St. Joseph Post
A local longtime middle school librarian is being honored for her work.
Robidoux Middle School Librarian Melissa Corey has been named by Scholastic and School Library Journal as one of two finalists for Librarian of The Year.
Corey says it was a surprise to find out she had been honored and that she had to read the email a couple of times to find out what she had been honored for.
"I'd applied for the award at the end of last year and you know you sometimes just put your name in the bucket and you're not sure if the work that you're doing is at the level to be recognized," Corey tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "And so, I was really honored and very humbled."
Corey has been working in libraries in the St. Joseph School District for 14 years, her first three years at Benton, one year as a tech specialist, and the last 10 at Robidoux.
While not being named the winner, Corey won some niece prizes from Scholastic including a Scholastic Power of Story collection for her library as well as a subscription to Scholastic.
Corey says one of her biggest goals as a librarian is to be able to provide equity and access in her library.
"Especially now that we're sort of in this post pandemic world, having gone through the shut down in 2020 students didn't have access to books, I still remember the first time a student walked into my library that fall and said oh wow a library," Corey says. "They were eager to have reading material again."
Corey says now that the library is back to full checkout and in person events her goal is to find a way to provide most every student with reading material.
Corey says she became a librarian partly for her love of books, but also in large part because of her parents.
"We did not have a ton of money growing up, but my parents always found a way to get us books, the two for one-dollar classics at Walmart they never said no to those, and they took us to the public library, they purchased books at the book fair," Corey explains. "So even though we didn't have a lot to go around they made sure that reading was valued in our home because they knew that reading was how me and my siblings would get ahead, and so I really have to thank them."