Rows of books line the walls, the sound of keyboards clacking and 3-D printers operating demonstrates the Grosse Pointe Public Library Woods Branch’s desire for students to not only pick up a new book but also discover a new hobby. With their abundance of resources, students may be surprised to find that the public library offers far more than just reading materials.
The public library provides an outlet for visitors to explore a diverse array of passions, whether that be sewing a dress from scratch using the Dream Lab maker space or preparing for a test using their designated study spaces. A regular at the public library, junior Gavin Perry often finds people using a variety of the library’s resources beyond their large variety of books.
“I go in there nearly every day to study since I just work much more effectively there than my house or anywhere else,” Perry said. “I see tons of people in there reading, doing work, tutoring, or a variety of other activities. There are regulars I see almost every time I go in using the computers or doing work, but I also see different people nearly every time as well. People bring their kids there for activities and stuff as well, and they also have a maker space in the basement anyone can use, and they host educational events in there often for all ages.”
All students in the district are given library cards granting them access to the bounty of unique materials that can help them explore their passions at the local library. While Woods Library Manager Jessie Tropman acknowledges that some students might not be able to utilize the library in person, she recommends that students take advantage of the library’s online resources.
“The online resources are ones that can get buried because you have to kind of dig into the website to find them, and students might not know that they’re available,” Tropman said. “We have a tab on our website that’s called research and learning, and that’s kind of the way that you can get into a lot of those online sources. There’s a lot of good things there that could be useful to students, whether it’s tutoring, college prep, test prep or access to things like the New York Times, Detroit Free Press and other newspapers.”
Though Tropman promotes the accessibility of materials at the public library, North’s library media specialist, Amanda Pata, strives to provide the school library with its own special touches that students can access while they are in the building.
“The public library has a large collection of non-book materials,” Pata said. “We really focus on providing, in the school library, a different, more accessible space for students because it happens during the school day. We have spaces for lunch, spaces for kids to create things, our little library cafe, and our care closet. We are more high school student-focused where they have a lot of community things that we wouldn’t carry in here in the public library.”
With the many resources available in both the public and school libraries, Tropman notes that as a community, we are fortunate to have a location for students to exercise their passions and immerse themselves in new ideas.
“We provide a sheer community space for community members to interact with each other and hang out, borrow books, learn new things, and they can do it, without, they can come into a building,” Tropman said. “They don’t have to buy anything. It’s just a nice resource to have in the community. For us, we’re fortunate in Grosse Pointe that we have three really nice branches for community members to take advantage of and just provide access to information, materials, activities, programs, all of those things that we have the ability to do on behalf of the community. There’s a lot of different ways that we can offer.”
