A Special Collection: PS 9's Library

Written by Ena Fowles Friday, 16 December 2011 00:00

The main branch of the New York Public Library opened 100 years ago. Inside that marble edifice there is a John Milton quote carved over a doorway leading into a reading room: “A good book is the precious life-blood of the master spirit…” On any given day the majority of the occupants in that reading room are tip-tapping away on their computers. It is an institution that has survived and thrived for a century because like anything with a heartbeat it has adapted.

The New York Public Library is “dependent on support from generous individuals, civic-minded corporations, and public-spirited foundations…” (nypl website). The PS 9 library is no different. Because of grants the PS 9 library has: a white board and its accompanying technology, six new Mac computers, and software that is used to catalogue and keep track of the materials in the library.

If you walk up about forty blocks, cross the park, and then cut west an avenue you will find another library, not quite as old, slightly smaller, but no less important, and no less able to adapt and thrive…

The library on 5th Avenue is a destination for scholars from all over the world. Our library also hosts important scholars and researchers. Due to the diligence of a mother, Kate Hartnick Elliott, and the magnanimity of the people behind two foundations -- the Posner-Wallace Foundation and the Rubin Foundation – PS 9 received enough grant money to hire a part-time mentor in the library.

Mrs. Brady and Ms. Kate saw that the best fit for our school was Mr. K (Mr. Kaligian). Having been a fulltime fifth-grade teacher, and now a part-time technology teacher here at PS 9 he was already a member of our community. While developing his technology lessons he has diligently sought to understand the curriculum so as to support grade-specific goals, and it’s that school-specific knowledge of the curriculum that he will bring with him into the library when he works there two mornings a week. His plan is to coordinate with the classroom teachers to host small, individualized research groups. Mr. K said that his goal “is to teach research skills that kids will need to be successful.” He will also be using his expertise to maximize the capabilities and efficiency of our library technology.

Technology, research, and the staff to facilitate are vital components to a library – some would posit that they are the very components that sustain it in an era of competition and quantifiable (in an effort to be equitable) standards. Further, for some children absorbing non-fiction material is their passion. (To note, the new core curriculum being ushered in by the DOE will be non-fiction based. In anticipation of that, Mr. K will also be working on updating our non-fiction collection of books.)

Fact-finding, information sorting, critical thinking, cross-referencing – certainly, all necessary skills – and for many a passionate adventure. Can it be suggested, at the risk of offending blasé or cliché sensibilities, that non-fiction, research, and technology is the heart of the modern library; the steady, time-keeping beat of the song that kids pound out on pianos? If you allow that, then we get to ask: what is the melody, the tah-tah tah-tah-ta-tum? What is the soul?

Stories, poems, imagination, creativity – the words that make them laugh out loud; lines that connect them to humanity; phrases that will motivate them to change behaviour. Our PS 9 library has that, too.

Ms. Kaufman is the literacy coach at PS 9, and she and Ms. Jaramillo, the Spanish teacher for the younger grades, guide the kindergarten classes on this path to the more ethereal, but just as poignant world of literature. She said that one of her aims is to “introduce the children to new authors.” On the day I observed her in the library with a very lucky kindergarten class the author that she chose was Ezra Jack Keats because of the current exhibit at the Jewish Museum (running through January). The children saw a few different Keats books that were displayed and then she read to them his Whistle for Willie. The read aloud session was complete with a whistling bout (“I can do it!” “If you make the ‘O’ bigger it sounds different!” “My dad can whistle!”) – a text-to-self connection. She then explained that Keats liked to collage, and after following that up with an explanation on collage she asked if they new of another author who liked to collage? Eric Carle! A text-to-text connection. Connectivity.

Because of the 100-year celebration, there is on display in that 5th Avenue building, among other things, one of the five original copies of the Declaration of Independence, Jack Kerouac’s harmonica, and Charles Dickens's crazy letter opener that has for a handle the taxidermied paw of his beloved cat, Bob. All of these things can be pulled up in Google images. Nobody has to leave their apartments to “see” them, and yet on a frigid morning at 10am when the doors opened there was a crowd on the steps. There is something about the experience of really seeing the object – knowing that Jefferson’s nib, Kerouac’s lips, and Dickens’s hand touched those objects – that makes the people come. Objects connect people through time and makes you feel like there is permanence that cannot be updated or outdated or deleted.

I recently returned to a book I hadn’t read since I was a twelve-year old girl, and halfway in I found tucked in tight a crumb. Until that moment that twelve-year old was gone – as just a memory she was intangible. Yet here was proof that she existed; she had held the very book I was holding. Objects matter. Books matter. This one’s smaller; this one’s heavier; this one’s tatty so I have to hold it gently; this one’s cheap and just for the summer so I’ll bend its pages. Each one its own personality; each one its own experience. It’s true, we do not have the objects the main public library does (which is a shame because that cat paw is awesome… actually it’s pawesome…), but we do have books – books with histories. Books that an older sibling brought home last year, books that a friend read and loved, books that have been excitedly checked out by scores of PS 9 students and teachers. They create a mosaic around the room, they connect the kids with other students, and they combine the tactile with the cognitive. And let’s remember this lovely part about books: whether it’s a pristine first edition on 5th, or a paperback with a broken spine on 84th, both copies of The Phantom Tollbooth start with, “There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself—not just sometimes, but always.”

From a Newsweek article printed in 1996 Laura Shapiro wrote, “Great libraries have always looked to both the future and the past.” The future and the past; research and poetry; virtual and physical. When we use “and” rather than “instead of” we can create something balanced and whole – the heart and soul. Here’s to two great libraries – may both be valued and loved 100 years from now.