The unabridged version of the story
One year ago, on October 13, we dedicated our brand new Ambleside library. Since that time, once per week, students from every grade visit our small but lovely space containing 1,798 titles — 162 of which were added just last month.
I thought it fitting, in light of the one year anniversary of its dedication, to share the story of how our humble library came to be. Enjoy!
The Story of our Library
The story of the library is long and winding. I’m not actually sure when the project began — maybe all the way back to the creation of the printing press. But I’ll spare you all of that history and start things off with a large quantity of boxes, overflowing with books, in the attic of Ginnie and Randy Wilcox.
If you were to ask either of them what the greatest day in their life was, they would say, right up there with the birth of each of their five children and their eight grandchildren, was the day they emptied their attic of all of those boxes of books and dropped them off at 8980 Brook Road.
Shelves were ordered and assembled, boxes were slowly unpacked, and books were placed on shelves in no particular order. The objective at that time was simple — unpack the boxes. That was the fall of 2018.
At the time, the space was not really used as a library. Yes, we had shelves, and yes, we had books, but music classes were also held in the same room and the books were more or less used as decorations, as there was no system in place to check anything out.
The students’ number one question that year was (yes, you guessed it), “When can we check out books?”
At the dawn of the 2019 school year, we renewed our commitment to the library project, and I reached out to Ginnie with an offer to help.
She wanted it “cataloged” with the “Dewey Decimal System.” My reply was quick and to the point: “No.”
I did offer, however, to organize the books by genre. I knew that was the most I could realistically accomplish in a summer. So I assembled a team, and we sorted and organized the books. Progress.
We still didn’t have a system to check out books, but at least it looked better.
2020 sent everyone home and then the following school year had everyone sequestered in their classrooms. So our dream of a library was on hold, at least for the foreseeable future.
Finally, in the fall of 2021, a plan was hatched for students to both visit the library on a regular basis and check out books. The Hardy Boys series was popular — students in the first grade devoured them. Moby Dick was attempted by a few.
Still, the system was rudimentary. We could do better.
It was around Christmas time that year that I received a call from a parent wanting to donate money in their uncle’s honor to purchase new books. Her uncle had worked as a librarian for all of his professional career.
I was incredibly thankful for the offer but confessed I didn’t know what books we needed because I didn’t know what books we had. We hadn’t “cataloged” them.
Plus, the shelves were packed to the gills. What we needed, I told her, was someone to come in and catalog the books. What we needed was the Dewey Decimal System.
“Is there a librarian consultant out there we could hire?” I asked the donor. I knew what the next step was and here was an offer to pay for it — I just didn’t know how to get it in place and she didn’t either.
Many months went by and then lo and behold, an email. The original donor had mentioned something to someone who mentioned it to someone else who knew someone who could help.
Enter Elizabeth Toledo — librarian for hire. That was the spring of 2022.
Elizabeth and I exchanged a few emails, and she agreed to help. We were going to get our Dewey Decimal System after all.
The summer before the 2022-23 school year, Elizabeth spent many hours explaining the ins and outs of how to build a library to Ted and me. We needed library management software, customized barcodes, spine labels, two kinds of label protectors (sticky and super sticky), and archival tape.
Say again? She even wrote us a manual with all the particulars spelled out in explicit detail and got us started cataloging our books. Ginnie’s dream was being realized at last! So we had a start — just 1,000 more books to go.
Enter Wendy Banton.
I had hoped, along with every student in the school that year, for the library to be ready to use by September 2022. And then I hoped for October. And well, maybe by Christmas!
Wendy and her team of parent volunteers had to catalog all of those books, and it took time and supplies. More barcodes, more spine labels, and more label protectors (both sticky and super sticky) were ordered.
And before the end of that school year, Wendy entered the final book, number 1498.
On Monday, September 18, 2023, our first group of Ambleside students finally entered the library to officially check out books. Students were introduced to the space, and a few groups even broke out into spontaneous applause.
They were given the abridged version of this tale, but the storyline was the same — a vision for a beautiful library for our students, an almost miraculous turn of events, and the dedication and hard work of many generous individuals to get us here today.
Our Ambleside Library is a dream come true for students, parents, and two very relieved Heads of School.
Yours truly,
Kristin Nowak, M.Ed.
Head of School
