In the media center, librarian Ms. Anne Kosanovich has to constantly ask people to be silent because some cannot study with the noise. Around the end of October, Junior Alejandro Ortega decided to create a petition that would establish a silence rule in the media center.
The petition proposed a student task force that would earn CSL hours for students who enforce silence, reserving an area for silent study in the new building and to divide the library into a silent section and a group study section. Ortega planned to reserve the Senate Room for study groups, but it was deemed unrealistic since it is usually booked.
Before submitting a written proposal to ASBL, Ortega contacted the librarians for feedback on his ideas. They told Ortega that his ideas were impractical, which led him to withdraw the petition and discontinue his efforts.
“The librarians know how to manage a library,” Ortega said. “So I decided to trust their experience and honest opinion that it would not be possible to have a silent library.”
Ms. Kosanovich and librarian Ms. Joanne Wang will continue what they have been doing: asking students to be respectful of those around them by talking softly when working together. The two had planned to make individual study and group study sections within the library, but they have said that separating the two would be difficult.
The petition’s creation stemmed from Ortega’s German class, where the whole class was discussing a chapter about libraries. This led to the class complaining about the noise in the media center. German teacher Ms. Judith Graunke encouraged her class to take action against the situation, which ultimately led Ortega to form the petition.
After retracting the petition, Ortega had decided to pursue designating an area in the new buildings under construction for silent study for students, but dropped it because the whole experience was quite stressful for him.
“We hope that students come into the library more quietly, speak with a soft voice when working with others and most of all, be thoughtful and respectful of others,” Ms. Kosanovich said. “We do our best to ask students to maintain a low volume and those who cannot, to choose another place to gather.”
TCHS School Newspaper