Library Update April 2023

Just before Spring Break, we completed the library cataloging. Over 1200 books were entered into our system by parent volunteers including; Luke Mohlman, Mary Fu, Kat Sardoch, Kendra Lambright, Heather Palonder, Meaganne, Taryn Kruger, and Elisa Saphier. They were all an amazing help and we could not have gotten the library into a digital catalog without them.

Once the catalog was complete, I sent the list off to our DEIJ committees. The Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice committees oversee the libraries as a way to increase and maintain the wide assortment of authors, stories, genres, and perspectives represented in the literature available to students.

From here, the team is discussing how to move forward. They will be taking thoughts from their committee members throughout the month of March and will be considering if they are re-launching the library as-is, reviewing the catalog to determine where it aligns with our curriculum and any gaps in representation, looking at any books that may be in need of extra attention due to content or problematic histories, and if there is a need to purchase more books.

We are hoping that by the end of the year, we will have a plan to digitally check out books to students and for classes to be able to use the library as an additional resource. The current site we are using is called LibraryThing and offers a simple checkout system that could be employed by faculty throughout the school. Students would be able to check out books for two weeks and we would be notified of past-due books and be able to reach out accordingly. This would be a major step forward in our current library functions and may make the library more accessible to classes and for projects.

Please reach out to marketing@cedarwoodschool.org if you have any questions or would like to help with tagging books.