Ms. Rice, the newest librarian

A brief Q&A with the newest librarian, Ms. Rice.

 

What is your position?

“I am the library clerk, which means I do everything Mr. Murphy doesn’t want to do.”

In perspective to your past librarian jobs, how has your experience at Arapahoe compared so far?

“I love it, because over at Heritage I was doing both Mr. Murphy’s job and this job at the same time, so basically my duties have been cut in half. I love that part.”

Why did you leave Heritage to come and be the new librarian at Arapahoe?

“The absolute main reason I came to Arapahoe is to work with Mr. Murphy and Mr.Fisch because both of them are known in LPS as two of our top librarians. Mr. Murphy is known as one of our top library technician. He is tenacious, thoughtful, he looks into things completely, if there is a problem he fixes it and then filters the information he learns to all of the media staff at LPS schools. Mr. Fisch is pretty much the same way, he is known through the district as the tech. guy and many times people will call him up out of the blue from different schools and ask him questions. He stays on top of everything that is happening with technology throughout the school system and he is teaching a class in computers. I just wanted to be involoved with understanding more of the technical side. I am learning a lot more. My learning curve has sky rocketed, so I have gone through the glass ceiling since I came to Arapahoe.”

What has been your favorite experience in a library?

“This is kind of grouped together but my favorite experience is meeting our exchange students throughout the years, and getting to know them. They have shared their part of their world, they come in and some of them are very lonely, some of them are heartbroken. Just being someone they can talk to. TO let them know they are okay, and that we can work this out. That has been really fun, and through that experience our family actually hosted an exchange student back in 2008 and 2009, and in 2010 we went to Germany to meet her parents. So for me that has been a really neat experience in the library.”exchange students

Do you have any advice/ recommend anything for the students at Arapahoe from your perspective as a librarian?

“The fun thing about the Arapahoe library is that is it set up into many different sections much like a college library. The students here are really lucky. We all have different ways to study and learn, some of us need chaos and confusion, others of us need to stick ear plugs in our ears to try and focus. This space allows for that, so my advice is to take advantage of that.”  

What is your favorite smell?

“I love walking into a restaurant that cooks everything freshly”

What do you like to do outside of work?

“I love pastels, it is sort of along the lines of painting. Pastel chalks. I’ve traveled to Europe to take classes, it is my passion”