Our dedicated classroom building gives us the opportunity to build a center for international teaching and learning. We have just added benches to the 'back lobby' to provide seating so it seemed natural to try to define this area as a 'reading room'.
Today we rolled the book cart out of storage and into the 'back lobby' to give our students access to free reading materials. The books have orange dots on the spines simply to signal that they are part of our open collection to be returned to the shelves.
Immediate student interest prompted Moe to post a temporary sign. I was thinking of posting something creative to tie reading to increased vocabulary and thus to higher TOEFL scores. Any ideas? We'll be trying a format of open lending - borrow, read, return - for now. Next step might be to ask students to note their recommendations in the front covers or on a clipboard.
Certainly you and students are welcome to add your used books (cookbooks? travel books? fiction? poetry?) to the shelves and to borrow freely from the collection.
