Embracing Autumn

We've reached the time of year when the school heating is switched on, but this year it doesn't feel like such a big event. With our gorgeous new windows, we'd barely noticed as the chill crept in and though by this time of year we'd normally have been freezing our butts off for a couple of weeks, this year it's been fine. Getting through winter is going to be a lot easier, and it should be better for the books too.

So, what are we doing as the leaves start turning?

1. NaNoWriMo preparation.
This year our aim is that 50% of the young writers joining us on this amazing and ridiculous journey acheive their original word counts. The numbers becoming NaNo winners has fallen over the last couple of years to the point where last year, not a single person reached the 50,000 word goal. We're stepping up our support for writers this year, with after school writing sessions EVERY DAY even if there is no one at them, additional biscuits, and plenty of lunchtime sessions too. Our classroom kit is here, we're planning our stories and can't wait to get started.

2. Knitting ahoy.
Autumn is the time of year when knitting and crafting warm and cosy things becomes a focus for craft club! This year we're looking to make as many pairs of Twiddlemuffs as we can. My grandfather has Alzheimer's and is currently in hospital, and day by day he's less able to be active and interact with the world. He spends quite a lot of time just sitting, and unwilling to do anything at all, but I think he'd enjoy having something to fiddle with, something that feels nice and keeps his hands warm. I'll be asking craft club to undertake the creation of Twiddlemuffs at a count of one per person. Some people will do the knitting, and some the embellishment.

Got yarn? We need your scraps! And buttons, zips, ribbons, anything that could make a tactile little insert.

3. Reading, of course!
As the nights draw in and we're drawn more and more to the comfy nest of blankets and hotwater bottles that we've built to be our reading dens* we're very lucky that our lovely donors are continuing to buy us the books we need to keep our readers busy. We're asking everyone who goes on a book-buying spree to buy us one book, so if you could help us out, please do!


Currently reading: Furiously Happy, by Jenny Lawson.

*No? Just me then? Awesome.

Opening Evening

On Thursday we welcomed prospective students and their parents to the school, and it was wonderful to see so many of them in the library. Huge thanks to those students who helped us out, especially those who took the time to dress up and spend the evening telling people about the library. You're all stars :D

Currently reading: The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

September again...

So, you know how I blog every September and resolve to blog more? Yeah. Oops.

There are some big changes this year, and though my resolution is once again to blog more, I'm hoping that I'll be spurred to action.

For starters:
Our budget has been cut. We used to have £7,000 to spend, now we have £2,000. This will cover our LMS subscription, the security gates, one or two essential periodicals and, er. That's it. Oh, and paper for the printer, but only up until the end of November. Our book budget from the school this year is a big fat £0, which has come as a real blow. Our lending figures were up again last year, the library is well used by students and staff, lunch and break times are joyous chaos, and we've been cut. The mission this year is #OperationNoBookBudget, which you can follow along with on Twitter (we're @RPS_library) if you are so inclined. The aim for the year is to remain positive (very difficult) and still provide a good service to our students. Last year, over 80% of our loans were books that we'd bought in the last twelve months so maintaining anything close to our traditional lending figures is going to be hard.

So far we've been hugely lucky in that people hearing about our plight have been absurdly generous. We've been opening Amazon parcels wince the beginning of term to find items from our wish lists, I have a car full of books kindly donated by the wonderful @mattlibrarian at Farrington's School and two boxes of donations from Hot Key books, who are not only excellent publishers but lovely people too. It's not yet known if we'll be allowed to even publicise our wishlists to parents but the reactions and responses from fellow librarians have been stunning. With a bit of luck and a show of good sense from those in charge, parents will be able to contribute and hopefully keep us going! There's a new curriculum and several new exam specifications coming in this year that have absolutely no resources in the library so the situation is going to get desperate pretty quickly.

But there is good news.
The library has new windows! After years of freezing all winter and baking all summer in our greenhouse of a building, we now have new windows that 1. open, 2. don't leak, 3. aren't mouldy and 4. are double glazed! The 21st century comes to Roundwood! It's made such a wonderful difference to the space up here. It's cleaner, brighter, easy to control on terms of temperature and so much safer. The old windows were single glazed and not even toughened, so when they broke it was only the manky self adhesive reflective film that stopped showers of glass everywhere. All of the old parts of the school are being reglazed, which is fantastic. In a way it's galling that millions can be found for windows but there's no funding available anywhere for school libraries, however much I love the new ones! Not dreading winter is quite a good change.

Currently reading: The Dream Thieves, by Maggie Stiefvater; Outlander, by Diane Gabaldon; One, by Sarah Crossnan.