A class of 29 graduate students at Southern Arkansas University will soon save a fellow student from a never-ending game of catch up at her new position as librarian at Blevins High School.
The Leadership and Professionalism class will spend Sunday through Thursday, July 8-12, completely reorganizing and renovating the Blevins High School library as a special service project. They will work under the guidance of Peggy Walters, director of the Magale Library at SAU, and instructor Vanda Hollensworth.
“She could not have caught up with all that needed to be done, ever,” said Walters of Whitney Ivy, who was hired as the new librarian at Blevins before starting the Library Media and Information Specialist graduate program at SAU.
School librarians in Arkansas are required to have a master’s degree. But, like Ivy, many are hired and then seek the degree, according to Walters. And many times they inherit a library that is in desperate need of a facelift.
“There is not much help out there for librarians in small schools in little towns,” said Walters, adding that they usually are the only person staffing their school’s library. “I like to offer support for those librarians out there that are stuck.”
Walters and her staff have helped other graduate students by renovating libraries in McNeil Elementary, Hamburg High and Emerson Elementary. The assistance they have provided for each new librarian has been different depending on their facility’s needs.
“I can evaluate and see the issues and bring my expertise,” said Walters, who has been at the Magale Library for 14 years. But when she is working on a renovation project with a graduate class, she lets the students analyze, do the problem solving and suggest possible solutions.
Walters and Ivy have been organizing the Blevins project for at least six months. Walters has written a 48-page case study on the library, which she will give to the students after they arrive in Magnolia next week.
Walters said that she will break the students up into five groups to tackle the five main problem areas of this library: the reference collection, the general book collection, periodicals, the facility itself and the AV equipment and videos. They will spend Monday in their groups reading, talking, studying and planning. Tuesday through Thursday they will leave SAU around 8 a.m. for Blevins and will not return until after 6 p.m. After they get back on campus each evening, they will meet again to discuss what they accomplished and formulate goals for the next day.
According to Walters, there are only three library specialist graduate programs in the state. The other schools offer varying programs, but SAU only preps school librarians. Walters sees this as a definite positive.
“It’s good that we only do one thing, because we can concentrate on that one thing and do it really well,” said Walters.
The Leadership and Professionalism class is made up of students from all over the state of Arkansas: Hope, Norphlet, Prescott, Gentry, Wilmar, Jonesboro, Antoine, Wickes, Delight, Dierks, Taylor, Lake Village, Royal and Star City (2), Texarkana (4), Camden (2), Arkadelphia (4), Warren (2) and Bismark (2).
