Libraries

Robust, constantly evolving print and digital collections support the diverse needs, experiences, and perspectives of the MKA community, providing opportunities for students to both discover themselves and empathize with the experiences of others. Our libraries play an essential and foundational role in preparing our learners to research, solve problems, and thrive in a global community.

Using the MKA Research Cycle, librarians collaborate with classroom and subject area teachers to provide students with a toolkit for inquiry. All students, Jr-K–12, undertake research projects through which they continually build upon and deepen their ability to question, explore, evaluate, reflect, and create. Library research instruction ranges from an introduction to the difference between guiding and sub-questions in second grade to a transition to digital note-taking in fifth grade to a discussion of media bias in the ninth-grade Global Citizenship course.

MKA Libraries play a unique and important role in students’ development as readers. Instruction both supports and enriches the classroom literacy curriculum. World-class print and digital collections, coupled with comfortable, inviting spaces, foster students’ exploration of different purposes for reading and reading identities. The Libraries and their resources provide a setting to independently practice reading for lifelong learning. Whether through digital storytelling at the Primary School, readers' theatre at the Middle School, or booktalks at the Upper School, library classes foster passionate student readers.