Setting Up and Running a School Library is a lively and practical guide to running a school library. It is ideal for both teachers and others who are not trained librarians and places special emphasis on setting up a library with limited resources. Setting up a library is also a great challenge. It can be hard work, so it is recommended that you work closely with many other people at your school. In this way the library will belong to everyone at the school and can be made to benefit many generations of students.

This book has been written to help you to set up and run the type of library that best suits your school. The guidelines are based on the many years’ experience of VSO teachers and librarians working with local colleagues in low-resource schools throughout the developing world. Step-by-step instructions are provided to help you establish the library and run it well. The book presents ideas to help you harness your colleagues’ and students’ enthusiasm and to encourage them to make the idea of their own school library a reality.

The book gives simple step-by-step explanations and covers all aspects of setting up and running a library, including:

• choosing a room and making shelves and other furniture
• choosing books for the library
• how to make a catalogue, classify books and establish simple and effective library systems
• how to encourage teachers and students to become involved

The emphasis is firmly on practical advice, clearly distinguishing between essential and optional tasks. There are plenty of diagrams and practical examples from the experiences of teachers around the world.

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