For the school library visit, I visited the library at the high school where I teach, Henrico High School. Before visiting, I checked out their website. As you can see from the image above, their website is made from a google site that incorporates Bitmojis along with links to their various services. For example, clicking on “find a book” takes you to the schools online catalog. As you can see from the website, there are 3 staff members – two librarians and a library assistant who you can follow on social media or ask a question by clicking the “ask a librarian” button. We can also see from the website that they are giving access to digital resources, their literature magazine, and an option to see what the local public library has to offer. I think the website is very straightforward and would be easy for a high schooler to find what they need. They also offer a button for teachers to find resources as well. I find that the website is both very welcoming to students and staff members. If you click on the “libraries are for everyone” poster behind the librarians, it takes you to the website, diversbooks.org. I think this a great resource for helping students and teachers find more diverse books that may not be available at the school library. This website also offers digital resources to the students.

As this is a school library, it is of course inside of the main building of the school. It is a rather small library that has a few rows of bookshelves, tables and chairs, a few sofas and soft chairs, and four office spaces that seem to be dedicated to staff only. One of the offices is for the schools ITRT, another is the librarians lounge, and the two I was unable to tell what they were for but they were closed and locked. All spaces seems to be accessible to everyone of all abilities.

When I visited, there were not currently any students in the library and only one staff member who was in there briefly and then left to go to a duty somewhere on campus. She was also not our normal school librarian, but someone who had been hired for summer school only. She did return about 10 minutes before I left, and right as I was leaving a teacher did come in with her 3 summer school students to renew their books. But this was the only interaction that I witnessed during my visit.

The catalog did not seem to be accessible anywhere in the library. However, it is accessible online and all students at this school are issues a school laptop, so I assume they would just access it from there. The books in the library were divided by genre in the fiction section and by the Dewey decimal system in the nonfiction section. The labels were hard to find at first as I was looking for something big perhaps hanging over the shelves or something maybe on the end caps. However they were actually labeled by a paper put on top of the shelves. Once I realized this, it was easier to find them and see how things were organized.

Historical fiction label on top of shelf.

The library did have quite a few collections available that would be beneficial to both students and staff. There was a LGBQT collection on the shelf when you first walked into the library. There were also both Manga and Graphic Novel sections. Next to the printers, there was a section labeled “professional development” for teachers. There was also a makerspace area that included Cricuts and the materials needed to use those machines as well as lots of arts and crafts materials. There were also a shelf of board games in that section.

I think that if it hadn’t been summer and I had visited during the school year, it would have more of a school library feel to it. Rubin & Rubin (2020) tell us that “The library is a ‘third place’ between the classroom and the home, providing personalized learning opportunities for all learners” (p. 122). Judging from the website and what I know of this library, I think that is true. Our school librarians are wonderful about working with the students to see what their personal interests are and catering to that when teaching and helping the students. I just wasn’t able to witness that during this particular summer visit. However, I could see from my visit that the library does a great job of demonstrating “an understanding of and commitment to inclusiveness and respect for diversity in the learning community” (Rubin & Rubin, 2020, p. 123). This was evident through both their inclusive collections as well as the resources they offer on their website. Overall, I wasn’t disappointed about anything with this visit and it was pretty much what I expected to see at a school library.

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

Henrico High School (2022) Library Website. [Screenshot]. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQLAqUikC6bSf8AhmxtAgNhYrz-bhgmXunYTMuQ3EKC_LdSKFRNI-H95gW0wHq1pdDXIxzjVD-bJdeq/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.g932be5616c_0_158