Thursday, March 19, 2009

Good ideas for school libraries: 10. Be inspired...

Last year, at a teacher librarian conference, I saw a picture of a school library in New York, one of those created with funds from the Robin Hood Foundation.  To make positive change in poverty-stricken areas, and for one of their programs specifically in schools, they worked out that a school library may be 5% of a school's space, but making this an exciting space can impact 100% of students.
.
Our purple wordcloud wall, blogged a few days ago, was inspired by that picture I saw at the conference.  I've blogged about the wall, and provided in those entries links to the original work.
.
There are some remarkable new Robin Hood-funded school library renovations: read about them here, and see pictures here.  I particularly love the natural-history-alphabet one.
.

.
These are renovations designed by architects and artists and designers using what they describe as modest budgets.  To me, these are full of ideas to inspire, adapt, rework to be a part of my school library.  A primary school library, for example, could have a lot of fun with an 'alphabet letter of the week and artefacts that start with this letter' idea.  So what you need is a mind open to see what's possible, and how these ideas can inspire you.
.
.
The New York Times has the full article by Randy Kennedy, and a slideshow and more pictures, here.

.
Image source.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...