Townsend Harris High School has appointed Katherine Yan to take on the role of librarian after Arlene Laverde, the previous librarian, recently retired. 

As an alumna of THHS, Ms. Yan has been a part of the Townsend Harris community for years. She has been a student, an English teacher, a fencing coach, and an assistant programmer. Now, she can add librarian to the list.

“I just care so much about this school and its mission. I really hope that when you leave this place you have a passion to give back to your community as that’s how I felt when I left here,” Ms. Yan said. And now, she said she’s ready to expand the scope of her service to the school. “As an English teacher, I kept to my classroom,” she said, “but here [in the library] I’m working with the science department and the social studies department to support all students. And that’s exciting for me.”

Mrs. Laverde spoke highly of her successor. She said, “The decision to retire was easier because I knew I was leaving the library in great hands. Ms. Yan’s passion for THHS and its students means things are just going to get better “ 

“All schools deserve an excellent librarian, especially one with a humanities focus. It’s one of the most important jobs in the school,” said English teacher Brian Sweeney, who worked closely with Mrs. Laverde on the development of the THHS Reading Initiative. “Ms. Yan is the perfect person to both carry on and build on Mrs. Laverde’s legacy. Her combination of being energetic, enthusiastic, and organized is great for the library.”

Christopher Amanna, director of the programming office, worked closely with Ms. Yan for two years while she served as assistant program chair. He also praised Ms. Yan’s energy and organizational abilities, observing that the work she did as assistant program chair will relate to the new job.  “A lot of being a programmer is organization and organizing data. …[It] correlates to books and keeping inventory, so I do think there’s definitely some things [that will carry] over to the library,” he said.

To prepare for this new role, Ms. Yan has been juggling night classes in library science along with her other duties at THHS. 

“It’s a lot when you have a full-time job. I have two young kids. It’s a lot of responsibilities, but I think I’m in the right head space for it,” Ms. Yan said.  

This fall, Ms. Yan can now often be found at the front desk in the library, greeting students and talking to teachers about their coursework. She said she also enjoys talking to students in the library, recommending books, and giving resources for their assignments.

However, becoming a librarian isn’t just about reorganizing books. It requires the ability to collaborate with different departments and arrange programs like the Reading Initiative with other faculty members. 

Librarians need to learn how to manage databases, archives, and more. With hopes to expand the databases that THHS students can access, Ms. Yan aspires to make the library  “a research hub.” 

As part of this, Ms. Yan still has the opportunity to exercise her teaching skills by giving lessons on using research databases, as she recently did for AP Seminar classes taught by social studies teacher Frank McCaughey.

“She taught lessons to all my classes,” Mr. McCaughey said. “She was really good in terms of combining both… her current position and the knowledge she has about [the library with] the teaching skills she has from being a classroom teacher.”

Sophomore Syeda Rahman, who had Ms. Yan last year for freshman English, praised her teaching abilities. “She made the class really fun…she had lots of resources…made slides that captured our attention and she also made sure that she helped all her students one on one,” she said.

“Ms. Yan was very interactive and [organized] many hands-on activities,” said sophomore Kayla Ujandy.  “She also tried to get us to talk to our peers a lot so that we could hear different opinions while also getting to know each other better.”

According to Kayla, Ms. Yan’s freshman English class “built a foundation for high school English.”

Now, she will work on helping to build a literacy foundation for the whole student body.

“I always was assigning books. [In the library,] I want to help students discover books on their own that they really love, and support their curiosity,” Ms. Yan said.