Graph Nerd and the Easy Reader's Non-Fiction Section

There was a question on one of the list serves today about separating non-fiction Easy Readers into their own section, so of course I had to make a graph to show how well it worked at my library!

When I started at my library the Easy Readers non-fiction books were in with the fiction Easy Readers and the general children's Non-Fiction books. I separated them out, we have 50, and now they have their very own shelf at the beginning of our Easy Reader shelves. 

The year before I separated them, the books went out 19 times. I separated them in December of 2011. Since then, they went out 121 times in 2012, and 112 times so far this year!  So in the end, I would recommend separating them out. Why does that make them circ more? I have no idea. I can make guesses as to why. . . the main reason I would have to say is that they are easier to find. If one is looking for easy reader non-fiction they do not have to skim the shelves of the easy readers AND non-fiction, or they do not have to enter a complex search string into our OPAC. 

Let Down Your Hair

I had some extra yarn laying around,

 so I made up a Rapunzel braid for my fractured fairy tales display.

Summer Reading is Over!

Six weeks of summer reading has me BURNT OUT! Here's the run down:

Rubber Ducky Club (Birth through 2 years)

• Monthly literacy activities (this is a VERY passive program). The first month they get a duck, and the second month they get a free book.

Kid's Program (3 years through 5th grade)

• Opening day carnival (First Monday).
• Weekly Reading logs (kids have to read 15 minutes on four different days) with prizes and raffle tickets. Week six prize is a free book.
• Weekly in house activity (for raffle ticket).
• Weekly coloring sheet (for raffle ticket).
• Closing day party (Last Friday)

BRAND NEW Tween2Teen Program (6th through 12th grades)

• They get one log with 8 hours broken up into 15 minute chunks. After they read 8 hours they get a free book to keep, 5 raffle tickets and a bonus sheet with 5 more hours broken up into 15 minute chunks (for extra raffle tickets). 
• They can also write a "Book Blurb" for bonus raffle tickets which we hang on the shelves near the books' shelf locations (we had 63 on our shelves!).
• We had a 'Til Midnight Movie Marathon for them on the last Friday.

Mondays: Toddler Storytime, then Movie Matinee

Tuesdays: Preschool Storytime

Wednesdays: School Age Explorers

Thursdays: Junior Gardeners

The great news is that numbers have excelled expectations tremendously. The bad news is that they love it so much they want more weeks next year. I'm not sure I could handle one more week!