Our New Normal, Volume XIII

There was a time back in the pre-COVID world (remember that?) when students came to the library to browse, check out books, do research, and have story time. Not anymore.

“Our new normal is that we go to the classrooms,” said Susie, who’s now in her 20th year at Collegiate and fourth in the library. “We had to recreate this amazing library with 33,000 books so we could get books into the hands of kids every week. We set up mini-libraries outside of each class that we work with each day and do the lessons and check out in the classrooms.”

How does that work? I asked.

“Say tomorrow we’re doing Robby Turner’s kindergarten class,” she responded. “In the morning, I take probably 60 or 70 books that I think would be appropriate for kindergarten. The first thing they do is sanitize their hands and go in the hall in small groups. We check them out with scanners on our laptops. Then I’ll do a lesson with them before I go.”

Susie is responsible for kindergarten, 1st, and 4th grades and Kate for JK, 2nd, and 3rd. They’re on a rotation that takes them to each classroom every six days. 

 “There’s a lot of moving books and then bringing them back,” Susie said. “We had to order special carts. Moving about 200 books a day is a pretty physical task. We also have to quarantine all the books for a week, so we have cart after cart after cart of books that are in quarantine.”

I trust the plan has been successful, I offered.

“I was apologizing to some fourth graders, saying, ‘I’m so sorry you guys don’t get to come to the library this year and see all the books,’” Susie responded, “and they said, ‘You know, we kind of like this better because there’re so many books in that library that it’s kind of nice that you bring a smaller selection of books for us to look at. And when we ask for a book, you get that exact book for us.’”

“It’s hard,” she said. “We also have a lot more duties: lunch duty, recess, car pool duty that we do every day. In a normal year, we wouldn’t have quite that many. That eats into a lot of our time as well, but everybody has to pitch in.”

“I have to say that when I’m in the classroom with the kids, it doesn’t feel like a pandemic,” she said. “It feels like a normal year because the kids are still excited about books. They love the library. Teaching every day has kept me grounded and happy.”

Kate, in her 21st year at Collegiate, shares head librarian duties with Susie.

Speak about the “abundance of caution” guidelines, I said.

“When we go to the classrooms,” she replied, “we put the books on the floor in the hallway and prop them up against the wall. We don’t want the children to have to shuffle through them to browse. We want them to be able to see the front cover. Only four or five kids can be in the hallway at one time. A big change is we only let the students check out two books at a time. They used to be able to check out six. Two is a sad number, but it’s a much more manageable number due to the COVID restrictions.”

But you’re getting it done, I commented.

“The first month was pretty hard,” Kate said, “but now we’re into a routine. Cheryl has been a huge help as far as organizing and putting the books on shelves. Susie and I couldn’t function without her.”
       
Cheryl has served in the Lower School library for 27 years, the first 16 as a parent volunteer. 

What’s your new normal? I asked her.

“My job has changed a lot,” she said. “When the books come back, I have to quarantine them. Nobody touches them for a week. 
 Each day, I shelve at least one of the carts. We used to have parent volunteers do that, but I’ve always enjoyed shelving books. It’s a lot of fun.”

So you’re doing your job plus the job of a team of parent volunteers?
   
“Exactly,” she said, “because we can’t have volunteers. But I’ve had more time because there’re no children in the library. I help Kate and Susie with anything they need. The children and teachers can make requests to put books on hold, so I occasionally help them fill those requests.”

How will we be better when we move past COVID? I inquired.

“One thing that I’ve really enjoyed this year,” Kate said, “is that I feel like I know the students as readers better than I’ve ever known them based on their book requests. We’re checking (books) out rather than the students doing self-checkout. I feel like I’ll keep that in place even when the kids come back and have the whole library open and can select from anything. One of my favorite parts of my job this year is selecting books that students request and seeing them get excited about something they specifically wanted. I think I’ll keep that request piece in place.”

“This year has exposed students to a bigger variety of books,” Cheryl replied. “Books that students see are the ones Kate and Susie have pre-selected for them. They’ve expanded their choice of reading. That’s been a big plus.  A lot of books that haven’t circulated before have been circulating. This way, they’re exposed to some great books they wouldn’t read otherwise. I hope we can keep that up.”
~Weldon Bradshaw