Sidwell Friends School (Featured 2008)
The Richard Walter Goldman Library at Sidwell Friends School has a collection of 20,000 items serving 470 students in the Upper School. The staff consists of one full time librarian, one full time library assistant, and a head librarian (0.6 FTE). The library has two floors connected by a two-story atrium with a gas fireplace. The upper level contains the reference collection, a digital media computer lab with SmartBoard, student computers, and the library offices. The lower level houses the circulating materials, a special area for our Chinese Studies Collection, as well as student study carrels for quiet study.
The below answers were provided by Patt Moser, Head Librarian of Sidwell Friends School and Current Chair of the ISS Committee.
What is your favorite thing about your library space?
The fireplace! It is so warm and inviting. Students love to sit in the comfy chairs and read, do homework, or chat quietly.
What is the most important thing you teach students, both in formal instruction and informally?
The focus of our formal instruction is to get students to believe that the best quality research materials come from the library’s collection of print and non-print resources – not a quick Google search. We hope that our efforts will prepare them for outstanding college level research and writing. Our informal teaching centers on the message that sharing favorite books with each other is one of the best ways to find new books to love. Our Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Club, BookLove sessions, and Seniors’ Favorite Books activity are some of the ways we convey this message.
Do you have a particular memorable moment in your library career?
Having Ann Brashares, author of the “Traveling Pants” series and a Sidwell Friends alum, speak to the student body for National Library Week last year was fantastic.
Can you name a title that you can’t keep on the shelf because it’s so popular right now?
“A Game of Thrones” by George R.R. Martin and “Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae” by Steven Pressfield have been popular this year. “Across the Nightingale Floor,” by Lian Hearn, “Dune,” by Frank Herbert, “Stranger in Strange Land,” by Robert Heinlein, and “Neverwhere” by Neil Gaiman were also popular because we chose them to read for our Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Club.
If you could give someone building or renovating a library advice, what would it be?
Think about staffing and noise issues if you absolutely have to have a two-floor library. Put your technology person and computer lab in the library or connected to the library. Don’t put sharp corners on your circ desk! Include a fireplace!
What’s on your nightstand (in terms of reading material!) right now?
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Neuromancer by William Gibson and The Librettist of Venice: The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo da Ponte Mozart's Poet, Casanova's Friend, and Italian Opera's Impresario in America by Rodney Bolt.
The Potomac School (featured August 2007)
Library Director - Tom Washington
Brief description of your library – collection information, student population, staffing numbers, space description, and any special programming or features you’d like to highlight.
The
What is your favorite thing about your library space?
The library classroom, just to the right of the entranceway. The natural lighting, and seeing it filled to capacity during conference periods and student breaks.
What is the most important thing you teach students, both in formal instruction and informally?
Read, read, and read some more. Research was never intended to be easy. It takes time, and lots of it, and it always has its own grandiose rewards down the pike.
Do you have a particular memorable moment in your library career?
Whenever I can connect students to a larger frame of reference and thought beyond their research project, by suggesting five additional book titles or a “must read” magazine article for example, I sense I’m fulfilling my role as a school librarian.
Can you name a title that you can’t keep on the shelf because it’s so popular right now?
Generation Debt by Amy Kamenetz
If you could give someone building or renovating a library advice, what would it be?
Give serious consideration to the amount of book shelving you need by first determining what sort of a reading community your school represents. We had originally planned on shelving space for 16,000 volumes, but given student needs, time pressures, and the nature of research assignments, our library does very well by maintaining a current, relevant collection, one tied directly to the curriculum, of around 10,000 titles.
What’s on your nightstand (in terms of reading material!) right now?
A whole bunch of literary quarterlies, Harpers,
Support AASL
Join AASL
