After Covid closures, 4 school libraries reopen with flair!

Halfway through her day of unveiling the revived school library to 60 (yes, 60!) classes of Tenney students, Vanessa Guthrie couldn’t help but smile.

Young eager readers had lots of questions: “Where are the graphic novels?” “When I bring my book back, where does it go?” and “When will our class come back to the library?”

Guthrie, a media specialist at Methuen High School, has dedicated the past two years to updating and reopening libraries at Methuen’s four grammar schools. All had been “repurposed” during and after the Covid pandemic – some used as testing spaces or for social distancing, others for meeting spaces or class projects. To bring them back to life, Guthrie weeded out each library’s collection (between 13,000 and 15,000 books per school), unpacked and bar-coded countless boxes of books, established a self-checkout process and magically added a theme to each circulation desk that equals a professional set design.

It’s been a complete labor of love. She teared up talking about the Marsh School’s “Where the Wild Things Are” theme.
“I loved reading it to my own children,” she reminisced. “This project has been so rewarding!”

With all four libraries now open, Guthrie was recognized during the March 9 School Committee meeting.

“Miss Guthrie jumped at the opportunity to help work with Follett librarians and volunteers to refresh our collections. This year, Miss Guthrie extended herself by working extra hours after school to meet with grammar school administration and PTOs to drive the grand reopenings,” said Superintendent Lisa Golobski-Twomey. “While Miss Guthrie has been developing eye-catching and engaging displays at the high school for several years, her talents have truly been on display with her wonderful creations at the grammar schools. Miss Guthrie’s creativity has helped breathe life into our library spaces and, most importantly, get books into the hands of eager students.”

Guthrie, who started with MPS in 2004 as a high school English teacher, oversaw each school’s grand opening. She welcomed individual classes, explained where various genres of books were located, showed students the computer’s search and self-checkout process, and answered questions. Students then headed off to find books. Older kids scoured the stacks for a certain author or series, while younger ones easily spied their favorite character in a display, snagged a book and started reading. The excitement in the air was palpable, and several students joyfully spoke about this new space.

Tenney eighth-grader Giselle Leyva, an avid reader, said she hadn’t had school library access since fourth grade.

“It’s been a while. This is exciting!” she said. “It seems people don’t read as much for high school. But I try to read as much as I can,” adding she’s eager to next challenge herself with “The Odyssey.”

Even kids who aren’t into Greek mythology were finding a good read.

Student Yasser Gamarro has been going to Nevins Library to check out books and was pumped that the school library has the detective series he’s reading.

“I only need two more to finish the series!” he smiled.

Brian Hinton is a fan of the popular “Wings of Fire” graphic novel series, but says those are often checked out at Nevins. He was glad that the Tenney library has several copies and, reflecting on the re-done space, he looked around and said, “I like it. It’s like our own personal library!”

Like many upper schoolers, Tenney’s Alayna Sousa hasn’t had access to the school library in years. She said, “I really like it. It’s a good way to get people to read more books because I couldn’t always get to Nevins Library.”

After the openings, some classes made posters and cards as a thank-you to Guthrie for all her hard work.

“I’m so proud of the work that we’ve done so far in the libraries, and even prouder when I see all the kids with books in their hands now,” Guthrie told the School Committee.

PRINCIPALS’ REACTIONS
Timony Supervising Principal Chris Reeve: (The library) “has had a constant stream of classrooms from both the Upper and Lower Schools coming to check out books. It is great to see the students getting either re-acclimated to the library systems, or learning them for the very first time. One great unanticipated benefit has been the ability to offer volunteer opportunities to both parents and students. We have a dedicated group of parents coming in weekly to help reshelve books, as well as a motivated group of students doing the same. It is great to see.”
CGS Supervising Principal Katie Proietti: “Our library space and the books housed in it were in desperate need of an edit. A very dedicated group led by Vanessa Guthrie edited and refreshed our book collection. … Pluto is no longer a planet, but our books indicated it was! The result is a robust, fresh, accurate collection! I have received many thank-you messages from students and notes of gratitude from parents. … I had a 7^th-grader who was getting dismissed because he fell ill. Before he left, he asked me to go to his locker and get his library book!”

Marsh Supervising Principal Rebecca Gordon: “Everyone is so excited about being able to go in there and check out books. The space looks great! We have almost a dozen committed and trained parent volunteers. We are so lucky that we have their support and time to make this all happen.”
Tenney Supervising Principal David Hill: “Vanessa Guthrie has done yeoman’s work in transforming our former media centers (at all four grammar schools) into inspirational and magical libraries. … She deserves much praise!”