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Fresh Paint: Teen Volunteers—Priceless
Volunteers are a critical component of the public library organization. At my branch, nearly 20 percent of the shelving is completed by adult and teen volunteers. Each month teens log an average of 125...
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Fresh Paint: A New Building, a New Team, a New Me
My father is a Marine, so by the time I was eight I was quite adept at packing up my things. I vividly remember when we moved to Beaufort, SC. It was 1996, and it was the first time I ever took...
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Fresh Paint: We Have Arrived
As this article goes live, we are three—count ‘em!— three days away from opening the new Gum Spring Library. I’ve been here since mid-January, and I’m just beginning to realize that the expectations I...
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Fresh Paint: Doors Wide Open
Opening Day of Loudon County Library’s newest facility, Gum Spring Library, has come and gone. More than 6,500 people checked out 14,000 materials in just under five and a half hours, and we issued...
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We’re Ready for You! Planning for Summer Reading | Fresh Paint
We have ordered 2,500 Challenge Cards, scheduled 83 special events, and registered 100 teen volunteers in anticipation of Gum Spring library’s first Summer Reading Program (SRP)—In Your Backyard…and...
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Design to Learn By: Dynamic Early Learning Spaces in Public Libraries
Roger Mastroianni Photography A design revolution is reinventing the children’s room in public libraries and changing the way young children learn. The movement involves colorful spaces with mirrors,...
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Inflato Dumpsters Provide Mobile Lab Space | Design Innovation
You may be familiar with John Locke’s Department of Urban Betterment (DUB) for being behind the 2012 installation of mini-libraries in New York City telephone booths. Now DUB is at it again with the...
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Stockholm’s Tio Tretton Library Gives Tweens a Space of Their Own
Tio Tretton’s multi-layered design offers tweens places to read,craft, cook, use technology, or just hang out. At a unique library space in Stockholm, Sweden, the only patrons who can come through the...
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Fresh Paint: Moving Forward, Looking Back
When I first introduced myself and the Gum Spring Library to you all last September, our opening team was less than five months away from opening the doors to Loudoun County’s eighth library branch. In...
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Detroit School Library Named After Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres is a talk show host, comedian, actress, and now the namesake of a school library. The Detroit Achievement Academy in Michigan announced that it is naming its library in DeGeneres’s...
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Stationary Bikes Join Books in Virginia School Library
Would you rather burn a few pounds or read that next chapter of the latest Printz award winner? Thanks to the addition of four new recumbent bicycles installed at the school library at Falls Church...
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SLJ and LEGO Education Launch Library Design Competition
SLJ and LEGO Education join forces for the “Build Something Bold” award. School Library Journal and LEGO Education have announced the inaugural 2014 “Build Something Bold” Library Design Award, an...
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Berkeley Eighth Graders Raise Over $78K on Kickstarter, Build a School Library
Student-built prototypes of bookshelves for a new school library. Credit for all photos: Studio H Eighth-grade students at REALM charter school in the Berkeley Unified School District in Berkeley, CA,...
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Amazing Reading Nooks: Create Cozy, Inventive Reading Havens in Your Library
Reading caves at the Madison (WI) Central Library, designed by Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle Architecture.Photograph for SLJ by Narayan Mahon Why is it that people “curl up” with books? Whether a...
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Missouri Science & Technology Student’s Class Assignment Leads to Lavish...
Missouri University of Science and Technology student Lara Edwards sits in front of her mural. Photographs all courtesy of Missouri S & T taken by Sam O’Keefe When Missouri University of Science...
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Arapahoe High School Unveils New Library and Park
The front desk area of Arapahoe H.S. library currently in the process of renovation following the Dec. 2013 school shooting. Photo courtesy of Arapahoe High School. Students of Arapahoe High School in...
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Locke Jetspace: L.A. School “Library of the Future”
The renovated library space at Locke High School in Los Angeles is futuristic and minimalist, with movable seating so that kids can discuss and collaborate. All images provided by NRBLB. A spacious...
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Bold in Every Setting| Editorial
Alabama, Texas, Virginia, and Illinois all have something to celebrate. Those states are home to the honorees of the inaugural Build Something Bold award, developed by SLJ in partnership with LEGO...
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Designing a Library, via Listserv
Kathleen Grupe (pictured), librarian at the Academy at West Birdville Elementary School in Haltom City, TX, will move to a brand new library in the fall of 2016. She queried the national librarian...
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How to Build a School Library from Scratch
Jess deCourcy Hinds with one of the student volunteers who helped build her library.Photo by Bruce Conwell Fresh out of library school in 2009, I was invited to start a brand-new library for Bard High...
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