The Berkeley High School library is home to more than 30,000 books from a vast range of genres, authors, and styles. Non-fiction, fiction, autobiographies, comics, and magazines span the shelves with more books than most of us could read in a lifetime, and the people behind the desk keep the whole place running.
“(BHS’) library has had a reputation in the school library community for a long time as being a library that does a lot of teaching and is very active and vibrant,” BHS teacher librarian Allyson Bogie said.
Bogie has been a part of the BHS community for over three years as a teacher librarian, coordinating with classes coming into the library, organizing workshops in English and history classes, and working hard to foster engagement with BHS students and make them excited and interested in literature. Taking over in 2023, Bogie has done proposition lessons in government classes for the midterms, and made an effort to get all 9th and 10th grade classes in for lessons on independent reading and researching. All three of the BHS librarians have obtained a teaching degree prior to their time at BHS, as well as Bogie, who has a master’s in Library Science.
Working and supporting libraries in the K-12 range, Bogie has had the opportunity to connect with a multitude of students.
“At my old school, we had 700 7th and 8th graders, and I knew probably 500 of their names. I don’t get to do that here ... and that kind of is a bummer. I don’t get to know you guys in the same way as teachers for the most part,” Bogie said.
Despite the fact that BHS serves approximately 3,200 students, the library remains a place for our librarians to get to know each student through lessons, book recommendations, or simply being in the space.
This recent school year, teacher librarian Meredith Irby, who worked with Bogie in lessons for a range of classes and subjects pertaining to research or reading, left on maternity leave. Caitlin Berka, a past sub for the BHS drama department has stepped in to take her place through February. “I love being able to recommend books to students and share my own love of reading with them; I’ve been really enjoying getting to know the catalog a little bit better and sort of what’s in this particular library ... I love collaborating with the other librarians, too,” Berka said.
So far, Berka has been focused on acquiring new books for the school’s catalogue and coordinating lessons on genre, lateral reading, propositions, and annotated biographies. As teacher librarians, Berka and Bogie are able to customize their lessons to fit specific classes and grades. In Advanced Placement (AP) Environmental Science classes, they have practiced lateral reading for credible sources in research projects, and in AP Government classes they have spent time researching propositions in order for students to have a more complete understanding of the midterm process in California.
Along with lessons and cataloging, part of the library’s job is to help find copies of books. The library’s media technician Nicole Fitzhugh spends the majority of her time in the book room helping students check out and return textbooks, as well as sending out mass emails about overdue books.
The library’s success is a culmination of multiple people’s work. The teacher librarians aim to provide students with well crafted lessons and projects that help them to get more involved in reading. The library is a space that requires much effort to keep running, and provides a space for students to access mass amounts of literature and information, none of which would be possible without the support and organization of our librarians.