The Woodruff Library Annual Report PACE ACA DE MY 2 014 – 2015
Mission Statement
Guiding Principles
To create prepared, confident citizens of the world, the Woodruff Library will provide services and resources that…
To provide the highest level of service possible, the Woodruff Library will…
• Engage the mind • Cultivate curiosity • Nurture the imagination • Enrich teaching and learning
• Know its patrons and anticipate and support their needs • Create an environment that is conducive to learning and inquiry • Provide resources that help students excel in school and prepare them for college • Encourage and promote reading for learning and pleasure
The Woodruff Library Annual Report PACE AC A DE MY 2 014 – 2015
Writer and journalist Carlos María Domínguez once said, “To build up a library is to create a life. It’s never just a random collection of books.” In its first year, Pace Academy’s Woodruff Library has become a character of its own within our school community, acting less as a place than as a living, breathing being. Its collection of books and resources, its student-centered programming, and its dedicated staff and volunteers combine to create a personality as warm and inviting as Pace itself. Our new library’s integrated presence on campus shapes the lives of the Middle and Upper School students and faculty it serves. As the Woodruff Library revitalizes the face of Pace’s academic center, it simultaneously captures the essence of our culture here—engaging minds, cultivating curiosity, nurturing imaginations, and enriching teaching and learning at Pace Academy.
Setting the Scene When architect SANDY COOPER ’79 set about designing the Arthur M. Blank Family Upper School, he envisioned the Woodruff Library as the building’s crowning jewel, a spacious setting that evoked the school’s history and tradition of academic excellence while embracing the adventure of discovery and the warmth of the Pace community. The Woodruff Library’s three stories front W. Paces Ferry Road, anchored by a stone turret reminiscent of adjacent Kirkpatrick Hall, the school’s iconic “Castle.” While its façade looks like something out of a fairytale, the true magic takes place inside. And as the library’s first year unfolded, thoughtful architecture and design allowed the use of its many spaces to evolve organically. The library’s first floor, located on the Arthur M. Blank Family Upper School’s second level, has become a place for collaborative study. Seating is available for up to 66 students, and a fully outfitted, media-enabled classroom serves as a space for instruction, small-group meetings and test taking. Students and faculty may take advantage of eight Apple desktop computers, as well as printing and copying capabilities, and a study room is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Also on the library’s lower level, high-density shelving houses most of the library’s print collection and DVDs, 23,000 titles and growing. This special shelving, with its floor tracks and easy-to-turn cranks, provides space for twice the number of volumes as traditional shelving. And so far, no students have become lost in it. Visitors to the library’s second floor often liken its vaulted ceiling, spiral staircase, stone fireplace and hearth, dark finishes and hidden nooks to a scene from Harry Potter. With seating for 58, this level includes a spacious reading room, where students huddle over work at long tables, or perch in armchairs illumined by the fireplace or light from the room’s tall bay windows. The reading room, home to the library’s new and popular titles, has hosted a number of guest speakers and authors throughout the year, including journalist Charles Fishman, the Isdell Center for Global Leadership’s inaugural visiting scholar. Rotating displays adorn low bookcases throughout the room, and small-group meetings take place in two adjacent study rooms.
“The new Pace Woodruff Library is amazing! I love the large collection of books and how I can always do my homework there after school.” LAURA ROMIG ’21 “The new library is the ideal place to work efficiently, whether it means isolating yourself or collaborating with peers.” ETHAN MUCH ’18 “The new library is refreshing! Matt Ball always has some activity, suggestion or tidbit of fun knowledge to share, and I’m always eager to see what he will do next! The library displays are always awesome, too!” NIKKI MCCRARY UPPER SCHOOL TEACHER AND STAFF
“I love the library.” ANNA HOFFMAN ’15
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“The library is the best part of the new Upper School! Mr. Ball has brought so many new, useful tools to the library and made it a really enjoyable place to be.” SARAH LETTES ’15 “I am so pleased with the welcoming and innovative approach of the library. The energy is wonderful, and the resources, helpful. I see the library as an important and lively center of the Upper School, intellectually, academically and socially.” CHRISTINE JACOBSON CARTER UPPER SCHOOL TEACHER
“I love how [the librarians] have activities for you to do once you’re done with your homework. I also love how you can check out laptops.” JORDAN BENJAMIN ’21
This floor quickly became the place for quiet study, and six carrels provide privacy for students working independently, while librarians and parent volunteers staff the circulation desk. Atop the library sits the Fuqua Meeting Room, with vast windows that overlook the reading room and W. Paces Ferry Road. The media-enabled space comfortably seats 100, and throughout the year, gatherings of faculty, students and parents have taken place there. “I think the building has the potential to be more than a building,” Cooper said prior to construction of the Arthur M. Blank Family Upper School. If the Woodruff Library’s inaugural year was any indication, Cooper was absolutely correct.
Engaging Students “The [library’s] overwhelming theme this year has been ‘engage the students,’” says Woodruff Library Director MALL BALL. “Everything we’ve done has been in an effort to create relationships with students, which in turn facilitate their creating relationships with the library.” To build those relationships, Ball, along with 19-year Pace veteran librarian LINDA TEAGUE and library assistant MARTY HAMBURGER, tries to get students talking, to interact with them and to observe their library-related needs. Middle and Upper School students can be a tough crowd to reach, but through inventive programming and general fun, the staff now has a finger on the pulse of the student body. Library fun (imagine that!) ranges from offering board games and video-game nights to jigsaw puzzles, mindbending challenges and holiday-themed contests. Ball and Teague highlight new arrivals through creative book displays and take their Bookmobile around campus to reach those who may not be able to visit throughout the day. Hamburger leads hands-on “Maker Monday” gatherings on Monday evenings; mindfulness meditation sessions take place in the Fuqua Meeting Room; and Ball has been known to deliver entertaining live book reviews during morning assemblies. Based on feedback from patrons and school surveys, the library’s collection has evolved as its staff has listened to student and faculty needs. More fiction and bestsellers— in particular science fiction and fantasy—now fill the
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“My daughter has enjoyed having so many books to check out this year, and has felt like the library is a special place to go after school. It is a great addition to campus!” ANGIE HOWELL MIDDLE SCHOOL PARENT
“I love the book reviews in assembly! They’re always informative and fun.” KATY COWLES MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER
“The library is an amazing space. I so appreciate the librarians’ work this year—they have done a great job welcoming the Pace community to the library and reaching out to the students, faculty and staff! KIM PETERSON MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER
shelves; more novels featuring adventurous female protagonists have turned up in response to student requests; and a growing crop of graphic novels has been added. Although the desire for eBooks has been low, the library has added several eBook packages to its holdings to give patrons a chance to try them out. The library’s welcoming environment is reflected in its online presence. Prior to the start of school, Ball created a Woodruff Library Facebook page, which has since amassed nearly 300 followers and frequently communicates regarding campus events, library happenings and literary news. The page is unmistakably Ball’s—the tone playful and humorous yet educational. The library’s webpage within the Pace website allows students to search its catalogs, utilize online resources and request new purchases. Its Woodruff Voice section includes notices about upcoming events and operational announcements, and users may scroll through featured titles to learn more about specific books. Faculty and staff receive frequent emails with book recommendations and resources, and during April’s National Poetry Month, poems appeared on screens throughout the Upper School, in digital signatures, on bulletin boards and via email—they were even slipped into laptops. It all appears to be working. “The library is a fun, happy place to be,” one student reports.
Enriching Teaching and Learning At the start of the year, Ball said that he wanted the Woodruff Library to become “the place to go, both virtually and physically, for help with whatever [one] needs to accomplish learning and teaching goals.” To fulfill that mission, the library staff has endeavored to inform the Pace community about its offerings. Once school began, librarians met with all Middle School students and spoke to ninth-grade Transitions classes. They have taught more than 100 orientation or research-methods classes and have made it easy for faculty and students to request specific materials that support curricular needs. Teague alone met with Middle School students nearly 70 times for library orientations or to work on specific class projects.
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The Woodruff Library was made possible by a generous gift from Pace grandparent JANE WOODRUFF, and Pace parents BUCK and ANN WOODRUFF. Pictured left to right in front of the library’s fireplace are HARRISON ’18, Jane, Ann, LILLI ’20 and Buck Woodruff.
Faculty and staff are frequently invited to Library Showand-Tells, during which Ball and Teague provide helpful overviews of the library’s services and resources, and Ball gives a brief presentation each week during Mondaymorning announcements highlighting a library resource or service. The library nearly doubled its subscriptions to online resources and has simplified off-campus access to them through the use of a proxy server. The impact has been tremendous. “The librarians have really helped my writing classes in both finding books as well as with research for our non-fiction writing,” says Middle School teacher and Pace parent ANNE ALEXANDER. “Recently, I watched students take advantage of the mobile book cart and checkout during lunch—what a great way to reach our students!”
All in the Timing With the move to a new facility, Head of School FRED ASSAF envisioned a library that would serve as a hub for Middle and Upper School students—a place they wanted to be long before and long after the bell rings. To accommodate this vision, the Woodruff Library expanded upon the previous library’s hours of operation, opening its doors at 7:30 a.m. and closing at 6 p.m. five days a week. The move has encouraged on-campus study and collaboration, while providing a quiet after-school workspace for Middle School students and those involved in extra-curricular activities. In addition, the library remains open until 10 p.m. and on weekends during exam weeks.
“A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.” —Lemony Snicket
Did You Know? The Woodruff Library… • Houses approximately 23,000 print volumes, 150,000 e-books, 4,500 audiobooks, 18,000 streaming video titles, 1,000 DVDs, and 60 online databases and reference sources • Can accommodate upwards of 38,000 volumes • Saw checkouts increase five percent over the previous year after a decade of incremental declines • Operates effectively and efficiently thanks to 24 parent volunteers • And… the Pace community placed 5,297 puzzle pieces throughout the year!
966 W. Paces Ferry Road NW Atlanta, Georgia 30327 www.paceacademy.org
MATT BALL Director
LINDA TEAGUE Librarian
MARTY HAMBURGER Library Assistant
Matt Ball joined the Pace community as director of the Woodruff Library upon its opening in 2014. A graduate of Georgia State University, Ball earned a Master of Library Science from Syracuse University and most recently served as media and collections librarian at the University of Virginia.
Linda Teague’s career as a librarian began after high school when she was briefly employed in a public library. She took a 20-year hiatus to work in the corporate world but returned to her literary roots in 1994 to earn a master’s in library science. Teague went on to serve the Cherokee Garden Library at the Atlanta History Center, where she helped reclassify the collection. She joined the Pace faculty in 1996 and especially enjoys working with students in the Middle School.
Marty Hamburger came to Pace in 2014 to serve as evening supervisor of the new Woodruff Library. An Iowa native, Hamburger earned a bachelor’s from the University of Iowa before working as an assistant swim coach at Georgia Tech for eight years. With his help, the library has implemented fun and educational activities for students and faculty who remain on campus into the evening.
Ball’s dynamic personality and passion for his profession make him the ideal individual to lead the library. His goal is to provide resources and spaces that encourage and enable learning, critical thinking and a sheer love of reading.