Spacey Considerations
By Lillian N. Gerhardt, Editor-in-Chief -- School Library Journal, 2/1/1998
The insistent urge to clean and spiff up our surrounding space is a characteristic that separates us from most other animals. This issue carries some useful tips on how librarians put that urge to work in their libraries. [See pp. 28-35.] The effort can seem daunting, but the results can reach far beyond a school or public library's immediate location.
It's appalling that so many of our inner-city schools in the major cities of the richest country in the world have been allowed to go without proper maintainance. This is particularly evident on the East coast, where so many city school buildings date from the turn of the century, before school libraries were part of the building plans. Some of the mistakes made in turning classrooms into libraries have been carried over into the newer libraries of schools in suburbia.
For instance, I've visited countless new and redesigned school libraries where it is apparent that the planners and builders proceeded as if a library collection would never grow, as if the space required would be forever finite. No provisions are made for the possibility of an increase in school enrollments. There seems to be no recognition of the reality of collection growth. Most worrisome is the failure to recognize that when (not if) public education abandons the agricultural calendar for the school year, community use of the school facilities will grow dramatically.
These considerations should be paramount in planning new school library media centers. Architectural plans are only half done if they deal only with today's needs. All library designs should include a section called, "And Next...."
Librarians who have lived through the experience of new buildings, expansion, or renovation are a rich source of horror stories about library furnishings and decoration. "Would you believe that the architect wanted to put a jungle gym across from the circulation desk?" a beleaguered librararian once asked me. "I had to call in the insurance carrier to get that scotched." That's my all-time favorite anecdote about how not to rearrange an elementary school library's use of space. It attests to the fact that the purpose of a library facility and its contents have to remain central to the planning and execution of the blueprints. Architects and designers can bring their own misconceptions to our poorly understood work.
Problems in the use of color abound. "Kids like bright colors" is the one insight most adults bring to discussions about the effect of color on the sensibilities of young people. A children's librarian whose battle scars still ache from the redecoration of the children's department told me, "I had to fight a self-certified color engineer to keep the children's room from looking like an explosion in an Easter egg factory." This librarian achieved serenity through color by persuading administrators and trustees to spend two hours in a private day care center that was trying to recover from the attentions of the color engineer. They discovered that too much of the primary color palette can jangle the nerves at any age.
What's missing all too often from plans to build or spruce up a library is a realistic grasp of what a library is in place to provide. If I were the Czarina of All Libraries for a day, I would command that anybody on the design committee spend two weeks following the library's staff and customers around, watching how its collections and equipment are used.
And, of course, a command to listen to both thelibrary staff and the young people who are told that the libraries are for them.
Renée Olson
Editor-in-Chief
rolson@slj.cahners.com
