Adventures with Self Check-in

I just responded to a post on the Future Ready Libs Facebook page. A user posted a question about classroom teachers returning student books, and then at the end of the class students would come to the circulation desk and not know if their previous book had actually been returned.

I understand her frustration completely. Students forget. I forget. We all forget.

When I first began my journey teaching the littles (K-6), their established routine was to place the book they were returning on the circulation desk in stacks. That's fine if you can check them in quickly and reshelf them. Me? That's not happening. Getting books back on the shelf is the absolute last thing on my daily to-do list*. Books piled up. Students didn't know how many they had. They were sure they left their old one on the desk. Maybe someone in the library picked it up but hasn't checked out yet? It was driving me crazy.

I brought an old laundry basket to the library and created a return book basket. This was not a better approach. Not only were students still debating whether or not they had truly returned a book, books were getting damaged from being thrown into the basket (much like books through a book return slot-they don't automatically fall flatly and stack neatly).

Fast-forward a year and a half...
A teacher returned an iPad to the library that didn't have sound. After much inspection into it's settings, apps, everything under the sun...Denise (amazing co-teacher) tried to plug in her headphones to see if it would work. There was a headphone jack broken off into the iPad. The teacher didn't want the iPad back if it didn't have sound, so we kept it for use in the Media Center**.

We used it for a while before I decided to download Destiny onto it for circulation***. I was so nervous to allow students to check in their own books. What if they messed up? What if they just couldn't do it? Could I relinquish my control over that part of circulation? It took about five minutes for me to decide it was worth it! Students had no problem using the system. I put the iPad on a book stand since I didn't have a stand or tripod for it.

I spray painted one of our large three-shelf book trucks and cut labels for the shelves****. Each shelf has a section of the library, and students put their returned book onto the correct shelf. This helps the library tutors get the books put away more quickly, and it helps to reinforce call numbers, major sections of the library, and genre.

The Before...and After!

~Nonfiction has been changed to Dewey Decimal.~

 This system has worked wonderfully. When students check-out, if the computer says they still have a book or haven't returned one, I just ask them to go grab it off of the cart. Sometimes, they reply with "...well...." That tells me they didn't really return it. Most of the time, the book is on the cart. They have just scanned the ISBN barcode or the iPad didn't read the barcode correctly.

This week students made the comment about the vast amount of books that hadn't been returned to their shelf home. It was at a busy time so I loudly announced that if they knew FOR SURE where the book belonged, they could put it back after checking it in. Books cleared off of the cart quickly as students grabbed those in the series they were reading or if they knew where the book belonged.




*But seriously, though, who has time?
**Does anyone else hate the term Media Center?
***I also downloaded our Book Fair app, which makes restocking so easy!
****Ok, Michelle cut the vinyl. I just stuck it on the cart. We were working on the word wall.