When we started this project, almost 1,000 outdated and uncirculated books were weeded from our collection. This made lots of room on our shelves for new books.

With the new organization and tons of amazing new books, our students will be even more excited to read a variety of nonfiction and fiction. We are confident this will increase circulation, expand their reading interests and abilities, and make the library a place that they want to visit even more than before.

In a few weeks we will be kicking off our "Spice Up The Shelves - Funds For Books" campaign. This will be a chance for our community to put even more new books into our library and into the hands of our students, teachers, and families.

Thank you for all of your support with this project and throughout the year.

"Spicing Up The Shelves" is going to make a wonderful difference at Van Meter.

Last spring Greta Rhoads father Alex passed away suddenly. Greta will be a fifth grader this year at Van Meter. The memorial money was gifted to the library, so Greta, her mom Jennifer, and I created a very special project for the library.

Alex owned the spice store Allspice Culinarium, loved cooking, books, and learning so we decided to name the project "Spice Up The Shelves." We would use the memorial money to purchase new nonfiction. Greta wanted to find books about cooking, travel, countries, spices, and penguins.

Thank you Greta and Jennifer for such a special gift to all of the children at Van Meter. We will remember what a special person your Dad was every time we open and read one of the beautiful new books.

In July, we were so excited to have our friend Mallory from the Blank Park Zoo bring five animals to visit over 60 children and parents at the public library. Everyone had a fantastic time learning new things about each of the animals and even had a chance to touch them.

To tie this into the eBook Summer Reading Program, we purchased ten new eBooks and print books about zoos and all of the animals that we saw.

So remember, if you participated in the eBook Summer Reading Program please bring your reading log back when school starts to get a special treat.

You can read all about this day on the Van Meter Library Voice blog.

I hope everyone enjoys the start of the new school year. If you have questions or would like to come visit us in the library and computer lab, please let me know or just stop on by.

The Van Meter Elementary Library Schedule and the Van Meter Library, Digital Citizenship, Technology, and Library Science Curriculum can be found online.

Also, the Van Meter Elementary Library and Technology website has tons of great information too. Each grade has their own page where links, resources, projects, and news from their library and technology time is posted. The students use this site each week in the library and lab, so are very use to visiting littlevanmetervoice.com.

This year I will be seeing all of the K-5 students for 65 minutes every four days. I will be collaborating and connecting with the teachers and students in the classroom as well.

It is going to be an AMAZING year. I am very excited to work with all of our young people this year.

Shannon McClintock Miller

Van Meter District Teacher Librarian

@shannonmmiller Twitter

shannonmcclintockmiller Skype

shannon.miller@vmbulldogs.com