Traditionally, all freshman English classes visit the library for an orientation. We would normally use this time to familiarize the students with the library resources and to introduce them to the physical space. The large library, packed with upper-classmen, can be a pretty overwhelming space for the 9th graders. Like everything in 2020, orientation looked a little different this year. Instead of our usual in-person library “Scavenger Hunt,” we opted to create an Escape Room for students to orient them to our virtual library resources.

We “Zoomed” into the 9th grade ELA classes to introduce ourselves and the Escape Room. Students were dispatched to individual breakout rooms to try to escape the library by using clues to navigate around the website and answer questions about the library’s services. If a student had a question, they raised their electronic hand and a helpful librarian zoomed in to help them “escape.” If you’d like to learn more about the library, feel free to try to escape yourself.