When was the last time you went to the library to check out a book and were completely unsure where to look? If you’ve been to the high school library at all this school year, you probably experienced this feeling for at least a few seconds.
When you enter the library, you will see to your left 12 large bookshelves where there used to be tables. Where the computer desks and both fiction and reference sections used to be is now a classroom where different courses are taught like Holocaust Literature.
This was more than just a change in arrangement to the library; it was a total renovation. Over the summer, Mrs. Carole Hartman and a few helpers removed all of the books from the shelves that were affected by the change. “It was an unbelievable mess,” Hartman said as she described that day. The carpet had been completely removed and replaced. Half of the library was painted a bright yellow to match the colorful chairs in the classroom portion of the library.
Another change was the teachers’ conference room being relocated to one of the offices connected to the library. The goal with these changes was to make it more like a college library and prepare the students for what to expect.
Hartman questions the students who have yet to visit the library this year. “What are [you] doing? Books are really really really good sources.”
New books have also made their way to the shelves of the Freedom High School library. Newly added books include fiction, nonfiction and resource as well as SAT preparatory books. Because SAT-prep. books can be quite expensive, this is a great resource students can use at any time.
One feature that many students do not know is that the card catalog is student laptop accessible, meaning you can look up the status of a book from your own home. The school has the program, “Destiny Library System,” pre-installed on the laptops in the “Library Resources” folder. A new research database was added over the summer called Proquest.
This database is “reliable and scholarly, and is always very current and up-to-date,” Hartman said. Though an online source can be great, she does want to build up the reference and nonfiction, too.
“Weed out the old and build up on updated,” Hartman said
The library is still changing; this is just the beginning. Plans for the library stretch into next school year.