The Knight-Dickson Library is arguably the crossroads of the Charlotte Latin campus: not only do students from all three divisions come there for books and for study time, it hosts meetings for parent groups and faculty conferences in the Forum. Head Librarian Emily Long, who has worked at Latin for seven years, spends her days switching back and forth between books and people, and cares deeply about both. She oversees a staff of four other librarians, one cataloguer, and 40 volunteers. Contrary to the expectations of some, Long points out, librarians aren’t anti-technology: “Everybody in this building wants students to read whatever they want, whether it’s a book or an e-book or a website. Whatever you’re reading, great — because you’re reading.” The librarians do, however, sometimes have to lean into the stereotypical behavior of shushing noisy patrons. “Especially eighth period or Upper School drop days,” she says with a laugh. “We try to use words, not just ‘ssshhh.’” 

What was your library experience growing up?

I’m from a rural town outside Rochester, New York. It’s an apple and dairy community: our town motto is “Come grow with us.” The town library was an old house that was converted, upstairs and downstairs: I would sit there and read Nancy Drew for hours. My mom never seemed to have a preference for what I read: if I picked an interesting book, she didn’t ask me what section it came from. I was able to explore freely.

Did you always want to be a librarian?

I did not — I always wanted to be a reader. I decided to get a degree in English and see where that took me. At the end of undergrad, I thought, now what? I didn’t enjoy high school, so I thought I would never work in a school. I wanted to keep reading, but I didn’t want to go into publishing. So I went straight into a grad program in library science.

So why did you end up at a school?

At the public library, I was doing children’s services. Baby storytime is for the parents: the babies don’t actually care. They’re crawling around eating Cheerios, which is great. And you would have a wonderful community, which would last about a year, and then it would turn over. I found that even with the patrons who loved to come to the library the most, I wasn’t getting the kind of connection that I was hoping for. You might have a wonderful conversation and never speak with them again. My favorite part of the job is student-facing, whether it's helping kids make photocopies or showing them books that I think they might enjoy.

At Latin, do you get to see the literary tastes of students evolve?

We will see some kids who were only interested in reading all the books in a series about the planets or every dinosaur book — and finally the right teacher or the right librarian puts the right chapter book in their hands and they’re hooked. And we get some delightful surprises, like new students who join us in sixth grade or ninth grade who are huge readers and want to check out 20 books a week. It’s astonishing that they can keep up with it, but it’s also super-fun to help them out.

Tell me something you enjoy about this library.

The high ceilings and big windows. It’s incredibly inconvenient for a library: the light can discolor the spines of books facing those windows. And the vaulted ceilings mean that sound can carry across the building. So it’s not designed in a way that makes sense for a library, but people find it soothing and pleasant to be in the building. If we had made it plain, with few windows, the books would have looked fantastic, but we probably wouldn’t enjoy being in here as much. 

What’s part of your job that you didn’t expect?

Doing the archives. I’ve spent an enormous amount of time scanning and digitizing. We started filming events like Grandparents’ Day around 1986, and over the last few years I’ve focused on transferring all the VHS cassettes before they degrade. Unfortunately, they degrade a lot faster than paper. We still have a lot of 35 millimeter film that I have yet to delve into. When we scan yearbooks, we have to chop them up in order to scan them, although we keep original copies of every single one: I never knew how difficult it could be to disassemble a bound book. Our yearbooks are made incredibly well, unfortunately.

How has the collection changed?

We used to keep a lot of physical materials like newspapers and magazines, plus DVDs and books on CD. We pivoted to digital during Covid: items that you don’t take home for three weeks, but that you touch and leave behind, we just couldn’t risk it. We’ve had to pivot away from DVDs, because when they opened the IO Building, I found out they couldn’t source good-quality DVD players anymore. 

How does that affect the classroom?

I can try to procure different films for teachers, but it’s a lot different now. Instead of just buying a physical item along with the viewing rights, we’re leasing a film for 12 months. And then next year, teachers may think it’s available, but the company may not have the same agreement and we’re no longer able to procure the rights, which is enormously frustrating. I’ve often heard people say “Eventually you’re not going to have any books.” I don’t think we’ll ever not have books. They’ll always be the cheapest, most reliable item unless you’re facing a pandemic and you’re not in the building.

Tell me some books, both adult and juvenile, that you’ve enjoyed lately.

I love a mystery: I really enjoyed a Liane Moriarty book called Here One Moment. I just read a middle-grade fantasy series by Pari Thomson that I adored, called Greenwild. It’s about a girl who enters another world and finds out that she has plant magic — like a botanist, but with magic. And with little children’s books, we have some adorable books by Alice Hemming called The Leaf Thief and The Snow Thief, featuring a little squirrel who is very confused as the seasons change.

How do you decide what materials are appropriate for the library?

That’s a really good question. We try our best to know our community and know what they’re looking for. Library books are not compulsory, so I like to err on the side of access. But we encourage our students to check at home and see how their parents feel about their selections. You have the authority as a parent to talk to your children about what you do and don’t want them to read.

Do kids get excited when they get to move up a section in the library?

Absolutely. We have a fifth-grade collection and an eighth-grade collection. Part of the point of having those collections is to get the kids excited for when they are older. And another point is that not everything is for every age, so we have to pace ourselves a bit. But if you are a sixth grader and you send an email to your parents, copying your Middle School librarian, and you ask if you can check out an eighth-grade book, and mom and dad say yes, my gosh, they’re so excited. It’s like you just gave me the car keys.