Marshall librarians help Joplin schools

The Marshall Democrat-News features an article on that city's school librarians who came to Joplin recently to help East Middle School librarian Bonnie Turner, who was in charge of a project to help supply books for the schools that were hit by the May 22 tornado:

The women's goal was to assist Turner with organizing the busloads of books that had been donated. More than 70,000 manuscripts were given to the district after the EF-5 tornado decimated much of the property. The Missouri Association of School Librarians put out a call to all districts, which then recruited volunteers and were assigned a day to work.

"As soon as we all saw it collectively, we said 'okay. We can do that. We know how to do that,'" Cramer said of the request.

The librarians processed and sorted through mountains of books that reached halfway up the school's paneled walls. Looking back, they realized how lucky they are.

They questioned the process of picking up the pieces should the disaster had happened in Marshall -- how and where to hold classes if the schools were suddenly taken away.

"Librarians there are so resilient," Chase stated. "They lost some of their students."