Tales from a First-Year Middle School Librarian

This past weekend, I was unpacking boxes of books in the house that Colin and I now own and I was hit with this desperate longing.

I miss reading.

[And I also miss writing about it!]

It's ironic that my job title is "Librarian" and I've barely read a book in the past three months. I work with books every day, but my own interaction with them is different than it used to be. I no longer have subway commutes nor lunch breaks to bury myself in a story. My after work hours have been filled with new homeowner tasks, pep-talking my first-year teacher husband, and unwinding with mindless TV shows or movies (because, currently, my attention span matches that of my middle schoolers). I've read a couple books here and there but mostly titles from my library's collection—gotta connect with the kids and all that.

But as I unpacked and shelved books from our old life, I was overwhelmed with that familiar all-consuming desire to read as much as humanly possible. All of my shelves—physical and virtual—are lined with so many stories that have piqued my interest that I don't even know where to start...so I haven't. That night I made a vow to veg out with books rather than HGTV, and with Thanksgiving and winter holidays just around the corner, I'm excited to spend cold days curled up on my couch with a cup of tea on the table and a book on my lap.

But enough about my longings for books, I also wanted to share some tidbits about my first year as a school librarian, since part of the motivation for re-branding this blog was to share these experiences.

In a nutshell, I absolutely love it. My school is a perfect fit, and the kids have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Our middle schools are grades 5-8, and you always hear that teachers either love or hate middle school. Well I love it. There are such a range of personalities and maturity levels. I've got wide-eyed 5th graders who give you a hug every chance they get, 8th grade girls that want to impress the high school boys next door, and everything else in between.

My Library Ambassadors, "swearing-in" to their duties on Harry Potter Book 7

I'm under the impression that the former library wasn't so energetic. There were a lot of rules and its accessibility was more limited. I am fortunate this year to have a full-time clerk with me, which the previous librarian didn't have, so perhaps that was part of it, but I've been working really hard to get students involved and excited in something they have overlooked in the past. My 5th and 6th graders are absurdly enthusiastic, but it's been harder to reach the 7th and 8th grades who have already dismissed the library from their radar. 

The most fun thing to happen so far is the launch of a Library Ambassador program to get students involved in what's happening in here. I had several kids ask me how they could help out in the library (which is awesome for generally apathetic preteens), so this was a solution to get kids helping out but also doing outreach to their peers that may not come in so often. I now have 22 kids from all four grades spending one class period a week in here checking in and shelving books, creating displays and recommendations, helping with collection development, going to classes as a "mobile library" to give book talks and collect returns, and helping plan events and activities. I'm actually having to limit them to only one day a week, because they keep trying to sneak in more often and I don't have room for them—all in all, not a bad problem to have!

Sorry for the ramble of updates, but I just wanted to check in and say that this blog hasn't had the plug pulled on it yet. There is still more to come!

Happy fall!

Judy Blume on NPR, and helping the YA audience

“I’m afraid today everybody thinks the sexiest, smartest thing to do is write for YA, and I worry about the middle grade readers, because if they don’t learn to love books when they’re middle graders, when are they gonna learn to love them?”

This, in a nutshell, is why I want to be a youth librarian.

Early on in my quest for Master Level Librarian (aka grad school), I was mostly undecided about where to focus in the public library realm. First off, MLS programs are incredibly expansive. Do you know how broad the library field is? Technical services, records management, digitization, preservation, archives, academic libraries, School Media Specialist, and yes, public libraries. I've known, since day 1, that I want to work where the people are. I love books, and I want to share that, not be closed up alone in a room with them. This pretty much leaves academia, public libraries, and school libraries, but academia bores me and it seems to me primarily information retrieval. I want to be an information guide and promote a love of reading, and I want the diversity of a public library.

Once you get in a public library, though, it's still divided—adult services, children's services, YA services. Do I go Adult where I can share what I myself enjoy reading? Do I go Children's because they're so cute and inspiring? Or the YA group that is probably the most challenging and the most reluctant?

Here's what I've decided. If adults are in the library to read, then they're readers. You just hit a point in life where you're either a reader or you're not. And kids have people encouraging them to read from every angle. Parents reading to you at home, read-alongs in class at school, summer reading programs, Accelerated Reader requirements—things that just encourage you to READ, doesn't matter WHAT you're reading. Then you hit the middle school/high school years and it just seems to drop. You're done with programs like AR; you're done with class visits to your school library to pick out some books; you're given six books you must read for English class that are usually "classics" and therefore pretty boring. And because you have to do it, you don't want to do it. So you start to resist reading. It's not fun; it's boring; books suck. You Google everything, and books are outdated. You develop poor research habits based on what's quickest and easiest, not the most thorough or accurate. Maybe, by some act of divine intervention, you'll pick up reading again in a few years before your adulthood habits and priorities are solidified. But most likely, if you lost interest once, it's gone.

And that's why I want to work with this fragile and underserved group. Yes, YA is the rapidly-growing hot reading genre, but you can't just produce the material. Spending time with teens, teaching them good research strategies and habits, inspiring in them a life-long quest for knowledge and love of learning, using their individual interests to motivate them—that is what I think teens need, and that's where I want to help.

Why Libraries Kick Ass

Have I told you about my history in the library? Well, if not, here it is. In the fourth grade, my mom caught me organizing books on the shelves of Barnes & Noble and told me I needed to be a librarian. In high school, I worked in the public library as a Page and found it to be the best job ever (still is). I had so much fun, I was even determined to make a documentary called "The Secret Lives of Librarians" because my coworkers were so fun and interesting and so not your stereotypical librarian.

Now I have a big-girl job and I work in publishing, and I love it (except for the sitting in front of a computer 8 hours a day thing—my eyes, my eyes!). But I also just started Graduate school to earn my M.L.S. Yes, that means I will be a MASTER of Library Science. I hope to one day have a business card with the title "Super Librarian" or "Librarian Extraordinaire" or something to that effect.

Anyway, I read a brief blurb about this book in the NYTimes Book Review last week and...I NEED IT! I've put it on hold to pick up at a semi-local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library that is actually open on weekends (because no, MY local branch is neither open on the weekends nor past 6pm on weeknights...SOOOO easily accessible, thanks NYC). Greenpoint, here I come!

I have a strong belief that the public library as an institution will never disappear. Technology will change, methods of finding and using information will change, but the library can and will adapt as it has in the past. Libraries aren't just places to find books; they are information centers—community centers—constantly changing depending on how society searches for, finds, and uses information. Libraries are necessary to serve a need within a community, support underserved or overlooked populations, provide its users with the easiest and most useful access to the information requested. As much as I want to support publishers by buying their books, I think I'm a bigger proponent of the public library. Libraries inspire, and I don't think they will ever be irrelevant.

Book blurb:

Buried in info? Cross-eyed over technology? From the bottom of a pile of paper and discs, books, e-books, and scattered thumb drives comes a cry of hope: Make way for the librarians! They want to help. They're not selling a thing. And librarians know best how to beat a path through the googolplex sources of information available to us, writes Marilyn Johnson, whose previous book, The Dead Beat, breathed merry life into the obituary-writing profession.

This Book Is Overdue! is a romp through the ranks of information professionals and a revelation for readers burned out on the clichÉs and stereotyping of librarians. Blunt and obscenely funny bloggers spill their stories in these pages, as do a tattooed, hard-partying children's librarian; a fresh-scrubbed Catholic couple who teach missionaries to use computers; a blue-haired radical who uses her smartphone to help guide street protestors; a plethora of voluptuous avatars and cybrarians; the quiet, law-abiding librarians gagged by the FBI; and a boxing archivist. These are just a few of the visionaries Johnson captures here, pragmatic idealists who fuse the tools of the digital age with their love for the written word and the enduring values of free speech, open access, and scout-badge-quality assistance to anyone in need.

Those who predicted the death of libraries forgot to consider that in the automated maze of contemporary life, none of us—neither the experts nor the hopelessly baffled—can get along without human help. And not just any help—we need librarians, who won't charge us by the question or roll their eyes, no matter what we ask. Who are they? What do they know? And how quickly can they save us from being buried by the digital age?