Hi! I got several responses to my request for picture
book shelf dividers. Here is my original post and the
ideas. Thanks much! This will be a summer vacation
project this year.
I am a first year school librarian, so don't know the
jargon for what I am looking for. I currently have
these narrow, short, red plastic dividers for the
picture book shelves (to divide the books according to
alphabetic order). They are constantly being knocked
on the floor, and pushed to the back of the shelves
and "lost." The plastic strip to protect the alphabet
letter comes off very easily.
Does anyone using a good product in their library? If
so, where did you buy it? What is it called? Thanks!
---------------------------------------------------
Mine was free -- I had a donation of heavy plastic
like cardboard with commercial on one side.... cut it
to fit the size I wanted -- then stuck on an ellison
alphabet letter. Perfect.
----------------------------------------------------
We used brightly coloured pamphlet/magazine boxes
(e.g.
http://www.shoppingonlineuk.com/item-Magazine+Box%2C+Ocean+Blue.html
exceptcardboard) , attaching stick-on felt letters
that were available from acraft shop. The boxes are
bigger than the books so they don't get 'lost'.
Letters need replacement every now and again, and kids
just seem curious about whether they really are
stick-on!
----------------------------------------------------
I've heard other people use empty video boxes, placing
the letters on the inside of the spine.Bright,
inexpensive and simple.
---------------------------------------------------
You can make dividers "on the cheap" with cardboard
boxes covered with contact paper. I've seen this in
two elementary libraries. The boxes are sturdy, but
slim, so they don't take much shelf space. They
collected boxes from parents who participate in their
Market Day frozen food program. Specifically, each
school used a different method for covering the boxes:
one school covered the "spine" end with a piece of
paper that has a giant letter printed on it. This was
covered with clear contact paper. The other school
covered the entire box with a subtly patterned contact
paper, then added a large clear label with the giant
letter on the spine. Volunteer parents provided the
labor, so contact paper was the only cost.
--------------------------------------------------
I'll tell you what I use--old notebooks. Someone gave
our school a ton of notebooks from their business.
Catholic schools are always in short supply, so I took
some colored vinyl (also donated) covered the spines,
added labels created in Word that say EASY, put a
large capital E at the bottom, and then the
appropriate letter underneath that. The distinctive
color I chose helps my beginning shelvers and the
students find authors quickly. I also made sets for
fiction and non-fiction, using different colors for
them. To my mind they stand out better than the
dividers in catalogs and they were virtually free. I
made sure that each notebook is the same size so I
don't have a mis-matched appearance, and they have
worked great.
--------------------------------------------------
I filled some old film strip boxes with sand, wrapped
them in white wrapping paper and taped on alphabet
letters - labor-intensive, but cheap and they are very
sturdy.
---------------------------------------------------
When I was in the elementary I used what was called
divider shelves that I believe were made my Smith
System shelving and we bought them from Highsmith.
The shelves were metal and had slots in them that held
removable metal dividers. We could move them easily,
but they did not come out by themselves when the
children used them.
Marcia Gemler
Michael R. White SchoolCleveland, OH
mgemler@yahoo.com
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