Finally ready for business!

Well, that is if you ignore that I still need to:

• inventory holiday books that are in the cupboard
• get new books from the summer on the shelf
• place the big fall order for books
• get bulletin board put up
• place ebook page on website
• write newsletter piece (by next week)
• do the 2011-2012 year-end report (as an infographic?)

Well, I intend to ignore all the things I haven't done yet.  Not forever, but for now, I won't let that dissuade me from writing this blog post, celebrating the fact that I finally (mostly) have the elementary library in the state I wanted it to be for the first day of school. 

In case you're new here, the elementary library received a generous donation from a former librarian who passed away.  I thought for a long time about what to do, what I would want done if I gave money to a library.  I wouldn't want it to go for books - I see what happens to books and the school should be buying them anyway. I wanted to do something substantial, something that would let the family say, "Look what we did."  Read here and here and here and here for other posts about the progress.
 
It's not entirely my fault., taking this long to get it in opening day condition.  The shelves didn't get put in until the day before school started (everyone was super busy this summer), and we (being my husband and adult daughter - how is that "we"?) still had to put a polyurethene stain on them (or more like five coats, with sanding in-between). 
 
I had to weed them still, and put any that I thought appropriate into our beginning reader section (Hop on Pop type of books).  I decided to create another section for the reader that has mastered those but aren't quite ready for juvenile fiction books.  So this is the Henry and Mudge type of book, but I don't yet know what I'll call this section, or if I need to buy yet another sticker to differentiate those from everything else.  Those books tend to be all the same size, but I suppose a special sticker is the way to go.  Perhaps I can just get gold stars from the teacher supply store?
 
Anyway, here are pictures!  I can see that I should improve my picture-taking habits.  Not skills so much - I mean, I'd like to do that, but to do that, I need to first improve my habits.  I don't have any pictures of Josh Anderson painting the sun or the well, of the shelves without any books, or me moving books and books and books.
 
Here's my first layout of the library. This time, I used a tape measure instead of a ruler:

 

 

After conferencing with me, one of Kandice Roethler's Virtual Reality students made this 3D model of the stage. I tweaked it a bit, but I really appreciated his work because I was able to really visualize the possiblities:

 

 

After struggling with graph paper and pencil, I made this layout of the stage on Microsoft Publisher:

 

 

 

This is my rendering of the bookshelves (again, in Publisher) after Brian Nelson, shop teacher and all-around handy guy, got done with them:

 

 

 Here's Brian starting the stage:

 

Here's Donna Ulrich, Library Associate and painting master, contorting herself to make sure all nooks and crannies get her special treatment:

 

 

Here's my husband, Robin, and daughter, Rebekah, sanding the shelves. Well, one of them is sanding, and one is making a face at me:

 

 

 Here's the picture book shelf. It looks as great as I imagined it would months ago when I first designed it:

 

 

I can't wait to see how quickly the books we feature will check out:

  

 

Like that one, and that one, and that one:

 

 

 

Oh and definitely that one. (And yes, I do need some photo skillz, too!):

 

 

Here's the view from the top:

 

 

 

And yet, here's my to do list, still unfinished after a full Saturday at work:

 

 

 

 Oh well.  I can now cross off #20, and the others can wait until Monday.