Six years ago Jessica Gilcreast accepted the position as the school librarian in a diverse urban elementary school (80 percent low-income student population). The library had a bare-bones automation system, block scheduling, and no library assistant. None of this, however, was her biggest challenge. Inheriting an institutional, cold,…

This article describes how the author changed a gloomy and outdated library into a cheery and welcoming place for teaching and learning. When the author was hired as the new library media specialist at Tri-County Career Center Library in Nelsonville, Ohio, the library was antiquated, uncomfortable, and not geared for the present-day hills of…

Marlborough School, which was founded in 1889 in Los Angeles, is an independent college preparatory day school for young women. When the author arrived in Marlborough School in 2005, she found that the school was an exciting place to learn but the library was not. However, head of school Barbara Wagner described her vision of the school's future…