupils tend to have difficulties in reading books because of: dyslexie, they think it's boring, they cannot focus themselves on a text, etc. etc.
The teachers have their own corner in the library. They have their own printer.
Computers and repro-facilities
All the library computers are connected to a inkjetprinter. Printing is for free but the pupils are used to ask permission before they start to print. The printer is situated at the information desk so we are having our eyes on it.
The copying machine is also stored in the library.
Library in reality
I will try to sum up all the things (activities) pupils actually do in our library:
- spend their (free) time doing their homework
- during the lessons they can leave the classroom and come to the library to look up for fictionbooks of for non-fiction books
- use internet for several purposes. We try to make them use the internet only for educational purposes. Playing games is only allowed after asking permission. But I think it may sound familiar when I say that it is impossible to have every pupil decent doing only the thing that they are supposes to do. Well, at least we give it a try because we don't want the library to function as a playground!
Ofcourse they can lend almost every medium in the collection. Each pupil has its own card with a unique barcode on it. When he or she comes to our desk because he or she wants to lend something, we scan the barcode and then the pupils record appears on the screen. Well it is a little bit complex to explain how and what takes place, but in a short way that is how it works.
Now I will give a brief summary about the Dalton Voorburg school
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I`ve just watched your video about your school library and I was quite impressed. Give my love to Madja. Have you seen her lately?
Glad that you could indentify me in the picture! I miss all of you a lot. The picture was taken in the School Libarie in Lithuania (Basic School). Did you visit the Secondary School? If so, can you send me some pictures of it?
The weather is freezing (8+).
Take a big hug,
Cristina
Best and warm wishes
Toula
I would have loves going shopping with the two of you, was it a nice town? It looked vere cosy and "hyggelig", the little we saw on our rush ;-)
Haven,t got the time for writing now, I find it very diffucult to catch up witk work again. I have my head so full of our experinces, all the friendly people, and all our talks.
As you,I have to work, so I'll write you soon, and send you somme pictures. Looking forward to seeing yours.
PS. the picture is 2 years old, just returned from Thailand, it's the only nice picture i have of my self ;-) Yours is nice too, are you teaching on it?
Many love from Jette
Now I am a member too, nice pictues!!
Yes I am nice and safe arrived Oslo and now back on duty!
What about writing about the DALTON- plan on your school - could be nice to learn more about how this is working - together with the school library!
Looking forward to the pictures :-)
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