by Maeve O'Connell (6th)

Sometimes you don’t always end up being what you thought you were going to be when you were a kid.

Take our librarian here at CMS for example, Mrs. Carpenter.

“I thought that I would be a business person," she said. She actually used to be an ELA teacher here, but became our librarian when Mrs. McGuire retired. The thought of being able to help with science projects, ELA and History intrigued her: “I like to do projects with everyone in the school, in all of the subjects.” 

December 5th, 2022 is her six year anniversary—that’s six years of working in two libraries, first the old school library, now our brand new library. 

Although she likes the new library, Mrs. Carpenter still misses some things about the old library. “I miss the space, there were tiny makerspace nooks.”

Though there is something that she definitely doesn’t miss, for anyone who didn’t know, the old library was in the very top corner of the school. Now, it’s easily accessible to everyone, being in the middle of the second floor—also known as the seventh grade floor. 

One thing we noticed, though, is the physical space: since the new library is smaller, how do all of the books fit in there? Well, since there’s more shelving in the new library, she’s able to leave the top and bottom shelves empty.

6,423: that’s how many books are in the CMS library, in case you were wondering, but seriously, that’s a lot of books! 

Although, you might notice that not all of the shelves are filled with books, why is this you ask? Well, let’s say that you’re not the tallest person in your class, and you need to reach a book on the top shelf. Not fun, so, for the same exact reason, the top and the bottom shelves are empty in the CMS library. 

Now that you know a little more about Mrs. Carpenter, maybe you’ll check out a book, or congratulate her on her 6 year anniversary of being a librarian. Don’t forget, December fifth, 2022: Congratulations Mrs. Carpenter!