Check out these tips and ideas for your library media center.

Try these time saving and promotional ideas for your library media center.

Requests for Materials
Keeping up with all the requests that teachers make for materials can sometimes be frustrating. Keep a three ring binder divided into sections for each grade with file folders. Attach a press-on pocket inside each folder. As a teacher requests reserved books, audiovisual materials, etc., record each item on a small index card. Place the card in the pocket of the appropriate folder. This helps keep track of items that are not in your circulation system.

Circulate Those Lonely Books
Motivate the students to head toward often-ignored books with an appealing bulletin board. Scan and post color copies of the covers on the bulletin board.

A Pillow Project
To make your media center more comfortable have students help make toss pillows. Each child can draw a picture on an 8"x8" piece of unbleached muslin. The pictures should be colored heavily with wax crayon and ironed between paper towels. Have parents help sew the squares together with scrapes of bright material. You can stuff with discarded pantyhose.

Too much work or money? If you want reading pillows that won't break your budget try chair pads. You can pick up a package of four from most large chain stores for under $5. Cut the strings off and you have easy to stack reading pillows. To clean the pillows use your dishwasher. Make sure the heating element is turned off. Stack the cushions in as you would plates, or lie them flat on the top rack. Don't let them overlap. The jets of water will clean the pillows without mangling the stuffing. The hot water will help kill germs. Schedule this task at least twice a year. You can ask parent volunteers to take cushions home to clean.

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