LIBRARY REFURBISHMENTS:
ROBERT F. KENNEDY
JANUARY 2024

Robert F. Kennedy Elementary school is in the Franklin McKinley School District and is located in San Jose. It is Access Books Bay Area’s 17th  school library refurbishment overall and the 6th school library we have refurbished in the Franklin McKinley School District. Like all of the schools we serve, a large majority of the students at the school live in very low-income households and the school has not had any dedicated funding to purchase new books for the library in decades. The only new books that have been added to the library in the last 20 years are ones purchased from book fairs or donated, and these are mostly paperback books that are not designed for the high circulation that library books get.

Kennedy’s library is unique in that the school’s Library Media Assistant (LMA) weeded over 3000 books from the library prior to our project, because they were so old, tattered and no longer interesting to the current generation at the school, leaving the shelves quite bare. We were excited to work with this nearly blank slate, and quickly got to work ordering an array of new books to fill up the nearly empty shelves. We purchased 1162 new books for the school, which included two whole book cases of brand new graphic novels, several shelves of new books to update their aged Biography section, many shelves of brand new picture books featuring diverse characters to reflect the multicultural student body, and new books in Spanish to appeal to students who are Spanish-speakers and new to the US.

On Saturday, January 27, 2024, 65 volunteers spent the day putting barcode and spine labels on the new books and shelving the new books, so the following Monday the students were able to begin checking out the new, diverse and super exciting books. Volunteers also painted beautiful murals inside and outside the library, to make the space more welcoming and inspiring. We also refreshed the school’s Little Free Library with a cheerful new design. We are grateful to the volunteers who dedicated their Saturday to work on this project, the donors who paid for the books and processing materials, and for the school administration and staff who worked hard alongside the Access Books Bay Area staff to transform this library.