The library used to be boring and nerdish, but now it’s the ultimate hang out spot. I mean, I could not believe my eyes when I saw a loud and busy library.
But why? Maybe, it’s because of the multiple new things to do.
Nikki Playle, one of the librarian, shared about the activities you can now do in the library.
“We have Thursday NEST time activities, love on a leash, this is our first time having a reading club, creative projects, and RR which is reading and relaxing. You can read, relax, or work on a project. The space is dedicated to the students,” Playle said.
Or, perhaps, people are more enthusiastic about reading? But I’m not convinced that’s the case because it seems like a lot of the people go to the library now just to hang out with their friends.
“I think our check-out numbers are good. We have moved the Gateway books to the front, and we have noticed that more gateway books are being checked out,” Playle said. “More graphic novels are being checked out too. For example, the new ‘Demon Slayer’ books have been going like crazy, we’re glad we bought those.”
However, a library is supposed to be a quiet place for reading or studying. So, how are students supposed to focus when there’s a million different conversations going on at once? Suddenly, the library, of all places, is the most chaotic place someone can be at lunch. The librarians even have trouble with keeping the students in line when the one place where there should be peace in a school is the library.
Playle explained how she tries to keep the peace at the library, especially at lunch.
“We have easily 90 kids here at lunch, and we go around at lunch, and tell them to be quiet. I say ‘let’s take a breakup’ and it may be a couple weeks because they’re abusing the space, but nothing that I’ve ever had to call admin for.”
Thus, a bookworm, like me, would not prefer to go in there during lunch to read or work on a project because I know I wouldn’t be able to even hear my own thoughts. The one time that I did, it was so crowded I could barely find a place to sit.
However, Playle had some more in-depth thoughts on this issue.
“I know for fact that it’s still a safe place, and kids like it, especially the crafts. But, they are glad that not many people know about the activities because they are free to be themselves.”
But we’ve already determined that the library’s popularity is not because more people like to read and why would we when we have technology, right? But that’s just it, the library has changed its branding, it’s high tech now, it’s cool, the new “it” thing.
Playle had some intriguing thoughts on this matter.
“I find that even with books online a lot of kids like to have a physical book, a lot of them are going to read with a physical book even though they are on their phones all of the time.”
Yet, the library is not about reading anymore because it’s trying to appeal to what’s trending and what teenagers like. We can hide behind the fact that we’re just trying to get more people excited about reading, but this is not the way to do it because the second the library starts not being about books, we know we’ve gone too far. According to The Nation’s Report Card, students who like to read for fun daily have only further declined over time with only 14% of students liking to read in their free time in 2023. That’s 21% lower than 1984. Also, 31% of students hardly ever read in 2023 and that is a staggering difference from the 8% that was shown in 1984. At the end of the day, I don’t care if you have bean bag chairs or green screens, I just want a quiet place to read.
“When I do my lessons, I use games like Jeopardy to get them interactive,” Playle said. “I also post the pictures of the summer readers and they get prizes. We display the haunted houses people have made as well.”
We’re taking out the very substance of what makes the library the library and literature’s heart is stabbed each and every time its sacred place is cheapened. Books are an art form, not some trend we can mess over and eventually chew up and spit out. It does not deserve to be trampled like this because they’re extraordinary. They’re able to create intricate stories in your mind with simple text on a page and have people derive so many different meanings from it. They conform to your experience and might have you realizing things about your life. You might also find a community you deeply connect with, maybe even more than your own family.
Books take the time to take you apart from the inside out, lay you bare, and put you back together again. It’s the ability that they have to reach you on a deeper level that it so incredibly amazing. Just like music touches your soul, books touch your heart and I know books have personally brought me through some tough times in life. Sometimes when I needed to escape from the crushing weight of reality I found myself reading, entranced by having a whole new world at my fingertips.
Loukya Vaka (11), a library student, shared what books mean to her.
“I feel that books in themselves mean a lot of different things to different people,” Vaka said. “I personally like to explore a different reality in fiction books and fiction books are also good for research.”
But I didn’t always like reading, you know. I thought it was boring and waste of my precious time, but then I read ‘The War That Saved My Life.’ It was about a crippled girl who was trying to get her and her brother out of a toxic family situation during World War II, and my perspective on books began to change.
Vaka also shared what book she vividly remembers from her childhood.
“I remember we did a whole unit on ‘Because of Winn-Dixie’ and I can say that the book was very impactful for me and it’s what got me into reading,” Vaka said.
When I began to get interested in reading, my eyes started to open, and I couldn’t believe I had never had the chance to experience the beauty of literary excellence, even in my young life. And let me tell you that was not the last time. No, never. Books would continue to follow me and enrich me all throughout my life, and I would be better for it in the end.
“A dystopian book called the ‘Selection’ is my favorite because there is a friend that I met and became close to because of that book,” Vaka said. “We ended up bonding over that and that’s what I think is so special about reading.”
