Hidden Ducks for a Hidden Activity
Lauryne Jean Joseph
When entering the school’s library, there are many activities to do with friends. One activity that only a few people know about is finding little toy ducks in the library area. This activity was only announced during a presentation with librarian Stephen Nedell while getting new books or returning them with your classmates.
Before Nedell even came to the library here at Malden High School, these ducks were given to him at a party. “I thought, oh, these are really cute. So then I got the idea of getting more of them and spreading them around the library and making a sort of fun scavenger hunt,” he claimed.
While students searched for the scattered ducks, Nedell also made a strategy for people to look for books. “It is something to encourage students to look around the library. I always put them with the books… and so a student who finds a duckie at the same time might stumble on a book that would catch their eye,” stated Nedell. Not only do people try to find ducks to keep, but also to grab a book at their academic level.
Students have yet to engage with this new and simple activity since he started his first year as a librarian at Malden High School. For the students who do know about this, they always find them quickly after a day.
By doing this Nedell hopes to make the library a comfortable, safe, and relaxing place. “The library does feel welcoming. Especially the Writer’s Den, it’s one of my new favorite places at the library. I enjoy being at the library whenever I can,” said sophomore Keira Celicourt.
Other students expressed how welcoming the library is and how it is also a productive space for school work. “I find it entertaining and motivating if I’m trying to be productive in the library,” sophomore Jhillian Dumo added.
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A Look into How the MHS Library is Used
Reva Upadhayay
Challenging Readers across the School
The Malden High School Library is open to all students, allowing them to utilize all the resources offered. Unfortunately, students often forget they can take advantage of these things in the library.
To combat this, the library hosts reading challenges year-round to get students to visit and become invested in different books. The library began by introducing a Bingo Challenge. However, they realized it had a couple of flaws that needed to be fixed. For example, the Library Advisory Board noticed that students were not extremely interested in the Bingo Challenge because it lacked rewards. And so, they came up with a better alternative: the Reader’s Challenge.
The Reader’s Challenge is a raffle hosted to encourage students to read and visit the library more often. Students are given the objective to read a book to earn a raffle ticket. They are required to fill out the ticket with their name, the title, and the author of the book, as well as their personal opinion of the book. Tickets are placed into a fishbowl and await to be picked out.
Three winners for the raffle are chosen monthly and they can receive small trinkets like sea glass sculptures, which are provided by EK Designs. This is an improvement that the previous challenge had needed.
The Bingo Challenge consisted of a worksheet with nine boxes that each contained a different topic. When a student completed reading a book with listed criteria, they would check off the box. This continued until a winner was chosen. “They were never as popular because students were required to read particular books and there was only one winner, who was given no prizes,” senior Ivana Marinkovic claimed.
Marinkovic recognized a couple of flaws and believed change needed to be made to continue pushing students to visit the library. The idea was quickly scrapped and would be replaced with the brand-new raffle that began soon after.
Although it may seem like a good way to attract students, there are questions on whether or not it will pique their interest in reading. “I do think it is a nice way to kickstart people wanting to read out of a competitive spirit,” said English teacher Brian Wong. However, he also believes it will not be a “long-term solution to get kids to read.”
The library can offer students many more resources than they know. Most students may believe that it is only a place to find books and read, but they tend to overlook the social and support aspects of it.
Stephen Nedell, Malden High’s Librarian, hopes to make the library a welcoming place for all students. No matter how someone identifies, he hopes they can find comfort in coming to the library. Even if students are not looking to read, the library offers a multitude of games and crafts to indulge in. Nedell believes that “these sorts of things should not just make the library only a value, but to make it a place to be.”
If the raffle cannot motivate students to read, they hope to influence them to check out the library for everything else it has to offer. “Every part of the library is a piece of what makes it a special environment for students. This raffle is only a bit of it,” concluded sophomore Andriana Rangel.
