How many books are in a classroom library?

As I was researching classroom libraries, I came across an interesting factoid. A major publisher recommends that a classroom of average size should have a classroom library of 600 to 1000+ titles to offer a vibrant in-room reading resource center. 

At first blush, I thought the number of books was pretty high. I know the size of the library in my wife's second grade class and there was no way she had that many titles. Or, so I thought.

Being somewhat analytical, I decided to "do the math". If you take a class of 25 students, at the low end of 600 titles that would be 24 books per student in the library. Given that school runs about 9 months, that works out to about 2.6 books per student to read per month. At 1000 titles, it works out to a little under 4.5 books for a student to read a month.

I wasn't sure if that made sense, so I headed off to a second grade classroom to check my math. Like most teachers, my wife has her library nicely organized into plastic bins, grouped by theme, series, and reading level. 

I quickly counted the number of bins- 30! Perfect! How many books are in bin? The answer surprised me, each bin held about 25 books, plus or minus a couple of books.  So her second grade classroom actually had  a classroom library of over 750 titles! 

Wow, I was shocked! That's a lot of books. I can say that we are nowhere near finished. Each year she adds new titles based on current interest and to support new topics added to the curriculum.