On Tuesday and Wednesday this week we had AIMS testing in the morning. The sophomores came in to test and the rest of the students came in later. For us in the LMC, that meant a quiet morning and I have to say, I liked it.
It used to be that silence was golden in a library. The enforcement of that rule created the stereotype for the librarian as a curmudgeon. When I worked for the Scottsdale Public Library in 2004, it was adjusting to the noise of the 21st. Century- cell phones. I saw staff struggling to accept the new octave level. Over time as cell phone use increased and expanded into smart phone use, noise seemed to be less of an issue because the new threat was Starbucks cups.
Here at HHS a similar transformation has occurred. Before school, during lunch and after school, the LMC is fairly noisy. When classes come in, we encourage them to talk and move around. Occasionally we have to ask a group to turn their volume down, but that's rare. Noise isn't too much of a problem, but pace is. When we get busy, Ms. Orest and I can barely keep up.
The LMC is open for forty hours a week- non-stop you see. We have no prep time, no down time, no days off where we're closed for inventory. It's a good thing to be such a vital part of day-to-day campus and we adore our students, but those two quiet mornings this week brought me back in time to my own childhood library memories. The library was always a calm, peaceful place for me.
I'm not sure anyone would call the LMC calm or peaceful but I wouldn't have a it any other way. I feel recharged from our quiet mornings this week, which is good since we are booked for classes almost every day leading up to Spring Break.
I don't get to Shh... students very often but that's not a bad thing. No curmudgeons here!
No comments:
Post a Comment