Mrs. Westbrook and I kicked off the interview by talking about how long she has worked as a librarian. She says that she has worked as a librarian here at Victor for 13 years, and she has worked at the Victor-Farmington library for 14 years.
Mrs. Westbrook says that she first became a librarian because she loved to read, and after becoming one, she says that she loves helping people find what they are looking for, and helping them with the tasks they have.
Then I asked Mrs. Westbrook who makes all the amazing displays in the library. Mrs. Westbrook answered “I think it’s a combination of Mrs. Misery and myself, we come up with different ideas, and Mrs. Chatman, who volunteers here, she really does a great job of getting them all together, so we’ll come up with different display ideas.”
During the interview, Mrs. Westbrook said that they would be doing a display for some books that are banned in school. After this, I asked why students should read banned books if they are interested in them. She said that students should only read books that they are interested in, but that there are a lot of great books that are banned in other schools, like Harry Potter.
Then, we talked about how the school library picks books to add to the library. Mrs. Westbrook replied “Usually, a lot of it is students, if they ask to have a certain book, I will look to see reviews from publications to see if it is appropriate for the high school, or if it’s something that we have in a series.” So if you have a book you would want to see added to the library, don’t be afraid to talk to Mrs. Westbrook and see if you can get that book in.
I then asked what resources are in the library. Mrs. Westbrook then responded “Well, we have a maker space, which is a space where students can use anytime they’re here to create. So, right now it’s perler beads, we’ve had buttons, we’ve had stick art, jewelry making, drawing, pins, and we are going to do some tile making. We have puzzles, we have games, some Legos and Lincoln Log type things, and we also have 2 fish. We have dry erase tables, so if people are studying, and we have a human connection board right now.”
We also talked about how the most popular genres of books in the library right now are thrillers, mysteries, graphic novels and mangas.
I then asked Mrs. Westbrook what her personal favorite genres of books are. She responded saying that she most enjoys reading historical fiction, realistic fiction, and narrative nonfiction. Finally, I asked what Mrs. Westbrook thought was a book that impacted her as a high schooler. She answered “I loved a book called Go Ask Alice by an anonymous author. It was a diary of a teenage girl who happened to get addicted to drugs. And, she wrote a diary, and to me that was, um, it scared me, because of how easily it happened. And, I just really connected with that book.”
