Editorial: Upper School Library Days

One of the best parts of being a Greenhill Lower and Middle School student is going to the library once a week. It was so easy to get lost among the shelves, discovering new stories and learning about ideas that broaden your worldview.

Librarians would nd us in the stacks, always willing to help us nd speci c books or suggest the perfect story if we were having trouble nding one that interested us.

Curling up next to the re Mr. Ivery so carefully stoked and exploring the magical worlds the Montgomery Library book collection o ered is truly a formative experience at Greenhill.

As Lower and Middle Schoolers, we peered down the staircase at all the “big kid” books. We wondered what else we might learn or discover about ourselves when we ventured down into that new world.

But now that we can go downstairs to the Young Adult ction, many of us don’t. Why? Independent reading is truly a gi of time that many students simply are unable to nd while navigating the hectic life of being an Upper Schooler.

A majority of Upper School students don’t read for fun. Simply put, it is not seen as a priority.

Amid the demanding life of a student, reading becomes a chore and a burden. It is something that many students don’t want technology is so readily accessible as a way to unwind. is is easily demonstrated in the reasons why most students visit the library. It is not for checking out books or reading by the re. For the most part, students are studying and doing research. It is easy for many of us to lose sight of why we read, as it has become nearly analogous with schoolwork.

Of all Upper School grades, the ninthgraders are the only ones guaranteed to have library days in their English classes.

“ ey're always really excited because they realize they miss those dedicated library times,” Head Librarian Abby Harrison said. “Being a lifelong reader is a skill that you take with you for the rest of your life. And sometimes when you lose that it's really di cult to get it back.” e solution to this problem is to simply just dedicate time during school to reading. We imagine this in the form of library days – a return to the time where it was easy to get lost in a world di erent from ours, written on the pages of a book.

Allowing students to enjoy and explore the library once more has multiple bene ts. For one, it encourages increased usage of our campus facilities, allowing their original purpose to be ful lled. It’s especially important to take advantage of this space since our library holds a number of books that have been pulled from shelves or placed under restricted access in other public or school libraries across the country.

A robust schedule of library days also promotes better informational and digital literacy. e ability to quickly navigate through the number of resources a library o ers is critical for future success in college and later years. Students would also be aware of what resources the library has, ranging from graphic novels to databases to practice Advanced Placement exam textbooks.

But more importantly, it would motivate us to read not just for school, but also for personal pleasure. Our library at Greenhill is phenomenal; there are so many resources and books available for us to peruse. ere is something in there for everyone to enjoy – but we need the time and space to nd it.

Evergreen Print

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