Alta: The non-fiction collection

Sara is amazing! I only come one day a week because of my three other libraries, so she does most of the “heavy lifting.” She whipped the non-fiction section into shape.

There is a problem with fiction, though.

The problem is that the big collection ordered for the library was all non-fiction, a bid collection, and it’s great – but our fiction section is very small. This is it, right now.

Some of the fiction books we are going to have are still in boxes, waiting for processing and cataloging. They are all processed for the public library, and that processing needs to be removed. Their records are part-imported into our catalog from their catalog, but each book will need to be handled individually, with their MARC records updated and processing completed for our school, with school library call numbers, barcodes, etc. It is a huge job, and there are 467 records to do this to.

Alta: Lo, and behold, shelves finally arrived

…and not a moment too soon! Actually, about a month late. Vendors have trouble getting their wares to Wyoming, it seems.

But the shelves were there, and some books were ready for them:

Alta: In the meantime, I cataloged and enjoyed the school

Which is lovely:

There are about 40 students. Here is everyone lining up for the all-school picture day (instead of taking one picture per class, the students take pictures together. Grades are combined, two at a time, and taught together.)

It is worth noting that the principal has the coolest car I’ve pretty much ever seen.

They take good care of their grounds!

And this is the bookmobile that the public library now owns, having moved its collection temporarily into the parking lot, from the school. Plans for a building are in the works. It is in the school parking lot. It does not move, which is more common of bookmobiles than most people realize. It is really just a “holding place.” There is internet access and a public computer available there.

Their bookdrop is a mailbox.

Alta: There were books – oh yes, there were books

Just because we didn’t have furniture, it didn’t mean we didn’t have books.

There were more than 1,000 books waiting to be cataloged and shelved (once we had shelves). It was an intimidating sight.

A sizeable order, waiting to be opened and cataloged…

Sara and I took the books out of the boxes. She began organizing them and I began to catalog them, as much as possible. The import wasn’t too bad since they were all Non-Fiction books, and I didn’t have to change many of their records – yet.

I used the shelf we had, and the book cart.

In the beginning: The Alta library

In the beginning, there was an empty room.

It was not always empty. It used to be full of books, computers, and activity, when the public library ran a combined school and community library at the school.

Now the public library has its own bookmobile (in the school’s parking lot) and the school is creating its own library from scratch.

This is one of my jobs. I travel to four different libraries a week, and this is the one – at the Alta Elementary School, a Blue Ribbon school in Alta, Wyoming – is the newest, and the farthest away. It is an hour and a half from where I live, each way, over the Teton Pass. I am a teacher-librarian, which means I teach library classes most of the time, but the other job is managing the libraries, which takes about as much time, or more (especially in libraries that are new, or need some good old-fashioned fixing).

When school began, furniture had not arrived as promised. We finally got tables a few weeks into the school year, but no shelves – they were delayed and delayed. But the walls were painted!

A view of the library after one shipment of the furniture finally arrived…