The library: my home away from home

Yesterday's excellent post You have always been my safe home: the school library  by Lia Fisher Jansoz on the Knowledge Quest blog put me in mind of this story I often told back in my days as a library consultant:

As an elementary library media specialist for the Aramco schools in Saudi Arabia, one of my favorite students was a Nigerian boy named Chinedu. Big for his age, talkative, focused on his own agenda and relentlessly cheerful, he drove his regular classroom teachers crazy. As a result, Chinedu was often sent to the library for a little timeout for the three years I knew him.

Chinedu really was a pest. He always wanted to visit at the times I was the busiest. He needed watching – his silliness could be a real bother to everyone in the library. But he also liked work. As a result, I kept on hand a Chinedu –do list of small jobs he could work at during his frequent visits that kept him productively occupied. Things would go smoothly for weeks and then Chinedu would do something outrageous like purposely dumping the cart of books he was shelving on the floor just to see reactions. And I would go home wondering why I even bothered with him. 

But late one afternoon, Chinedu reminded me of why I bothered. Out of the blue, he approached my desk, grinned, and in his melodious accent declared, “Ahh, Meester Johnson. Dees library. Eet is my hoom away from hoom.” And I was reminded again that the library is often the only place in school that is comfortable for many, many students.

As I look back on my 40+ year career as a school librarian/library supervisor, I take the greatest satisfaction in knowing I created or helped create places for children in schools where they felt safe, welcome, and affirmed. Yes, I hope the library program helped kids learn to read better, do thoughtful research, and learn some technology skills, but giving students a "third place" was by far the most important role.

So on this Library Day/Week/Moth, my wish is that my still working library colleagues continue to create spaces that are the "home away from home" for their students.