Margaux Deutsch Dr.

Don Hamerly School Libraries 3 December 2013 Geneva School Visit Report As a part of LIS 773, I was asked to visit two school libraries, one elementary and one secondary. I chose to look at two schools in the same District. Fabyan Elementary School is one of six elementary schools in Geneva School District 304 and serves around 330 students. In stark contrast, Geneva high school serves 1,976 students. Although these two schools are directly related to one another, as all Fabyan students will end up at GHS unless they transfer schools, there is a distinct difference in attitude between the two school librarians that work at these institutions. Elizabeth Grubaugh, or Libby as she prefers, started out as an English teacher at Geneva High School (GHS for short) and eventually decided to get her MLIS about five years into her teaching career. As it is, she has never worked at another library. Mrs. Christine Barr from Fabyan elementary school started working in Iowa, where she graduated from the University of Iowa with her MLIS with her School Library Media specialty. When her husband was transferred to Geneva six and a half years ago, she called Mrs. Darcy Thompson, the first (and current) principal of Fabyan, and told her she was, throwing [her] hat in the ring. Christine started her career at Fabyan as an outsider in a completely new library. She calls herself, lucky, because she started out with a completely new collection. This included a completely new library space. The ceilings in the library reach all the way up to the second floor; hallways on the North side completely open to the library. This is because the entire South wall of the library is a wall of windows, letting in huge amounts of natural light. From Mrs. Barrs desk on the East side of the library, she can see the eight computer stations and fiction and nonfiction

sections right across from the desk. Two of the other librarians in District 304 along with Mrs. Thompson worked together to pick out titles for Fabyan. On the right side of Mrs. Barrs desk, next to the window wall, is an ELMO electronic whiteboard with a colorful rug for students to sit on while they interact with the technology. She also has a read-aloud area in the far right (South-West) corner of the library, complete with reading buddies for the students during silent reading time. Libby from GHS inherited her space from the previous librarian, so she did not have the immediate experience of making the space her own. The ceiling of the library was brown when she started her job and the floor was covered in orange carpet. The shelves were finished with a very dark lacquer. The result was that in spite of an entire wall of natural light the space had a harsh feel to it. White walls with extreme contrast do not make for a very modern feel. Luckily about ten years ago Libby was able to petition to have the library re-painted and re-carpeted, and now it is a very open and inviting space. The library is very long, with fiction and non-fiction on either end when one walks in. The far right across from the entrance is completely made of windows, with three classroom spaces in between the two ends of non-fiction books. The fiction sections are housed in shelves that are chest-height on me, and they are used to divide the three respective class areas. One very marked difference between the two libraries is their relationship with the administration. Because Christine started in District 304 six years ago, she was not aware of the policy change within the District. According to Libby, the lawyers completely re-wrote the policy about seven years ago due to a challenge at one of the elementary schools. Now, instead of having a very specific policy that addresses acquisitions, challenges, goals, and mission, all school libraries in District 304 share a very vague, page policy written by the Districts lawyers. For example, the acquisition statement in the policy is as follows: The Superintendent shall develop administrative guidelines for the selection and maintenance of all educational and instructional materials and equipment. In addition s/he

shall periodically provide for a systematic review, by the board, of the Districts educational resources in order to ensure that they are appropriate for the current educational program. (Selection) Essentially, all of the decision-making power was taken from the trained school library media specialists and given to the administration of District 304. Although Mrs. Barr was okay with this change (albeit confused as to why she had two separate sets of guidelines for acquisitions), Mrs. Grubaugh was visibly frustrated. Libby explained that there had been several times where she had purchased items and they had failed to show up at the GHS library. When she checked her shopping cart on Follett, an administrator had removed the missing items without explanation. For both of the interviews themselves, I composed a list of questions for each librarian and sent them via email about a week before I went in and visited the libraries. This way, they could look them over and they wouldnt have to think of elaborate answers off of the top of their heads. Libby emailed me back responses to the questions I asked her immediately, so I was able to get more indepth with her interview and ask her secondary questions based on the statistics she presented me with. Both Mrs. Barr and Mrs. Grubaugh gave me a number of handouts. They both gave me a copy of their collection development policy, although Mrs. Grubaughs copy was photocopied out of the student handbook, meaning that every student and parent has access to a physical copy of her policy (as long as the student does not lose his or her handbook). Mrs. Barr also gave me a copy of the Dewy Decimal Rap because this is one of the areas she stresses most in library education with her elementary school children. Christine also gave me a sign-up sheet that all students can pick up in the library at any time that allows them to sign up to have their collection displayed in the librarys very large display case. Some of the more surprising information presented to me through the interview was that Libby has a $24,000 budget and Christine has $2,000, both of which come from the school district.

Libby informed me that she gets a bit of extra money on top of her allotted money, and Christine just received the Home Language Books grant of $200 to buy books for ELL students. When I asked both librarians about the assistance they have in the library, their answers were quite different. Libby over at GHS has one full-time library assistant and one part-time assistant. Because she has so much help Libby spends most of her day teaching and directly preparing handouts for students and teachers when they come to the library. Christine has student library helpers on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. These fifth graders help her with decorating and shelving materials. In looking towards the future, there are some improvements I would suggest for Fabyan Elementary. Christine told me she hopes to have parent support hours after school in the next few years, which I think would be beneficial. I also noticed that when I left, about an hour after school had ended, that there was a park district program going on with some of the students. Apparently if a students parents work full-time, park district staff comes and works with them on their homework and they do arts and crafts. I think it would be beneficial for these students to have access to the library at least a few times a week, just so they can interact more with the librarys print materials. Otherwise, kids have one day a week where they visit the library with their classroom teachers and they are allowed to use a library pass to come see Mrs. Barr outside of their scheduled time. Having the opportunity to visit the library before or after school would be just one more way for students to feel more comfortable in the library. Another need I see falls under Mrs. Barrs display case. The only display she had was of two students collections, which took up two of the ten shelves. I would probably try to post some information on Authors, teachers, library books, or some other topic of interest for various age groups, just to fill up the empty space. As for Mrs. Grubaugh, I have a hard time finding anything to change about her library without changing the Head of Technology for the entire Geneva 304 School District. The head of the technology department refuses to make the software in the district compatible with Apple

computers, leading to a slough of handouts throughout the library on how to convert files to make them PC compatible. The only thing Mrs. Grubaugh seems to lack at the moment is connectivity with the Geneva Public Library. Where Mrs. Barr interacts on a regular basis with Jessica Parker, the school liaison from GPL, Libby Grubaugh connects with GPL mostly via email. Although the Geneva Public Library is small, the school library simply cannot afford to cover common core and have all the leisure reading materials young adults need and want at this time. If I were Libby, my next project would probably be to partner with the GPL on a book club or something of that nature to get students more involved in their local library. Another suggestion I would have is to set up a self-checkout machine. As Christine explained over at Fabyan Elementary, she set up her selfcheckout herself because, its easier to ask forgiveness than permission, especially when the technology rules in Geneva are so stringent. Libby struggles a lot at GHS with having her LGBT materials stolen, and I believe having a simple self-checkout machine would solve at least some of those issues for her, especially if LGBTQ students are embarrassed about checking out these materials. While Geneva High School and Fabyan Elementary School are both in the same school district, they serve a very different need in students lives; in Geneva it is the elementary school librarians job to teach students about internet safety, whereas at the high school level the goal is to prepare students for writing research papers in college and to be more generally information literate. These two schools perform their jobs very well, and although I might be a bit biased because my younger brothers are all still attending Geneva schools, I believe these libraries and librarians do an excellent job preparing their students for the ever-changing world of information.

Works Cited Barr, Christine. Personal Interview. 20 November 2013. Selection of Instructional Materials and Equipment. Diss. CUST 304, 2006. Geneva, IL: 2012. Web. Grubaugh, Elizabeth. Personal Interview. 14 November 2013.