Herbst Library

 

The following article is an expanded version of the article which appeared
in the Spring 2002 issue of the Urban Community.

In June 1994, while I was working at The Hamlin School in San Francisco, an ad in American Libraries Magazine of the American Library Association caught my attention.

The ad seemed to read like a description of my qualifications. Although I had already discarded the magazine into the recycle bin, my husband urged me to retrieve it and to apply.

Shortly after I submitted my application, I had an initial phone interview with Director Mark Salkind. Subsequently, Mark invited me to interview at the school with John Hall, Kathleen Huntington, LeRoy Votto, and Stephen Thomas, the members of the Library Search Committee. We discussed library organization, technology, and automation systems, as well as the relationship of library practice to the Urban School’s mission. About halfway through the interview, I felt as though I were speaking with longtime friends. Apparently, the committee felt similarly since LeRoy later told me that he had passed a note to John Hall, the committee chair, that said: “She’s the one. We’ve found our librarian.” A few days later, Mark called to offer me the position. I accepted with delight.

During my interview, I thought that Urban had no prior centralized library or librarian. But as those of you who read the first part of the library history in the 2001-2002 Fall/Winter Urban Community know, the first Urban School Library existed in the Washington Street building with George Anang as librarian.

In July 1994, I arrived at Urban as the new Librarian and began the development of the library in the old ceramics studio, the location of the current Physics Lab. The space for The Herbst Library was under construction on the third floor. I reviewed the plans and made suggestions for minor changes. The school’s book collection was delivered from storage. Sorting through the books to determine what would fit with the Urban curriculum was my first job. I read through the course descriptions and the curriculum documents to gain insight into the needs that the library should meet. Some books were obvious discards because of age and mildew; others were beyond the scope of the curriculum. For example, although the works of the Nobel Prize winning writer Tagore are uniquely valuable, some of the 50 books in the collection seemed candidates for omission. We gathered such items for sale, and the profits provided funds to purchase books requested by various departments. With the help of Jimmy Poulos, an Urban neighbor and former Letterman Hospital librarian, most of the other books were donated to the Friends of San Francisco State University Library. Shortly thereafter, we chose a library automation system called CASPR’s LibraryWorks, which is accessible by both Mac and PC and allows for inclusion of multimedia. Today, the library continues to use CASPR software, LibraryWorld, and its web catalog program, LibraryNet.

The First Year in the Herbst Library

During that first summer in the ceramics room, most of our time was spent weeding, sorting, and setting policies and procedures. In the old Urban library, the Library of Congress system of classification had been used. This organization of library books is used in universities, but in most public libraries and schools, the Dewey Decimal system prevails. After much thought and consultation with other local high school librarians, I opted for the Dewey system. Volunteers began cataloging the books selected to become part of the library.

Unlike more established school libraries, Urban did not have the option of retrospective conversion for the library catalog. The old card catalog had been delivered to Urban with the books, but during storage, many drawers had been dumped. Trying to put the catalog cards back in order seemed a waste since the Library Committee had determined that Urban should have a computerized system.

To establish the goals and philosophy for the new library, I spoke with various faculty members. History teacher LeRoy Votto noted that some teachers, especially in the humanities, found research papers nearly impossible without easy access to important reference materials. The faculty unanimously highlighted the importance of access to primary sources. I determined that the Herbst Library collection should focus upon materials suitable for student research in the various disciplines. I developed the mission statement for the library:

The Herbst Library is an information resource center. It supports the school's philosophy of instilling in students a life-long love of learning. The mission of the library media program is to ensure that students are information literate. The library supports the curriculum by providing primary resource material and other resources not easily found at the local public libraries. It also supports the ALA's (American Library Association) Information Literacy Standards for student learning.

In September 1994, just one day before school opened, parent volunteers –including the Rothenbergs and Schumans – helped move approximately 2,000 books onto the shelves of the new third-floor space. The long narrow space of the newly constructed building helped dictate the design by the San Francisco firm of Simon, Martin-Vegue, Winkelstein & Morris and construction by Plant Brothers. The library has distinct areas for reference research, group study, and the book stacks. With two doors, both up staircases, few students know the intended main entrance, opposite the librarian’s office. Since few of the books selected from the Old Library collection were catalogued at the time of the move-in, I decided to shelve them by categories to facilitate access. No computers existed until late 1994, when five PowerMacs and two Pentium PCs arrived.

Studying in the Stacks	Researching in Reference

The library soon began acquiring new books in all areas of the curriculum. A large collection of books and records bequeathed to Urban in the will of John Livingston, who taught history briefly at Urban, enriched the library. Several members of the Urban community —especially Donald Schell, Michael McCone, Dennis McNally, Rita and Howard Schuman, and Francis Rigney — made significant donations of biographies, art monographs, and history books. Other contributors such as Barbara Willardsen a friend of School Secretary Kathryn Gilsen; John Gaskin, a teacher at Urban, the Phillips family, and Jimmy Poulos donated back issues of National Geographic, the New Yorker, Scientific American, and Smithsonian Magazine. To enhance the quantity and quality of materials available for students, the library acquired ProQuest Resource One. This CD-ROM-based resource database provided students with access to full-text articles in over 5,000 magazines and journals. The digital format made access much easier than use of Reader’s Guide to Periodicals and eliminated the need to house the quantities of related print materials.

Active day in the library

The Library Goes Global

I decided very early that the The Herbst Library should be both a physical and a virtual library, one that provides information resources both physically on the third floor of 1563 Page Street and virtually with computer access to digitized resources. The automated catalog was at first supplemented with CD-ROM's and modem access to the nascent Internet. Mosaic emerged in 1994 as a means to search the Web, and my reading caused me to envision the rich potential of this web of information. Serendipitously in 1995, I learned about The Internet Public Library developed as a class project at the University of Michigan. Viewing it, I knew that Urban could profit from use of the Internet to supplement the physical books. The small size of the Herbst Library need not limit the scope of resources available for students and faculty.

The library’s Web site was created during the 1996-1997 school year with the help of Igor Zagatsky ‘95. The site began as a means to catalog valuable Web sites related to Urban courses. Over the years, this virtual part of The Herbst Library has cataloged over 3,000 worthwhile URLs. Some of the most beneficial ones include The Internet Public Library, ibiblio, and the Library of Congress. The Herbst Library’s homepage, redesigned several times since its inception, has become the access point for all library resources. In 1999, the library’s automated catalog became web-based. With the use of CASPR’s LibraryNet, the catalog of the books and videos can be searched from anywhere. Located at http://www.urbanschool.org/library/ the homepage provides access to the library’s catalog, its subscription databases, and its collection of Internet resources related to courses.

Realizing the Vision

Technology in the Library	Hunting for the needed article

By November 1996, I was able to write in the Parents’ News: “The Herbst Library has grown into a full use library….” with computers, an Internet connection and two large CD-ROM databases, ProQuest and CDNewsBank. The Herbst Library contained 4,600 catalogued books. The addition of the Library's Web site expanded the library’s small physical space to encompass worldwide resources. Urban’s library had become the “Library of the Future” envisioned by the Library Committee and the Board for the WASC [Western Association of Schools and Colleges] report of 1993-1994. In 1997, the WASC interim report noted the achievement of the important goal - that “the new library … be an extensive electronic system linked to on-line university and Internet resources.”

The library’s progress would not have been possible without the help of many volunteers. During the 1995-1996 school year, Carol Steinman organized the first group of parent library volunteers to facilitate the operation of the library by providing aid in the processing and shelving of books. Nancy Ramsay assumed leadership of the group for two years before passing it on to Bella Philips and Kimball Worcester, who currently spearhead this active group.

Over the past eight years, the library has truly grown with the purchase of books and the kind donations from many of Urban's families and faculty. In November 1995, the library had 2,100 catalogued books. That number had grown to 11,500 in February of 2002. To provide access to the virtual area of the Library are three Dell PCs, nine iMacs, and one older Mac 6100. Not surprisingly, five white iBooks, added at the beginning of the 2001-2002 school year, have proved most popular for student checkout use during the day.

Class research projects that incorporate library skills started with Barbara Schuller, a former English teacher who suggested an Odyssey hunt combining library skills with gaining knowledge knowledge about the Greeks and their society.

Collaborating with the Community

Before the Herbst Library opened in 1994, teachers took students to the SF Public Library Main Branch, UCSF, and the World Affairs Council library for research projects. However, with Internet access and our database subscriptions, students can from the Herbst Library (and remotely with passwords) research the full-text of the New York Times from 1851 to the present. What luxury to be able to call up the front page of that paper from April 15, 1965 and view the scope of the news from the day of Lincoln’s assassination.

Students collaborating on a research project.	A student performance in the reference room, January 2002 Photo by Douglas Sandberg

 

As Librarian, I also work with teachers to facilitate their students’ research needs. I actively seek out materials that will aid teachers in helping create optimal learning experiences and also aid students in their library research. In addition to that initial Odyssey hunt, other major research projects have included the study of Roma or Gypsies by Elizabeth Wade’s French IV-V classes in conjunction with the reading of the Merimeé’s Carmen. The Grandparent Project of Deborah Dent-Samaké’s 20th Century History course made extensive use of the library, of the digital resources of the American Memory collections of the Library of Congress, and resulted in an addition to the Web site.

So what are teachers’ views the Herbst Library and its resources? Math teacher Henri Picciotto said that he was "surprised at how useful the library can be." History teacher Dan Murphy regards the current evolution of the library as well connected to the needs of classes. Lexis-Nexis (Academic Universe) has replaced field trips to the law library since electronic law books are so much easier to use. Dan does miss the feel of the big law books. However, the hyperlinked text of laws, Dan believes, makes the concept and logic of precedence in law more obvious and more dramatic than the old way. The digital resources available in the current library through its Web site make the library gigantic, with an unimaginable number of resources available, far beyond the vision of the debaters of "what should an Urban School library be/contain?" The Herbst Library in 2002, with its physical and virtual resources combined, is not just an urban library but also a global one.

Carolyn Karis, Librarian 1994 -
Photo by Igor Zagatsky

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