What Factors Have Increased Circulation at Brookhaven Elementary?

My friend, Julia Benincosa Legg, read yesterday's post that showcased how enthusiastically Brookhaven Students have embraced reading in the first six weeks of school.  She asked that I describe the factors involved in increasing circulation from a mere 8000 per year in 1995 to more than 30000 in recent years.  Her request made me review a progression of changes that have taken place since I assumed the library media position at my school.

Allowed Kindergarten Students to Checkout Books

Prior to my coming to Brookhaven, kindergarten students were not allowed to checkout books.  This changed in January of my first year at Brookhaven.

Increased Circulation Limits

When I started at Brookhaven I felt students should be allowed to take more than one book at a time.  Today, the limits are three items for grades 3-5, two items for grades 1 and 2, and one item for kindergarten.

Adopted Flexible Schedule

My predecessor had scheduled each class for a half hour each week.  During my first year, I was bored.  There was not enough interaction with my clients to satisfy me.  At the beginning of my second year I convinced my principal to let me try a flexible schedule.  My principal was concerned that teachers would feel I was not doing anything.  I told him that the idea was to be busier than before, by allowing the children to come as many times a week as their schedules and teachers would allow. Warning me that he did not want to hear any negative feedback from teachers, he allowed this change.

Acceptance of a new idea takes time.  Many teachers still wanted their "library time," and of course I complied.  However I stressed that the scheduling was for their convenience, not mine; it was my hope that children would be able to come everyday.  Slowly, more teachers understood that their students were welcome almost anytime. Flexible scheduling was never questioned after that.

Adopted Accelerated Reader Program

At the urging of Soundra Poling, a third grade teacher, the curriculum committee voted to implement the Accelerated Reader program.  Supplemental textbook monies were used to purchase the program and some additional books.  Implementation was slow, with a few teachers taking the lead in encouraging their students to read the books and take tests.  The teachers has challenges among their classrooms.  

I sensed that from the beginning, several conditions had to be in place to make the Accelerated Reader program a success:

1. First, the children needed immediate access to computers to take the tests when they were ready.  That meant that all classroom and lab computers had to be capable of running the software.  This was challenging to set up on the old Josten 386s, but with the help of my husband, I managed to get all of our computers configured.
2. Next, the teachers had to be comfortable with navigating to the software.  I worked with the most enthusiastic teachers first, and then eventually trained the most enthusiastic students to access the program. 
3. We had to have adequate titles and tests at all levels and genres to keep the children engaged.  Book fair proceeds, faculty senate funds, general school funds, supplemental textbook funds, Brookhaven Boosters donations, and even Title I funds were funneled into the program.  The collection grew from a little over 7000 copies to more than 13000 over the course of 10 years. 

Aggressive Weeding of the Collection

As our Accelerated Reader program was growing, we needed to rid ourselves of copies that were either duplicates, were outdated, or that never circulated. Over the same 10 year period that we grew our collection to more than 13000, we also deselected more than 5000 items.  

Acquisition of "Popular" Series Fiction and Accessible NonFiction for All Grades

While I continued to buy the "highly recommended" titles, I made great effort to purchase the series fiction titles that in library school we were cautioned to avoid.  I am constantly trying to update these series, and children are constantly asking for the latest releases. They know when new titles are released better than I do!

Open Library Nights and Summer Open Library Programs

These programs allowed parents to bring their children to the library, select books and supervise their taking of Accelerated Reader or Reading Counts tests.  While there is no direct compensation for these programs, I feel I have been blessed by parents who support and are willing to financially support our library through book fair purchases.

Migrating to Destiny Library Management Software

The Destiny interface is much more user-friendly than the prior versions of Follett software.  The district database format allowed children to request books of interest from other school libraries.  Allowing children to create their own logins to monitor their own reading interests has created more ownership of the library by our students.

That's all nice, but without the following conditions being met, none of my initiatives would have succeeded.  I owe all my success to the following:

1. Principals who allowed me to build the program according to my vision and provided financial support when needed to help the library program succeed.
2. Stable district funding above what was provided at school and the yearly the provision of software and support
3. Parental support, not only in the form of supporting the book fair, but in encouraging their children to be readers.
4. Teachers who bought into my vision and participated in the development of recreational reading habits among my children.
5. Finally, children who keep me busy and on the top of my game every hour of the day!