Sophomore Nikhil Rajesh, and freshmen Toby Goodwin, Curtis Marten, and Wayne DeKinder work on an a project for social studies teacher Jeff Kenny’s class. The collaboration zone is used for classes and other activities inside the library.

Every morning at 7:10 a.m., students gather around the library before school starts to socialize. Most students don’t visit the library for anything other than that, but the library is full of valuable, relevant activities. 

“Our goal is to create an environment that inspires students’ curiosity and helps them fulfill their academic and personal goals,” librarian Brigid Dolan said.

One way the library does this is by providing books, both online and hardcopies, that cater to a variety of interests

“The library is a good place to get different kinds of genres and information about books. One of my friends actually gave me motivation to start reading at home and read more during class. I have a book at home that I love, but I need to check out some at the school library,” sophomore Martezz Middleton said. 

The library encourages reading by reaching out to students on Instagram and placing posters about new books around school. They even sponsor Lit Loot where students can receive a bag full of books.

“The students in [Book Club] help us promote student reading by creating reading incentives and helping us with display ideas,” Dolan said. 

Librarians do much more than just talk about books. They play a crucial role in teaching various skills. They offer all sorts of workshops to help students navigate these skills. Their role also extends to providing a supportive environment allowing students to seek help with homework after school.    

“The librarians would make themselves available for help, and we can also email them if we have questions or need help. Our teachers collaborate with the librarians, and they like to talk to us to make sure we’re supported,“ Middleton said. 

The library is the right place to enhance the school with a variety of speakers and events. The events can be about author talks, cultural programs, and other enriching subjects. Bringing in experts and setting up activities has created lifelong learning opportunities and good engagement.

“My favorite event or program we’ve done this year is the virtual author visit with Mindy McGinnis. Students really enjoyed hearing from a living author. They asked for us to host more events like this in the future, which I’d like to work on over the summer for next school year,” Dolan said. 

 The library has designed the “Collaboration Zone” to be a space for students to collaborate on multimedia projects. The space includes seven stations, each having a TV monitor, a table with four chairs around it, dry erase markers, and a HDMI cable for students to project their Chromebooks to the screen. 

“We covered the tables in dry-erase paper so that students could brainstorm on the tables using the dry-erase markers. Teachers are welcome to reserve the space for their classes,”  Dolan said. 

“In the collaboration zone, we like to use the room for projects and we work with the librarians. We don’t necessarily sign up for the collaboration zone. We are using the room with other teachers and that’s it,“ sophomore Martezz Middleton said.

By offering such programs, librarians provide a place for students to make essential personal growth, helping them find diverse interests they want to do after high school. 

“If there is one thing I’d like to let students know about the library is that we are open to feedback about how the library can better support them. Students ha