A new section, called the Annotated Library in the FHS Library was launched on Tuesday, Oct. 24. Cofounders seniors Olivia Flanagan and Maddy Collier worked with librarians Renee Isom and Monica Jordan to enforce the idea.
“The annotated library is exactly as it sounds, it’s a section of our school library where books have been set aside specifically for annotating, writing and noting things that are important to you,” Collier said.
As long as it is school-appropriate, students have free range to write and highlight anything that stands out to them in the book. The books are marked ‘annotated’ to ensure they stay together. There are also annotating supplies like sticky notes, tabs, highlighters and pens that students can use to annotate.
“The only books that are allowed to be annotated are on the shelf below the poster,” Flanagan said. “You check out a book, read it, write appropriate comments, thoughts and anything you wish to add that you think is important or funny. [The supplies] must be returned because those are the only materials we have. If we run out we run out.”
According to Collier, the main idea behind creating an annotated library was to create an anonymous collaboration space for readers to bond with reading and share their opinions freely without the pressure of needing to say the ‘right’ thing.
“We wanted to create a community within the books that we read,” Flanagan said. “We all have thoughts while reading, so why not share them?”
Flanagan believes it is important for students to have such unique opportunities to further their knowledge. Collier saw it as a way for readers to communicate with each other.
“I think it’s important because there is so much disagreement in everyone’s lives that weighs on us,” Collier said. “Inevitably there is always a new argument and this allows for a quite anonymous collaboration where people are allowed to freely share their thoughts.”
According to Flanagan, choosing what books to include in the annotated library was a difficulty they faced. The team wanted to have a diverse set of books from different genres to ensure there was a book for each reader to pick from.
“Choosing the books we wanted to incorporate was difficult because we wanted to add new books to our library while also adding banned books and more popular works,” Flanagan said.
Another thing they had to keep in mind as they implemented the project was following the guidelines the school library must follow. Flanagan thought it was difficult because of some content the books contained. Both Flanagan and Collier agree that the librarians were very supportive through the process and helped them get all the resources and approved everything every step of the way.
“Mrs. Isom and Mrs. Jordan helped look at all of our books on a list and also recommended books in our circulation and not that would be good for collaboration,” Flanagan said. “We also received charts and statistics that allowed us to see the popularity and interests of students who visit the library.”
The team hopes that the annotated library will be a forever thing. Flanagan and Collier will maintain it for the rest of this academic year, but they hope someone else will pick up the responsibility upon their graduation.
“We hope to expand the outreach and the importance to the community to collaborate and share opinions over even the small things in life,” Flanagan said. “Have fun and use it. We are so excited for the opportunity to share this with the student body, we hope that students use this resource to the fullest extent.”
