Everything you Wanted to Know about the New Library (but were too afraid to ask)

In case you haven’t noticed, a new Middle School is being built beside the current Upper School, which opens at the beginning of next year. In this new combination of buildings, students from grades six to eight will share specific spaces with ninth to twelfth graders. The library will be one of these spaces. That’s the obvious part. However, the following are some facts that may not be so well-known.

Mrs. Maley, the Middle School Librarian, said that there will be approximately 14,500 books and plans to give the collection room to grow. This means that the library will house at least 2,500 more books than the approximate 12,000 that the upper school library currently contains.

But there are issues that this will plan will face. In interviews, Mrs. Maley and Mr. Jacobsen (the upper school librarian) have confirmed that the distribution of genres will essentially follow the trend set by the upper school library, which is mostly nonfiction. However, they plan to encourage students to read more for fun, which points to a more significant amount of fiction. The original ratio was approximately 2 to 1, and the future ratio is thus far unknown.

Furthermore, the librarians both had to - and still do - work very hard to manage this whole move. They have been clearing out any ‘weeds’ in the collection for the past months. This metaphor used by both librarians refers to removing books that a) have not been checked out many times during their presence in the library and b) are extra copies. This alone has been difficult and has restricted donations of books.

Beyond the ‘weeding,’ the librarians are also preparing for the actual moving process. They expect to close the libraries (at least the Middle School library) around a month earlier to be ready to open on the first day of school, which is the preferred date. This means that summer reading will have to be checked out early.

They expect to close the libraries (at least the Middle School library) around a month earlier…

Mrs. Maley also mentioned that although student help is appreciated, it is not allowed, as the moving process will require careful focus, precision, and organization. However, she has said that student volunteers will be needed again once the library is open and the books are all in their proper places.

Another fact. Did you know that the original plan for the combined library had only half the current Upper School library space? The architects believed that everything would be digitized once the construction was finished. This has, of course, been rectified, but with 14,500 books, space will naturally be an issue. In fact, planning out the area has been a significant challenge for the librarians. Their biggest concern is simultaneously housing the books and giving students quiet places to work, study, and collaborate. This is vital, as workspaces such as these are rare, especially in campuses this size. A few other issues have also arisen, such as the problem of having shelves low enough that sixth graders can reach the highest objects while ensuring enough space for every book.

Yet another significant challenge the librarians have faced is finding a combined system of organizing the books. In the middle school, books are shelved by genre. Nonfiction is on a separate shelf, as are other such genres (for example, poetry). Those are sorted via the Dewey-decimal system. However, all books are sorted with the Dewey-decimal system in the upper school, regardless of genre. This means that the librarians will have to come up with a whole new sorting method. What they will do remains to be seen.

The library will be far more spacious than either of the former areas. Furthermore, it will be located between the two campuses, or rather where they meet, and thus will be easily accessible by students from either side.

But how will they handle books with sensitive content, meant for high schoolers, the most significant issue of them all?

The plan laid out by both librarians is as follows: books that they believe should be restricted (due to explicit violence, sexual content, swearing, or any number of other reasons) will be flagged. Should a student under a specific age attempt to check the book out (ex. a sixth-grader), they will not be able to on their own. Thus, they will have to go to the desk and have a librarian check it out for them.

Mr. Jacobsen made it clear that the library does not have any books in its catalog that promote hateful or violent ideas and that the only issues with the books are mature topics. The reasoning for restrictions, the librarians said, is so that students’ parents can be made aware of what their child is reading and discuss it with them. This does not mean that the books will be restricted necessarily, just monitored.

The new library has taken a lot of planning. It will continue to demand a lot of work, even once all the plans and methods are in place. The systems might not all work at the beginning. However, despite all these trials and tribulations, all this hard work means that we students can enjoy this space, these books, and the library’s many other resources.