The library lies at the heart of the curriculum, housing books and resources related to all areas of learning. A structured and whole school approach to the use of the library as a multi-media centre opens up children’s learning, enabling them to acquire the necessary skills to find, interpret and use information. They also discover the diversity of fiction and poetry available for their enjoyment, using ICT to facilitate the process.

If your school is fortunate enough to subscribe to a Schools Library Service, they should be able to offer some excellent advice about organising your library and resources and we would recommend that they are your first point of contact for this. Click here for details of your nearest Schools Library Service.

For schools not fortunate enough to have access to such advice, you could contact the School Library Association. We have also detailed below some key points to consider below.

Many schools have resources including books, tapes, CDs and CD Roms and even websites, some of which are stored in classrooms and cupboards around the school. If these resources are rationalised, housed in the library and catalogued on Junior Librarian, they can be used much more effectively and can be found more easily.

• A first step in improving the library can be in removing damaged and out-dated stock throughout the school. Classroom collections of books can be removed from the classrooms and become part of the library stock, available for everyone to share. Staff can then borrow and change large class collections of books regularly, enabling pupils to have access to a frequently changing selection of good quality books to use in the classroom, in addition to those which they borrow from the library themselves.
• Books and resources can be catalogued using Junior Librarian. If there is not enough space to keep videos, tapes, CDs etc. in the library, they can still be catalogued and the location they are kept can be entered onto the system.
• Fiction and non-fiction books should be kept in clearly defined areas in the library. Fiction books need labelling perhaps with the initial letter of the author’s surname and non-fiction books could be classified under a simplified Dewey system.
• The shelves for fiction books need to be clearly labelled in alphabetical order and the shelves for non-fiction books need to be labelled in sections according to the simplified Dewey system used, so that finding and returning stock is easy. Illustrated shelf dividers can be purchased from library suppliers, in order to make it easier for pupils to find a particular section.
• Pupils need to be aware of the agreed procedures for returning books to the library. With Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 pupils, it may be best to ask them to return all non-fiction books to a ‘returns’ box and to replace fiction books on the correct shelves with adult guidance once they have been scanned back in using Junior librarian. If books are returned to the wrong place, they can in effect become ‘lost’.
• If the library is timetabled for classes to use, it makes it easier for staff to plan the development of information skills through the use of Readit and Junior Librarian, but the ultimate goal is to make the use of the library an integral part of teaching and learning in all areas of the curriculum, accessible to pupils as and when needed.