Your Donations to PTSA Do More in the Library

Garfield Library — PTSA 2023-24 investment: $18,000

Librarian Tyson Manzin (with input from students) tells us more:

The Garfield Library is a dynamic, altruistic, and socially conscious space that embodies the mind, heart and soul of Garfield High School.

While hosting a collection of 12,000 books, the Garfield Library is open for a variety of student and staff needs, including class resource lessons, club events, and meetings. Our space functions as a center for cultural, academic and community focused contributions. It extends classroom concepts, and redirects student voice back out to the community.

Unfortunately, the library collection has been hampered for years by consistent underfunding by Seattle Public Schools. While the fiction section has remained vital and useful by the generous donations from the PTSA, we have experienced a significant decline in the utility of our non-fiction.

Last year, with the unending support of the PTSA and a large grant from the Seattle Education Association, we were able to update the non-fiction collection and bring the average age up from 1993 to 1999. (This is still below our goal of a 2010 average age.) Assisted by the incredible efforts of my student Library Advisory Club, I had the opportunity to spend an $8,000 check at Elliott Bay Book Store. In our purchases, we focused on a few sections to bring some life back to non-fiction, including cookbooks, sports, myths and legends, “how to,” and financial literacy books.

These new books have been a fantastic hit with the students and in many ways have revitalized the Garfield collection. It is an inspiration for library users to come back and continually find new and provocative ideas and interests.

In 2023-24, we will again be focusing on non-fiction again with PTSA support and the second year of a lump sum from the District, by purchasing books with student interests and school/local/country/global merit and benefit.

Also, with the support of the PTSA, we have hired a recently graduated Garfield alum, Muz Katende, as this year’s Library Assistant.

Together, we are making a positive Garfield Library experience for our student body, by engaging them in stories, occupations, and social and cultural issues pertinent to them.  From the newspaper subscriptions, newly published books, current periodicals and newspaper subscriptions, we are pushing our students to look beyond the walls Garfield and to make changes in their community.