Up on the fifth floor, books practically spill out of the school’s largest classroom. Kids come in and out looking for something to read while others lounge on beanbag chairs, enjoying a book–or even occasionally taking a quick nap.
It’s the school library which perhaps acts as an oasis of learning for Baruchians.
In room 517, Rita Ross–the creator of the space–sits before her hand-crafted library. It has taken a lot of work to get where it is now.
“It started off when we transitioned from Ms. Ross’s original room on the third floor to the fifth floor,” said Maeve Levitt, who interned for Ross when she was an upperclassman. She is now a freshman in college.
Back in room 305, there were books everywhere. Another now-graduated intern, Pearl Yu, said this caused a problem. Yu said the janitor had told her it was a fire hazard.
“[There were] just stacks and stacks and stacks of books all over the room,” she said.
The first ever tasks Ross assigned her interns was with the move to room 517.
“She was like, ‘Since we have so many books and we are moving up to this room, we should probably make all these books into a library and we need to start organizing it’,” Yu said.
The furniture in the library entered Baruch through the use of the interns with Ross’s help.
“With Ms. Ross’s help, we looked up the carpets along with chairs and tables that we bought,” Levitt said.
Ross said she often mulls over what books to buy for the library. Principal Alicia Perez-Katz, who oversees the school budget, said Ross gets $21,142 for textbooks and $3,036 for library books, but there is also money put into software and hardware. Knowing her budget and picking the books is one of Ross’s challenges–one she thinks about often.
“I read a lot and I try to read books–both for myself and books that may be a good pick for the library,” she said. Ross likes to house a mix of genres and also tries to find books that are appropriate for students.
“I do read a lot of YA,” Ross said. Young adult literature consists of younger characters, perhaps ones which students can relate to.
Not only does she have YA books, she also brings in more classic texts–some of which may be controversial.
“[The NYC DOE is] pretty committed to not censoring any books and I think being able to have those books in the library that deal with sensitive topics is a freedom that we shouldn’t take for granted,” Ross said.
Book reviews, student recommendations, best-of lists, Barnes and Noble and book talks are all ways she finds books–in addition to her own perusing and reading–to buy for her library, she said.
Ultimately, Ross sees the space as a way to create lifelong readers at BCCHS.
“School sometimes kills literacy,” Ross said. She also said she wants to help counteract that by urging students to read books they are interested in.
Ross said there is importance in making books accessible to everyone. She wants kids to have access to all kinds of books and uses the library as a way to grant all the kids in Baruch access to a huge library.
“Reading builds empathy, character and humanity,” she said.
