School Library Visit

I choose to use the library I work in for my school library visit.  I work at Easton High School library in Easton, Maryland. The school is one of two high schools for Talbot County Public Schools. We are the larger of the two high schools in our district.  The library is right across the lobby from the school entrance, It has two double doors with full windows between them.  I use these windows for library displays to lure in the students. Unfortunately, these doors are not handicap accessible, so any of our students that need help with the doors have to rely on others.  

We also have a back entrance that remains locked, because the way the shelves are situated I cannot see students entering through the back door, many students still find a way to hide in the back stacks.  The shelving is high, so not handicap accessible either, we have a lot of updating to do on that front.  Besides the inaccessible shelves and doors, the furniture and carpet could use an update.  There are 3 sofas and 18 tables that seat 4 students each. The sofas are along the walls and the tables are all gathered in the center of the library. There are two projectors with screens that drop down from the ceiling.  Some teachers come to use the space for presentations or for students to pick books for in class pleasure reading.  Lunchtime is when the library sees the most students, many come to read quietly and escape the noisy lunchroom, although they need to eat before they come in.

The library also holds the “web room”.  This is the old computer lab, but since the students are all issued school laptops, this room now holds the lamination machine as well as is a quiet space for the Special Education Department (SPED) and the English to Speakers of Other Languages department (ESOL) to do small groups or one on one teaching. Other rooms that only have access from inside the library are the ESOL office, SPED office and the teachers’ supply closet. I have many teachers who use the library daily, but not necessarily for books, but for the copy machine, paper cutter and laminators. 

The library houses fiction, nonfiction that is organized by the dewey system, a reference collection, a Black Eyed Susan collection, a small spanish and spanish english bilingual section as well as manga and graphic novels. The fiction section is divided into subsections, realistic fiction, historical fiction, romance novels, science fiction, horror, dystopia, mysteries, adventure fiction, classics, sports fiction, LGBTQ fiction, and fantasy fiction. Each of the fiction sub fiction sections are color coded and alphabetized. The Blackeyed Susan collection is a selection of books that the Maryland Association of School Librarians puts together each year. The Black-Eyed Susan Book Award is a student choice award for the state of Maryland that has been awarded each year since 1992. The award seeks to promote literacy and lifelong reading habits by encouraging students to read quality, contemporary literature (Maryland Association of School Librarians. (2022) Black Eyed Susan Award, para. 1).

I have only been working in the high school library for one school year. When I was initially hired, I thought I would be a librarian’s assistant, as my title is Instructional Assistant for the Media Center.  But alas we only have one Librarian in our whole district of 8 schools. We have 5 elementary schools, one middle school, one middle/high school, and one high school.  Raye Ellen Horner, the only librarian, floats to each school to help the assistants who work in all the other schools. Raye Ellen told me: It has been a slow decline. At first they replaced the high school librarian with an instructional assistant, then the middle school. And eventually it came down to just me. It began about 7 years ago and since 2019 I have been the only one. Sad but true (R. Horner, personal communication, July 20, 2022). This phenomenon is not unheard of in school libraries, there are often budgetary issues and challenges as Rubin and Rubin say, the impact of declining school library budgets most severely affected the number of professionally trained school librarians (Rubin, R. E., Rubin R. G. 2020. p.126)

For this reason I feel like the library is lacking in so many resources and not utilized as a school library could or should be.  There is no website, no student online collection access and no programming happening in the library.  These are all aspects of the school library that I hope to change in the coming years.  

References:

Maryland Association of School Librarians. (2022). Black eyed susan award. https://www.maslmd.org/black-eyed-susan-book-award

Rubin, R.E., Rubin, R.G. (2020) Foundations of library and information science (5th ed.). Neal-Schuman