At Aragon, the library is well-known as a place to study, work on group projects, and frantically print out assignments at brunch. It differs from the public library because everyone is a student. However, some students often feel at odds with the librarians, usually finding them too strict or overbearing. For the most part, student opinion seems to be mixed. Some think that the fault lies with the students, and others think that it’s a mutual failure to communicate between the students and librarians.
“I have a lot of experience with the librarians through study hall this year and last. I think the students have little regard [for the librarians], and I think that causes problems,” says senior Alex Burns. Senior Marvin Yang explains. “If people knew [the librarians] better, they’d obey them more. If you’re talking about teachers, there’s no barrier there. But the librarians only check out our books, and contact is brief between us.”
Anna Lapid, Aragon’s main librarian, agreed, saying “We don’t have that typical [student-teacher] relationship.” To this extent, the librarians concur and offered their opinion. Diane Gagliani, a library assistant, said, “I think we have about seven hundred kids a day, and with numbers like that it’s really hard to keep things under control. We have to do things like check out textbooks, keep it quiet in the study hall, monitor the computers, get students to bring in IDs.” Lapid agreed, saying, “Not all the students realize what’s going on.”
Complaints about the inability to eat food in the library are often a source of enmity among students. However, as the librarians emphasized, there is good reason for this. “If we get rabid [about food], it’s because we don’t like rats,” Lapid explains. “It’s improved a lot after we’ve gotten stricter on food this year.” Gagliani added, “By eating in here, [students] are also not respecting the maintenance crew.”
Burns cites another common complaint among students about unfairness from the librarians, saying that there tends to be problems with the textbooks. He says, “In my case, the textbook was ‘ruined’ when they issued it, and they still wanted me to pay the whole price for it instead of a used price.” This complaint seems common from the student body, since most students do not understand the library’s textbook policy.
Gagliani explained textbook fines, saying, “We check for damages and then input the information into the computer, and the computer tells us how much to charge.” Lapid adds, “There’s a formula of what to charge.” On the topic of water-damage, Lapid explains, “We have to throw away water damaged books because they mold, and that can spread to other books, so that’s the full price of the textbook.”
Senior Jaehee Park, also in study hall, had issues with some of the strictness. He says, “I was doing homework in the library during seventh, which I have off, and they got mad at me for cutting class. They assume before they make their decisions.” He elaborates, saying “I think they’re right about 60 percent of the time, but the other 40 percent they aren’t. That’s not a good percentage to keep making assumptions on.”
In response, Gagliani admits, “Maybe things carry over and maybe someone [gets offended], maybe I’m not always the most pleasant. But I do try and be respectful.” Lapid agreed with that, emphasizing, “We try to model and practice the most basic rules of respect.”
Lack of respect may be the cause of the majority of the conflict. “Study hall students seem more respectful and get respect back, so we feel less pressure,” says Park. In order to solve an age-old problem, he says, “If people follow the rules, the librarians won’t say anything.” Lapid concludes, “We’re just trying to follow the school’s rules.”
