Not many people really know Jan Robertson, the librarian in charge of the silent study room. “I hate that I can’t talk to kids,” she said.
Robertson started working at New Trier in 1987, before the silent study room even existed. Before the library was redone in 2004, the silent study room was a science library shared with periodicals. “I was the periodical person, and I would pull a thousand or two thousand periodicals a month – there were no databases,” said Robertson.
“The line for kids to get periodicals was out the kazoo,” she said. “They broke down all the time…it was interesting,” she explained. Today anyone can just Google an article or look it up on one of the library’s online databases, but things obviously haven’t always been this way.
Before they redid the library, Robertson explained that she thought it was important for students to have a quiet place to study.
“We did a survey, and the kids said they would really like a quiet space,” she said. When they renovated the library, they set aside the old science and periodical room as a dedicated silent study room.
Even after the silent study room was created, the students still wanted more quiet space to work. “The kids went to Dr. Dohrer and said we needed more space a couple of years ago.” That is when they decided to add the twelve carrels in the back room. “I just think it is so important for the kids to have that space,” said Robertson.

Since she is no longer responsible for the thousands of periodicals in the new silent study room, Robertson got involved in the business end of the library.
“I buy the books, and I choose the vendors, and keep track of all the records. And I buy the periodicals, order supplies, pay the bills, it’s the business end of it,” Robertson explained.

How all these books appear in the library is not something many students think about, but it is one of Robertson’s most important responsibilities. She explained how there is a constant flow of new books, and that “you have to weed the collection, so periodically the librarians will go through and pull out books they think are really out of date .”

Robertson graduated from DePauw University with a major in soc-psych. She came to New Trier looking for a job in the social studies department, and she ended up interviewing with the head librarian as well. Robertson remembers thinking, “well this is kind of nice. I’ll take the job in the library.”
She has worked at New Trier for almost 26 years, and she loves her job. However, her inability to interact with students is one of the only negative things she has to say about the silent study room. “I can kind of smile at kids, but I can’t even say ‘hi’ out loud, because I just believe if I’m asking the kids to be absolutely silent, I need to be absolutely silent.”
Regardless, Robertson thinks the silent study room is a great place for the students at New Trier, and she is impressed that so many students take advantage of the room. “To ask high school kids to study quietly and not even whisper, that’s asking a lot of them. They get kind of twitchy, and they last about twenty minutes. That’s all they can handle,” Robertson explains.
The only major change she has noticed over the years the silent study room has been in use is the newfound distraction by phones. “People will be studying away and all the sudden something vibrates, and then they have lost their concentration. Big deal you know, ‘oh I’m in the hall.’” Not that Robertson has anything against technology. In fact, she thinks that the online databases and tools now available are wonderful resources for the students.
Nonetheless, Robertson loves her job, but is wistfull: “It would be fun to be able to talk to kids,” Robertson said, “It’d be fun to be able to talk to my colleagues.”