News

Library revamped at Chester school

In print | November 8, 2007

Until this summer, Chester’s Stetser Elementary School had stacks of books but no library to house them. Swarthmore chemistry lecturer Ginger Indivero has begun work to transform an empty room of the school into a new library for the children.

Indivero became interested in the work after reading an article in The Phoenix last year that mentioned Stetser’s library dilemma, namely that the library had not been in use for two years. “That caught my attention, so I decided to see if I could do anything,” Indivero said.

Once the principal of Stetser granted permission to her begin fixing the library, Indivero and a team of junior high and high school volunteers from her church’s youth group worked to clean up the former library, which resided in a trailer. “The trailer basically became a dumping ground,” Indivero said.

The volunteers spent time over the summer to fix and clean the trailer. One of the summer volunteers was chemistry lecturer Maria Newport. “I was only able to go a handful of times over the summer to help get the library organized,” Newport said. “Basically, we went through the books, pulling ones that were useful for the kids at the elementary school level. We also organized books and files for teachers that were not accessible for them.” Newport plans to volunteer for an hour a week once the program gets going.

Indivero was able to continue the project by making use of the open space in a room that had computers along the walls but was empty in the center. The volunteers spent the next six weeks moving everything to the computer room, and decorating it with bulletin boards and signs to make the room more welcoming.

Now that the library has been established, Indivero has been searching for volunteers to staff it. She has recruited some of her friends to volunteer at the library, including several other Swarthmore professors, with the hopes that Swarthmore students will also volunteer. “What I would love to do is to get Swarthmore students to go down there for an hour to help out,” Indivero said. Now that teachers are beginning to sign up to bring their students down to the library for projects, volunteers are needed to help the children research and find books.

“None of us are library professionals, but they have books and my goal is to get books into the kids’ hands,” Indivero said. Her goal, as the program expands, is to have more volunteers so teachers at Stetser will bring their students there more often.

Indivero hopes that eventually the library will be staffed by volunteers working several hour shifts who can interface with the teachers to set up new projects.

Assistant professor of chemistry Liliya Yatsunyk is one of the volunteers. She has volunteered twice so far, and both times had a different class visit — fifth graders one day and second graders the next. Yatsunyk helped the children find books and check them out, spending the rest of her time shelving books and doing other tasks.

“The fifth graders didn’t seem to know what to do in the library,” Yatsunyk said. When she came back the second time, two of the fifth graders came up to her and began explaining their books to her. While only a few of the fifth graders seemed enthusiastic about the library, Yatsunyk was pleased that some were making use of it. According to Yatsunyk, when the second graders came in, they were more enthusiastic than the fifth graders.

The goal is that the combination of more volunteers and better coordination with the school will lead to a useful and organized library.

Indivero hopes that altruistic Swarthmore students will volunteer their precious time to help Stetser.

A few of the parents from the community have already volunteered for the project. Indivero’s wish is that eventually Stetser students’ parents will become more involved so the program will be turned over to them. If all goes according to plan, the program will continue through the school year.