How to Build a School Library from Scratch
Jess deCourcy Hinds with one of the student volunteers who helped build her library.
Photo by Bruce Conwell
Photo by Bruce Conwell
Fresh out of library school in 2009, I was invited to start a brand-new library for Bard High School Early College Queens (BHSEC Queens) in New York, a public high school and college associates degree program. On my first day, assistant principal Sue Leung Eichler presented me with an enormous key—gold and shiny and spanning my palm. “Good luck,” she said with her characteristic frankness and warmth. “You’ll need it.”
I found myself in a musty room, knee-deep in boxes of discarded papers. The bookcases were mostly empty, and the few titles were for much younger or older readers (including a title for newly diagnosed Alzheimer’s patients). One shelf contained only garden gloves and a package of radish seeds. How do you grow a library? I wondered.
Despite having dedicated administrators, colleagues, and financial support from Bard College, our mother campus, my task seemed daunting—if not impossible. Luckily, I’d brought a CD player, and saxophone notes helped me imagine the possibilities. The music also welcomed the dozens of volunteers who arrived with sleeves rolled up.
NEW LIBRARIES: REASON TO CHEER
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I’m not the only recent MLIS grad who accepted this kind of golden key recently. While school libraries are imperiled or closing in many regions, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, new ones are also opening. An informal poll among my classmates at the Pratt Institute in New York City showed that 50 percent launched or overhauled a library in their first job. At library conferences, I always meet people who’ve founded multiple libraries. Elementary school libraries, especially, tend to be started by one person and lots of elbow grease.
“Administrators who are adding new school libraries understand the critical role school librarians play in supporting academic achievement,” says Terri Grief, president of the American Association of School Librarians. There are currently 98,460 school libraries in the United States, adds Grief. “The best situations are where librarians, administrators, teachers, and students work together to make the spaces as conducive to learning as possible.”
Many school librarian job postings describe positions overseeing start-up ventures. Others involve modernizing facilities whose retiring librarians left behind outdated facilities requiring massive weeding and a tech and digital makeover. I read about new or transforming libraries on library list-servs at least once a month, and cheer. What could be a more hopeful sign for the field than a fresh new library?
STARTING FROM SCRATCH
Minerva Aponte of the Bronx, NY, began with a $10,000 Department of Education “REACH” grant that her administrators secured before hiring her. A large portion funded her online catalog system. She also received her annual budget of about $6,000. Aponte works for a campus school, CS 102, which serves 1,200 students in four different schools from pre–K to fifth grade, one of which is primarily for special needs pupils. The majority of students are African American or Latino, and one-third are English Language Learners.
“With my library, I started from scraaaaatch,” she said, elongating the vowel to emphasize the immensity of her task. She began with a 50-foot mailroom filled with abandoned mail and packages.
A fan of yard sales and stoop sales, Aponte always kept an eye out for deals on popular paperbacks. A Laura Bush grant in the $5,000–$8,000 range offered a boost, and lucrative Scholastic Book Fairs provided a reliable source of books each year. In her fourth year at the school, Aponte applied for a grant from the office of the then-Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrión.
During her application process, a custodian learned that she was cold-calling Carrión—a “big shot.” He was incredulous. “Don’t you know he’s an important person?” He asked.
“Don’t you know I’m an important person?” Aponte responded. “What I’m doing is important.” She got How to Build a School Library from Scratch | School Library Journal: