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| out with the old |
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| in with the new |
Yeah, I know it's my first year as the school librarian and all and I'm not supposed to make too radical of changes, but I think you can see why I went ahead and got rid of that thousand year old dust-collecting furniture at the top and used book fair money to get the more kid-friendly stuff.
The original furniture was u, g, l, y it didn't have no alibi, it was ugly! My clerk, super-volunteer and most of the media committee agreed that it looked like it should be in the lobby of an old folks home, not in a 21st century school library.
I realize the bean bag chairs are not a permanent solution. I think the cool rug will last much longer. But if those chairs last just a couple of years they'll give me time to save up for something a little more sturdy.
I have been asked why I don't solicit parents for some furniture donations. Um, because while I might get something cool, I tend to doubt it. It'd probably look like the top picture or, worse, wicker. I have a colleague who had a fire marshall tell her that she'd have to get rid of the kindling she had in the middle of her library (a/k/a old wicker furniture) and was delighted to be rid of it.* Problem was, before she could replace it some well-meaning folks had gone out and replaced it all with new, just as ugly, fire retardant wicker furniture. Sigh.
So I'd rather shop around on my own if you don't mind and present the choices to the media committee for final input.
I just got it all Friday afternoon, so only a small handful of students have had a chance to try them out but the first ones to see it mouthed "Wow," before their jaws went slack. They couldn't believe it and were happy to be my first testers. A pregnant parapro plopped herself in one and I was afraid she'd never get up out of that thing! (She was fine.)
*We librarians always crack up at fire marshall regulations because we have, you know, 20,000 or so books in our library. Made of paper! So we're not that worried about the wicker or whatever it is they're giving us the eye about. But any excuse to get rid of ugly stuff!
