New Initiatives Grant Final Report

“Dynamic Shelving”


Please provide a brief narrative explaining your project and its outcomes.

This project was intended to create dynamic elementary library shelving which empowered our K-2 readers to independently and successfully browse for, and locate books of interest to them; even when they did not have the privilege of knowing the title and author of the book wanted. Dynamic Shelving is a combination of various strategies intended to “shake things up” and it has made our existing library shelves more engaging, appealing, and accessible than our former static shelving.

Completion of our dynamic shelving project will impact the visual appeal and accessibility of the collection. The broader impacts will be on our K2 students, their families and our community through increased exposure to high quality literature. Modeling this project for the four other K2 libraries within my district has in turn impacted their community schools as well!

I have significantly more work to do to implement dynamic shelving in the entire school library. With this grant funding I was able to purchase 33 bins which I have used to create dynamic shelving within the high traffic areas in the informational, series, early reader, and picture book sections.

The initial bins that I chose were on backorder due to shipping delays. Therefore, I chose a different bin which came with removable dividers as well as programable labels. I am not fond of the neon color choices, however students do not seem to mind. This dynamic shelving project was easily accomplished but it is ongoing.

What is the most remarkable accomplishment or finding of your project?

I believe that student interest has been the most interesting part of this project. Dynamic shelving is considerably easier for our “littles” to navigate while in the school library.

Please provide a brief summary of your evaluation activities and/or results, if available.

The success of this dynamic shelving project has been measured by “repeat business” ie: increased circulation and of course “empty bins” throughout the school year! Creating high volume access points for our youngest learners is more important than ever. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to create dynamic shelving access points for my K2 students.

Anything else you’d like us to know?

This is an ongoing project with our school library. Dynamic Shelving is vital within the elementary library. Given the increased reliance on device usage in elementary grades, it is more important than ever to match our “littles” with high quality, hard copy reading materials that they are able to self select based upon their own interests. Thank you for your support.


Darcy Barber

Teacher Librarian, Liverpool Central School District