Adopt a Shelf Program

Adopt a Shelf

In my last post I mentioned about the Adopt a Shelf Program.  This program was introduced to my on Twitter, by @WESMediaCenter.  She explained that it was like the Adopt a Highway program.  Students get to adopt a shelf and take care of it, making sure that it is straightened up, dusted, the books are in order and only the books that belong on that shelf are there.  I loved the idea!  This would give the students some ownership and maybe they would take a little bit more care of all the shelves in the Media Center.

Now that I had this idea, I was stuck on how to have the students apply.  I didn't want to have to recreate the wheel, so I starting searching online.  I came across many Public Library applications for an Adopt a Shelf Program.  These gave me ideas, but they were not really what I was looking for.  Then I came across the blog for Smithville Elementary Library.  She had an online application for her students for an Adopt a Shelf Program.  I was able to get in contact with @seslibrary through Twitter. (Which if you haven't joined Twitter yet, I highly recommend it!)  @seslibrary was very helpful because she sent me a copy of her form.  I was so thankful because it helped me out a lot.  I was also wanting to be a little environmental friendly by using less paper.  The form that @seslibrary created was using Goggle Docs form.  It took me about ten minutes to create my application.  Now all of the applicants information will be recorded on a spreedsheet that I can access.   Once I make my selections I will give them a permission slip for their teacher to fill out.

I'm going to start small with my ten fiction shelves.  I've already got many students already interested and wanting to pick their shelves.  My favorite question about the program from a student was: "What if you don't have anybody apply?"  If the students do well with the fiction shelves I will expand it out to my everybody shelves.  I'll keep posting updates on how it is going!

Happy Reading!!

Stacey (@libraryjo92)